[comp.sys.amiga] VSprite Performance - Good or Bad?

djh@neuromancer.metaphor.com (Dallas J. Hodgson) (09/29/90)

I've been hacking on VSprites after a long VSprite hiatus, and I'm becoming
more and more convinced that VSprites are just plain slow. The
SortGList,DrawGList,MrgCop,LoadView sequence necessary whenever you move a
sprite is simply high overhead - especially the MrgCop.

Who's using Gels? Does anybody take Gels seriously? I'm working on a very
large bitmap-scrolling game, which demands at least a MakeVPort/MrgCop/LoadView
on every display frame. Add a few simple VSprites and a couple of Bobs and
you're looking at <40 frames/sec max on an A-1000.

I'm trying to remain OS-friendly here, but only to the extent that performance
is satisfactory. (sound of the Hardware manual creaking open)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dallas J. Hodgson               |     "This here's the wattle,             |
| Metaphor Computer Systems       |      It's the emblem of our land.        |
| Mountain View, Ca.              |      You can put it in a bottle,         |
| USENET : djh@metaphor.com       |      You can hold it in your hand."      |
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mrush@csuchico.edu (Matt "C P." Rush) (10/03/90)

In article <1470@metaphor.Metaphor.COM> djh@neuromancer.metaphor.com (Dallas J. Hodgson) writes:
>
>Who's using Gels? Does anybody take Gels seriously? I'm working on a very
>large bitmap-scrolling game, which demands at least a MakeVPort/MrgCop/LoadView
>on every display frame. Add a few simple VSprites and a couple of Bobs and
>you're looking at <40 frames/sec max on an A-1000.
>
>I'm trying to remain OS-friendly here, but only to the extent that performance
>is satisfactory. (sound of the Hardware manual creaking open)

	I'm using GELs, I'm using GELs!  And I even take them seriously.

	The biggest problem I've had is that I'm doing it from the 1.1 RKM's and
apparently the people who wrote the "Libraries and Devices" manual never used
Intuition...  So how much of the MakeVPort/MrgCop/LoadView stuff is needed if
you're doing your GELs on a Screen that you opened through Intuition?

	I've tried cutting a lot of that stuff out and still had my program
work, but I'm not sure that just because it works now doesn't mean it will
continue to work.  And yes, I could get a 1.3 RKM, but I'm waiting for the 2.0
models...

	Also, does 2.0 fix any of the Collision Detection idiosyncracies?  I
finally had to create my BorderLines and CollMasks and because the ones that
were acutally shaped like my VSprites (from InitMasks() and doing the ORing by
hand) didn't detect vertical collisions for certain shapes.....

	-- Matt

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