Platform Movement Object and Timer-Based Movements

[DistantJ]

So a lot of players with older iPhones are reporting back to me that Awesome Land runs slow on their devices, but the wasps move at full speed. Obviously this is because my wasp enemies are moving up and down based on the timer (using trigonometry and the timer to move them up and down) whilst the character uses the Platform Movement Object to move.

Now, I remember a great thread in here, 'keeping things moving', which helped to adjust static movements to keep at full speed when running at a lower framerate (bear in mind that 'machine independent speed' isn't available when building for iOS), but is there any way, or can anybody possibly work out how to adjust it, so that the Platform Movement Object can abide by these rules? I could build a static engine but I fear the extra fastloops would cause more harm than good and I love the PMO...

[LB]

The PMO is locked to running once per frame

[TheSynapse]

Have you tried the fastloops approach yet though? The custom platform tutorial shows a good way to do this and I shouldn't think the strain would be too heavy. It also means that there's less chance of any actives getting stuck in scenery - unlike the PMO!

[LB]

TheSynapse, objects will only get stuck in things with the PMO if you use the animation as the collision mask instead of a static collision mask

[Outcast]

This is a problem I am also thinking about in my SWF flash game. The second level in my game is a level where you as a player have to jump up on platforms to flee from ever rising water.
I have the water moving at "every X second - move Y position of water up" and I have made it a very easy level because it is in the beginning of the game.
The strange thing is that I have heard a lot of different feedback on the level, some say dead easy and some other say its almost impossible, witch sounds totally out of place. I heard something about this platform movement object moving slow if its an old computer? Could that be the problem? Maybe the character moves slower then it is supposed to do but the water rises at the same speed as on a good computer?

[DistantJ]

Replace your timer and "every x seconds" with a constantly adding value and "value mod x = 0", then if the game is slowing down, the water will too, and it will stay in sync. Basically anything using the timer will stay full speed and skip frames while everything else will slow down if the game does.

Perhaps we should all request the PMO creator implements a timer sync option. I'd be willing to pay money for it...

[Outcast]

Replace your timer and "every x seconds" with a constantly adding value and "value mod x = 0", then if the game is slowing down, the water will too, and it will stay in sync. Basically anything using the timer will stay full speed and skip frames while everything else will slow down if the game does.

Perhaps we should all request the PMO creator implements a timer sync option. I'd be willing to pay money for it...

Oh so you should never use the timer? Or is there situations where the timer is as good or even better as your method?

I had an always event first on the moving of the Y position but I got told to use the timer instead.

I want to try it but I am not sure I understand how the event should look like.. When you say constantly adding a value is that a "always" event you mean? And what does this mean? "value mod x = 0"
If someone has an example of this way to do it I would be incredible grateful.

[Shawn]

If you're using always add 1 to value as a timer and your game is 50 fps, then when that value = 50, it's 1 second. So 100 is 2 seconds, etc. You could actually have as many timers as you wanted this way and have complete control over how they behave.

[Outcast]

I did not know that using just a always event or the regular timer to move an objects X or Y position could cause these problems.

Is it best to use this value timer at all times to be sure everything in the game runs at the right speed? or when is it enough with just an always event or the regular timer?

[nivram]

Timer Based Movement:
A true alternative to "machine independent" option. The machine independent option works fine, but it does not have great latitude of working. It recovers application on machines slower by 25 -30% but above that, it begins to work badly.

Timer Based Movement calculates the number of pixels to move based on the time elapsed since the previous loop. So if your application runs slowly, or fast, the speed of the objects on the screen will be exactly the same. The tolerance is really high. Some games are playable from 10fps to 100fps.

The animations are also calculated based on the timer, so the animations will match the movements in timer based mode.

A check box in the frame properties allows you to turn on and off the feature. If "off", the application will behave just as up to now. If "on", the movements will be timer based. To preserve the compatibility with games made before this system was in place, the default setting for such games is off. You can very simply turn it on, by ticking the box. When you turn that on you must enter the next property (movement timer base) the running speed of your application. If it runs at 60hz, then enter 60. If you set this property correctly, there will be no difference in your game or application before and after turning this feature on.

If you create a new application, the property is set "On" by default. The movement timer base is also very powerful. It allows you to modify the speed of all objects of the frame at once. For example, if you created your application with a movement timer base of 50 and you turn it to 100, all your objects will move twice as fast.

The timer based movement will also be an invalueable feature for HWA games, as the speed of the application depends very much on the graphic card. On some machines, your application will run at 60fps (frames per second), and on others at 100fps. With the timer based movement, the application will have the same game play.

If you plan your application to run at various speeds, you must aviod using counters as timers, as the counters increment or decrement depends on the speed of the main loop, where as the movements depend on the timer. If there is too much of a difference between them, the events in the game will become out of sync. You should use the timer instead.

Some third party extensions my not be able to take advantage of this feature.

Marv