Labyrinth Preview

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Eros,

version with shooting ( but no enemies yet ) is uploaded.

You ( well not you as you have the hellish fast laptop ) may experience some performance hits, so the number of rockets on scene at once is limited to 12. They collide with the environment, even with the floor and top.

Petr

[ErosOlmi]

:P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P

[Petr Schreiber]

Little bug catched in version 1.3 ( bad collision with one wall ), corrected in new version 1.3B

Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Little problem in this version.
Fire a rocket and stay there looking. Fire does not disappear and remain there till another rocket is fired.

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Eros,

yes, this behaviour was not very realistic. I arranged it now, luckily it has very positive effect on performance. The version is marked 1.3C - I updated the file.

Thanks,
Petr

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Eros,

the version 1.3E brings more naturally looking explosions + destruction effect.
What is destruction effect? Any time you hit the wall, you will see explosion AND pieces of wall flying around you
Especially in case of multiple explosions it could look interesting.

Hope you like it,
Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Of course I like!

I've noted that if a rocket is on the screen, movements are ok.
If just moving around (and no rockets fired) movement it is quite slow.

Eros

ADDED: I think I'v efound the point where the problem is but do not have the correct solution. Problem is inside "help_CalcFramerate" function:

  FUNCTION help_CalcFramerate() AS SINGLE

    GLOBAL LastTime AS DWORD
    LOCAL ThisTime AS DWORD

    LOCAL FPS AS LONG

    ThisTime = GETTICKCOUNT
    FPS = 1000/(ThisTime-LastTime+1)
    IF FPS = 0 THEN FPS = 1
    LastTime = ThisTime
    
    FUNCTION = (FPSCount+FPS)/2

  END FUNCTION

and exactly at line "FPS = 1000/(ThisTime-LastTime+1)"
If I substitute 1000 with a lower value it gets much better and movements are faster but still if rocket is present on the screen movements are much more faster.

Eros

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Eros,

strange problems...

Off course the lower number instead of 1000 will take effect, all movement calculations are based on returned value, so change from 1000 to 500 will make all movements twice as faster ( and also bad FPS number on screen ).

That's why I callculate frame rate - when is lower, I need to make bigger steps with camera to compensate it.

Conclusion ? I have to study it more, but it is evident when rocket appears, thinBASIC has more calculations to do, framerate goes down and so movements are faster. Much faster because GetTickCount has still too poor resolution for scripts which are running on NASA boxes .

Now I must go out, but I will study QueryPerformanceCounter later, maybe it could help.

Thanks,
Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Message via Messenger:

hi eros, just quick-check : the speed difference beetween with/without missiles is by factor of ? ( just your guess )

how much ( if at all ) drops framerate ?

On AMD64 Atlon it is of 4/5 times. It is like accelerating on a byke.
On Centrino Duo it is about 2/3 times.

It seems the more complex scene the more speed

Whan a rocket is fired, FPS remain quite stable, when no rockets on the screen, I can see FPS number going from 300 to 10 on both machines.

Eros

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Eros,

maybe you could try to dimensione FPSCount as QUAD integer and then modify the routine to:

  FUNCTION help_CalcFramerate() AS SINGLE

    GLOBAL LastTime AS DWORD
    LOCAL ThisTime AS DWORD

    LOCAL FPS AS LONG

    ThisTime = QUERYPERFORMANCECOUNTER
    FPS = QUERYPERFORMANCEFREQUENCY/(ThisTime-LastTime+1)
    IF FPS = 0 THEN FPS = 1
    LastTime = ThisTime

    FUNCTION = (FPSCount+FPS)/2

  END FUNCTION

It seems to have a better catch for higher framerates, I hope at least
I haven't updated the official version with that because I can't say it helps or not; I never go to 300 FPS on my box

Petr