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Joined: 02 November 2003
Posts: 979
Well, after beta testing and complialing data on the structureization on DirectX, Meteor 2, and other high-resource programs, combined with the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything (which is 42), multiplied by E=mc^2, i have come the the conclusion that:
M2 eats more resources than it should.
Simply put, M2 1.01 seems to take up alot more resources than the previous beta's. This apparently is due to the new object detection system, which meerly makes it so the game's object detection box roates with the sprite, which is pretty basic, yet it seems to take up too many resources.
Also, ive noticed that the way M2 handles maps/visuals/ect is pretty in-efficent. As technically if this game was tweeked enoguh on my 500MHz, it should run pretty smooth, mabey at 20-25 FPS in the heat of battle, but still good. When i am just in a map without any activity going on, the game runs at a measily 15 FPS (mabey 20). That means that it appears to be taking way to many resources to load a few lines of code and a small collection of PCX images (which reminds me, make M2 PCX only, or whatever is the smallest filesize [JPG/GIF?], as you get less performance on images/sprites that are not PCX [jpg/gif?]). I can run full blow badly coded 3D FPS's better than this!
Of course, i know (or i hope), that the code isnt "optimized" yet. ATM, if i were to give out minimum specs, it would have to be atleast 1.0GHz for smooth gameplay.
Ideas:
-Make any object that is beyond your view even if you activate the object a "dot of referenece" (as in it isnt even rendered/ect unless it comes into your screen or is engaging in scripts/enemies/ect). This might already be going on.
-Make any object that is out of your view for more than 5 seconds after a certain distance inactive again, unless specifically told to keep awake by script/ect. Even if there are enemy units nearby, it (and the other units) will shut off as points of reference untill you get into a certain range that is alittle more than your current resolution. Trust me, this was desperately needed on the Train Warehouse level with all the boxes... they were not needed, and i was not viewing them, so why spend extra resources keeping them active? Simply put, objects go back to dormancy after a short bit and after a short range from you.
-You really need to find a better way to deal with map layers being drawn, and re-drawn, ect whenever you open a door/ect/anything with sectors... it really is not that nessicarry. Ive heard that this is pretty much required on the current engine though. How abotu makeing it so it does this, except the map is divided in "sections" instead of as a whole, so only the current section on the grid re-draws itself. This could seriously make performance alot better, and you could also make un-used/un-active "cells" not use up resources by havign them dormant untill the player enters the cell (much like a cell loading system that sucks in FPS's but is quite handy in 2D shooters). The cell then is just put in a dormant state much like the object idea if your view is say... 2000 or so units away.
Well, anyways, hope some of this helps.
PS: You really need to work on Object Detection... perhaps anything that is transpartent (magic pink color) on the sprite is "open space" that you can walk into? Much better! Although first you need to figure out how to do this without crashing a low-end computer... I am always open for beta testing some parts of the game for a good opionion on how well it performs on a 500MHz!
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