November updates

by **kornalius** » Nov 13, 2004 @ 4:11am

No isometric means the way the engine displays it's sprites. Sprites are displayed on a grid that is isometric.

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4 lines; 0 keywds; 0 nums; 2 ops; 0 strs; 0 coms    Syntactic Coloring v0.4 - Dan East

I am really bad at drawing in ascii, but you should get the idea.

PPL won't restrict you to position sprites on an isometric grid, it's more advanced than that!

by **mervjoyce** » Nov 16, 2004 @ 3:04am

Hi Kornalius,

I have loaded the 0.8 beta code for 11-11-2004.

As per your change advice I needed to replace all "^" constructs to "@". I tried using the PIDE editor to do a global replace in each file in my project (one file at a time). For some reason the "search/replace" optiion never finds any "^" chars. I ended up using an external editor to make the replacements.

After applying the above change all compiles OK. The program initially runs, but there is a "serious" memory leak. It crashes after about 15 secs.

Hopefully I'll get some timme later this afternoon to trace the reason for the "memory leak" and report back

cheers

by **kornalius** » Nov 16, 2004 @ 4:05am

You sure you didn't make any other changes? Maybe you missed a ^ somewhere! Send me the piece of code where it occurs, I will take a look.

All I did was change the ^ to a @ character, no internal code changes.

by **kornalius** » Nov 16, 2004 @ 4:06am

Btw, I have to fix a few things with the PIDE Find/Replace features. They don't work right.

by **mervjoyce** » Nov 16, 2004 @ 7:07am

There nothing like a good mystery ......

The following is provided as an "info update" only ... no action expected ... I am still investigating.

1. I fell back to beta 0.8 04-11-2004. My original program compiles and runs without issue.

2. I loaded beta 0.8 11-11-2004, applied the "global edit" ("^" => "@") to all files in my project directory, compiled and "run". Just doing nothing causes error messages to occur after about 15 secs. I haven't logged all the messages but they include some "stack" messages etc. If I get in and look at "memory" (beore the 15 secs) I can see it dropping by about 1Mb every 1 to 2 secs.

Now strangely enough my "program" is doing very little (with my code) at this time. The main procedure is in a tight loop calling "ProcessMessages". There is a TimerProc enabled which innocently assigns a global variable (TickCounter) to three other global variables. The WM_Paint event would be the only other possible bit of my code that is being executed, which given the variable values at initialisation simplifies to:

Code: Select all

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hdc$ = GetDC(hWnd$);
BeginPaint(hWnd$, &ps$);

FillRect(hdc$, &rt$, GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH));

EndPaint(hWnd$, &ps$);
ReleaseDC(hWnd$, hdc$);
7 lines; 0 keywds; 0 nums; 26 ops; 0 strs; 0 coms    Syntactic Coloring v0.4 - Dan East

I've fallen back to 04-11-2004 version to use my program this afternoon/evening. I'll continue my investigation later tonight.

I'll make sure that ALL PPL files/directories are removed from the PPC before I apply the 11-11-2004 upgrade and continue testing tonight. I normally do this anyway, but will make sure of it as this has caused funny things to happen in the past.

by **kornalius** » Nov 16, 2004 @ 7:21pm

Here are few updates:

1. The SetSurface() function doesn't exists anymore, it has been replaced by a much easier function, SetRenderTarget(). This is how to use it:

Code: Select all

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s$ = NewSurface(100, 100);
oldsurface$ = SetRenderTarget(s$);
g_clear(0);
g_textout(null, "Test", 0, 0, 0, 0);
SetRenderTarget(oldsurface$);
5 lines; 0 keywds; 7 nums; 23 ops; 1 strs; 0 coms    Syntactic Coloring v0.4 - Dan East

2. I have almost finished the new ui.ppl library which contains many procedures to allow for user interface elements (edit boxes, labels, checkboxes...) to be used with the game api. It is entirely written in PPL. There is also an on-screen keyboard very easy to use.

3. I've changed the default vgarom.fnt to another font style. It is a bit smaller.

by **PointOfLight** » Nov 17, 2004 @ 3:33pm

I've finally gotten to the point where I'm going to get back into PPL development, and it looks like it couldn't come at a better time. Any ETA on the UI elements for the game API? That will put an already incredible game development library over the top.

by **kornalius** » Nov 17, 2004 @ 4:13pm

Good to see you back PointOfLight. I thought you left us!

As for the ui library, I am still working on it and I am expecting a release by the end of the week or early next week.

I have a few more surprises I will be working on after that...

by **PointOfLight** » Nov 17, 2004 @ 4:20pm

On July 31st my wife and I had our 3rd child, which puts us at 3 kids under the age of 4. So basically I've had the life sucked out of my for the last 3 1/2 months

But hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things soon. I want to finish up the .cdb viewer I was writing, and I might implement the same viewer for SQLite databases. I also want to get working on a game, which is why the UI is so exciting. Can't wait to see what other surprises you have in store. Sorry to be so off topic here, but oh well...

by **kornalius** » Nov 17, 2004 @ 5:25pm

Congratulations! Wow 3 kids, I have only 1 and I find it hard at times, imagine 3.

by **kornalius** » Nov 17, 2004 @ 5:27pm

Important news:

There was a nasty bug introduced a couple versions ago, huge memory leak. I have just fixed it.

So mervjoyce, wait until this version to investigate further. Do you call a lot of func/proc in your code? Because the leak was related to func/proc calls.

by **kornalius** » Nov 19, 2004 @ 8:30pm

New version of PPL is now available.

New features:
- GameAPI user interfaces. Check UIDEMO.PPL.

- Edit box
- List box
- Button
- Label
- CheckBox

- Per-sprite ai speed timer. (WM_TIMER)
- New sprite option: SO_FREESURFACE.
- Runtime errors are written to the debuglog.txt file as they occur.
- VGA font system redesigned a bit.
- Better standard VGA font. (vgarom.fnt)
- New WM_MOUSELEAVE message for sprites event.

Fixes:
- Major memory leak that was introduced in the last few version was fixed.
- SpriteAt, SpritesAt, CheckCollision fixed to support SO_FIXED sprites.
- SetSpriteAngle now uses degrees instead of RAD angles.
- Fixed g_DrawText, g_DrawText drawing bug and parameters order.
- And much more...

by **mmtbb** » Nov 19, 2004 @ 10:23pm

I have the new Dell x50v VGA Pocket PC. I am testing this all out and find the GameAPI extremely slow. Then when I use Picard's GAPI tweak http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=57128
, PPL crashes altogether.

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Update:
Ok, I reset the device with Picard's tweak and it will now run ok. The problem is that I am getting 10-20 fps slower on the 624 mHz device as opposed to my 400 mHz device.

You see, the new Axim x50v has an intense "video card" built in that is optimized for GDI+ games and not GAPI games. I wish there was something I could do.

The simple loop test however gets 296,000 iterations/sec so I now it should be faster

by **kornalius** » Nov 20, 2004 @ 12:29am

I would suggest asking Picard about it. He is quite an expert in these subjects.

by **mmtbb** » Nov 20, 2004 @ 2:12am

what would I ask him? I don't know the innards of the gameapi

November updates

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	4 lines; 0 keywds; 0 nums; 2 ops; 0 strs; 0 coms Syntactic Coloring v0.4 - Dan East

`1 2 3 4 5 6 7`	`hdc$ = GetDC(hWnd$); BeginPaint(hWnd$, &ps$); FillRect(hdc$, &rt$, GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH)); EndPaint(hWnd$, &ps$); ReleaseDC(hWnd$, hdc$);`
	7 lines; 0 keywds; 0 nums; 26 ops; 0 strs; 0 coms Syntactic Coloring v0.4 - Dan East

`1 2 3 4 5`	`s$ = NewSurface(100, 100); oldsurface$ = SetRenderTarget(s$); g_clear(0); g_textout(null, "Test", 0, 0, 0, 0); SetRenderTarget(oldsurface$);`
	5 lines; 0 keywds; 7 nums; 23 ops; 1 strs; 0 coms Syntactic Coloring v0.4 - Dan East