Mario Roots, Jr Koopa AI

it depends on how much information it is reading from the ini. Either way it wouldn;t be ideal to have it constantly read information, but more of 1 time events.(start of frame, end of frame, 1 time occurance)

Either removing the constant ini reading worked, or removing an old swinging ropes gimmick did it. I'm just glad whichever method it was, that it can now run at full speed on older computers.

No matter how much information it is, it won't lag. At all.

Quote me on this.

Although reading the file only once is optimal.

This post has been edited by MechaBowser on Aug 31 2008, 01:02 PM

Lag primarily occurs when the CPU or GPU is working too hard.

Well I found out now that most of the lag is coming from the layers. Yes, they aren't suppose to cause lag, but they do. And they cause alot of it too.

direct quote from clickteam mod

I will maybe change the main layer to the 1st layer, but that will require some re-doing of events. For now though I need to get back to working on picking up/throwing objects for Mario.

Combine Layers 5 & 6?

Well I don't think I'd need to as long as all the collisions takes place on the 1st layer. Any layers above is fine just as long as there aren't any collisions taking place. However I have yet to test this, but I'll get back to it once I'm done with some other things. If that turns out to be the problem, I'll just make a separate .exe for the slower computers. Only difference would be all the collision takes place in layer1(which I'm sure you won't be able to notice a difference though anyway)

This post has been edited by kirbyhi5 on Aug 31 2008, 05:21 PM

Ok. XD Will the Layer 1 Collision EXE have Lower Quality than the Layer 3 Collision EXE?

Nope. But there's still a ton of testing I have to do on that to give an accurate answer. As far as I'm concerned though, I found out it is possible to run it on older computers at full speed, just need to pinpoint the problem.

and that problem is definitely pointing towards the layers.( which is why I was weary of using them in the first place because too many people have said that layer support wasn't reliable at the moment. It's true though, on faster computers you don't notice any lag at all.)

I even ran my game on the school's computers(and they have some old ones), and it ran at full speed. (come to think of it, only about 5 people have told me it ran slow though anyway)

Ok then, I'll be waiting for the Problem to be fixed.

you really don't want to use layers unless:

1. you're running your game in hardware mode
2. you absolutely have to have backdrops in front of actives
3. it makes your life a little easier ie HUDs and parallax

layer 1 is special since it isn't transparent, so for the most part, backdrop objects can be optimized since they can't move nor can they occlude other objects (occlusion forces MMF to redraw lower objects when objects above them and overlapping them move)... obviously as backdrops make up a huge part of your levels this is a good thing; active objects (and other objects that can move and appear above backdrops), of course, can't be optimized since they can move and therefore could fudge up the display if they didn't force a redraw things that were below them (a pretty expensive process)

layers above 1 can't use said optimizations for the same reason as active objects, so EVERYTHING is displayed like an active object since that's pretty much the only choice; throw a ****load of backdrops on there and it'll be the same thing as actives minus the obscene amount of memory your app would use if you had "dead" actives

this is pretty much irrelevant in HWA mode and i believe everything is displayed like an active object no matter what layer it's on, since it's basically just a 3D scene as far as the GPU is concerned

... i don't know why collisions would be less efficient on higher layers since the collision masks for each layer are separate so it's not like it has to "flatten" them or anything, but i didn't program MMF either so it's probably yet another optimization

wow i really went off on a tangent lol

This post has been edited by Xgoff on Aug 31 2008, 11:43 PM

I'll have to worry about making everything 1 layer when I'm done with my NCFC entry. For now:

(Copy/Paste from topic post)

September 8th , 2008

Misc. Update: I am done with the sub-app pause menu. Now you won't have to ever worry about the game sometimes randomly freezing while pausing, lol. Fixed up all the loose ends at Mushroom kingdom aswell. I have added an Item shop. Also a new skill: pick up was added. You can pick up objects and throw them. The longer you hold ctrl down, the farther it goes.

LATEST DOWNLOADS: N/A


LATEST SCREENSHOTS:
Item shops have a Mushroom symbol next to them. Let me also explain that you can now enter levels STARTING as lily, your shields, AND power ups from previous levels. This beats having to always switch to lily at the beginning of the stage if you wanted to use her for various advantages.

Talk to the store clerk to access the item menus. Note: Different item shops will offer different items later in the game


You can either buy or sell items. Selling an item is always around 30% lower than the original price

Of course, this item shop doesn't offer every item available.

"Amount" will be changed to "Coins". thats about it for now. Only two tasks left to finish this week and I'll be right on schedule.



LATEST VIDEO: N/A

This weeks plans to finish by Sunday:
-create sub-app pause menus screen.[COMPLETE]
- add the skill "pick up items".[COMPLETE]
-Finish gimmicks for Peach's Castle level.
-tie up loose ends for Mushroom Kingdom.[COMPLETE]
- Start working on BG's for Prison Cell level.

This post has been edited by kirbyhi5 on Sep 8 2008, 09:57 PM

Hooray! How many Levels are expected for the next Demo?

I have the very same question although I think the next demo will be the completion of Chapter 1.

I was originally aiming for that, but the last chapter 1 level contains alot of key-point story info. It'll take some weeks to finish.(also considering I want to make the chapter boss very epic).

4 story-mode levels
Maybe 3 or 4 challenge mode levels.(don't worry I made them MUCH easier now.)

so around 7 or 8 total. I only have 2 levels left, and I still have until October, so I'm sure it'll get done.

Yay! My game has 1 Level, 1 Boss, and 3 Cutscenes to Program before it's ready for the October Demo. Lol. We also have a bunch of Sprites to make. And a Major Glitch to fix. Anyways, I can't wait for the next Demo!

This post has been edited by OniLink10 on Sep 8 2008, 10:46 PM

September 10th , 2008finalization of pc

NEWS: I usually don't update this often, but well there isn't much left to work on level-wise for PC(Peach's Castle). SO, I made a final video of it, since I like showing things animated rather than still pictures. The levels are short, yet they still take around 1-3 minutes to complete. I'm also not trying to go all out, since again it's still chapter 1. 1 gimmick per level is good enough. Checking my schedule, I only have one task left to do before Sunday, so all is rollin good.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRfzr5RtG3s
If you have any suggestions/problems/questions about the video, please feel free to post them. input is great stuff. input doesn't always mean compliments. I just want feedback on what you think so far.

This post has been edited by kirbyhi5 on Sep 10 2008, 11:51 PM

oh god that was a horrible pick of music

couldn't have in-game audio this time, and I was tired of regular songs. It's not easy to pick a song that doesn't have SFX to go with it, and that still sounds good after 2mins. But in order to like that song, I guess you had to play ragnarok online and know where the song takes place.

by comments I meant level wise? too easy, too hard, too plain,etc?

This post has been edited by kirbyhi5 on Sep 11 2008, 04:55 AM

The level is good.I thought the second level was hard.I can't really judge difficulty but it isn't plain.Mario is level 7 on the demo I have.

I was rather impressed and inspired by your videos. This is almost exactly what I want to do with Mario Story, with the RPg system, the wide arsenal of abilities, etc. Well done.

This post has been edited by Player 2 on Sep 12 2008, 08:52 PM