What is the most optimized way to create levels? Info on question inside.

[edman3d]

I've been googling all over for optimization information on MMF2 and I really can't find anything. I make platformers mostly.

Sometimes my game and software will bog down considerably (and I have an i7 beast of a CPU) when there is hardly anything but a character and a bunch of different platforms on the screen. It doesn't make sense to me, how do you guys do it?

Do you guys use backdrop obstacles for platforms? How many is too many? What are some common things that cause slowdowns that I should look out for?

Any help is appreciated! If it's easier for you to explain I can hop on the Clickteam chat client.

Thanks,
edman3d

[Danny]

Backdrops are certainly more efficient than Actives for scenery, also Quick Backdrops render much quicker than normal Backdrops.

2x2 is no good as the minimum rendered is 8x8 for Textures so it would upscale 2x2 to 8x8 anyway afaik, try and build all your graphics to the closest power of 2 such as:
8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024; You can mix and match on the width/height.

There are numerous optimisations you can do as you build your game and there will be some doors opening on this in the upcoming weeks here but for the meantime take a look over the forum for optimization threads. As salamanderpants said, switching to Direct3D9 should boost your fps x1000 as the GPU will handle all the rendering.

Feel free to pop in the chat anytime, most of us are online near enough all the time to answer any questions ( when we are around )

[edman3d]

Thanks a bunch to both of you for the useful info. I did not have it set on Direct3D9, so hopefully that will make a difference. I have a follow up question to what salamander said about the tiles and reusing them. I put the question on a small scale to make it clearer:


Say I want to make a 128 pixel wide platform. Is it more efficient to use four of the same 32x32 tiles, or create a new tile thats 32x128? Keep in mind that these 32x32 tiles will still be elsewhere on the screen if I do create a new tile.

Thanks for your help so far

[ezzypixel]

Hi, can I add in a question? Is there a catch to using different display modes?

[Danny]

Say I want to make a 128 pixel wide platform. Is it more efficient to use four of the same 32x32 tiles, or create a new tile thats 32x128? Keep in mind that these 32x32 tiles will still be elsewhere on the screen if I do create a new tile.

It would be even more efficient to create a quick backdrop and resize it to 32x128. However the comparison is so minute especially in D3D9 mode that you would never, ever notice it. Using the same 32x32 tiles or creating one individual tileset from a series of tiles would make no comparable odds.

Hi, can I add in a question? Is there a catch to using different display modes?

There isn't a "catch" per se, the standard runtime uses the CPU to render everything and the Direct3D9 mode lets the GPU (Graphics Card) do all the talking instead.

Direct3D is always a good route to go down as from XP onwards DirectX 9 is supported throughout and you'd be hard pressed to find a GPU that doesn't support DirectX 9.

[ezzypixel]

There isn't a "catch" per se, the standard runtime uses the CPU to render everything and the Direct3D9 mode lets the GPU (Graphics Card) do all the talking instead.

Direct3D is always a good route to go down as from XP onwards DirectX 9 is supported throughout and you'd be hard pressed to find a GPU that doesn't support DirectX 9.

Thanks. That info helps me a lot.

[edman3d]

It would be even more efficient to create a quick backdrop and resize it to 32x128.

Alright and as far as I understand you'd still need to clone the 32x32 quick backdrop to make the 128x32 one because when I make copies (duplicates) of a quick backdrop and then resize one it resizes them all.

[Danny]

NP EzzyPixel.

Alright and as far as I understand you'd still need to clone the 32x32 quick backdrop to make the 128x32 one because when I make copies (duplicates) of a quick backdrop and then resize one it resizes them all.

Yes, that's correct. Again, in this day and age and especially with HWA there is no real need to worry about FPS hits unless you're optimising for Android/iOS/Flash/HTML5 and/or throwing shaders into the mix with HWA.

I have attached a simple little test file for you both to check out, it starts off in Standard runtime. Just keep hold of the UP arrow until you see an fps hit (anything below 60) and see how many objects are on-screen at this given time. Then close the test, change the mode to Direct3D9 and you'll see how it handles the same amount of objects with ease. You can always create little stress tests like this yourself before you commence onto a big project just to compare.

stress-test.zip