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Re: [pygame] Frantic (again)
Thanks Rene! Comments below.
On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:27:18 +1000, "Rene Dudfield" <renesd@xxxxxxxxx>
said:
> Hi,
>
> I like your improvements. The game is looking better, and sounding
> better :)
Thanks! Been a lot of work.
>
> However it takes *ages* to load. Have you considered packing all of
> your images into a couple of big images? I see you already do that
> for the explosion animations, and the rotated ships. That would make
> the game load a lot quicker.
So pack the filmstrips into larger sheets? Didn't think of that, but
it's worth a try.
>
> Maybe have a little timer animation on the loading screen to show
> loading progress, so I know something is still happening. If you
> could show a progress bar, or % loaded that would be even better.
That is something I definitely need to do.
>
> I think it might have been because I had a machine with only 512MB of
> ram. amd athlon 2100+, geforce ti4200 64MB vid ram. After I finished
> the game windows told me it was increasing the amount of virtual
> memory I used.
Frankly, I'm surprised it ran at all on that machine.
>
> So maybe you could only load the animations, and images you need on
> each level? That would reduce the memory requirements.
Good idea. Will start on that next.
>
> Do you use dirty rects for updating the screen? The game seems to
> slow down during some animations. I think it may have to do with
> swapping memory to disk. So maybe fixing the memory usage would fix
> the slow downs too... not sure.
Yes, I'm using dirty rects.
>
> Have you considered limiting the frame rate to say 30fps? That way it
> might look smoother overall.
I'll look into that as well.
>
> I liked your new story, and the thrusters.
I plan an evil twist at the end, but it's still developing :)
>
> Good work... keep it up. You're almost there :)
Thanks for the encouragement. It means a lot.
Dave