Too demanding?

[FLASH-MX]

Hey guys, I have been working on a new project for the past couple of weeks, for a quick background on it, its a cyberpunk -Blade Runner- style RPG, but ive been noticing that it may just be too demanding for any computer, look at this demo with some stuff running and clocked at 70FPS.

http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ds4ji.swf

[arkhan]

yes..it is too demanding..theres too much detail in things with no eye importance..
background for instance, only some pretty details, a couple or some more..the rest must be as plain as possible if you are having some lag..
also, blurring, shadowing and every filter added consumes a lot of precious cycles..using it everywhere is asking for lag..

[eatmorchikin6464]

Hey guys, I have been working on a new project for the past couple of weeks, for a quick background on it, its a cyberpunk -Blade Runner- style RPG, but ive been noticing that it may just be too demanding for any computer, look at this demo with some stuff running and clocked at 70FPS.

http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ds4ji.swf

Works fine for me...

Glad to see youre back, however.

[Jared]

Same it runs fine for me and I dont see any stuttering at all. Though my pc isnt like five years old. Not demanding at all on my system. Looks nice:)

[Woolfenstien]

Uses ~80% CPU on a 2.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Uses 100% CPU and stutters on a 1.5GHz AMD Athlon XP 1700+

RAM useage is also quite high.

I also can't understand why it's so resource-gobbly; UT2004 runs fine on my 1700+ PC.

[Jared]

Really thats pretty high I'm only using about 40% on my p4 3.0ghz ht cpu.
My cpu is slower than yours so how can mine be using less?:confused:

[Actionscript Helper]

All I see is a robot go across the screen. I have no lag. It takes up 17% or whatever.
Edit: I had a few windows already opened while running it.

[Freddy]

My poor computer could hardly handle it. I have 100% CPU usage at low quality! O_O
Course its a 4 year old 1.4 gHz crudcicle.

May recomend not using so many transparent things.
Yuur robot's light has many different steps of decending transparent thingies around it. Lower that.
Also, lower the quality in your pics.

[StickAvalancheman]

It's running absolutly fine on my computer.

Perhaps you could add a low, medium, and high quality button or even release two seperate versions.

What ever works for you.

Great work by the way,

~Steve

[AssaultRifle]

2 GB RAM here thinks it is fine, even on full screen.

[FLASH-MX]

Hmm I was afraid of this. There is some real precise detail to those buildings, however I thought it would be best to utilize Flash 8's new filters. Perhaps I could tone down several of the glows in the lights, but I dont get it for my computer (Which I may add is also fairly old) can process this with no problem whatsoever - http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cad6hi.swf

and utilizes the same glow, on all objects.

[MaxManning]

Runs ok on mine, not sure if it's 70fps, but definitely not stutttering.

I think as long as you are allowing someone to play it at a lower resolution -- 480x360 / 320x240 you are ok. Pretty significant performance increase.

Also, if you do the blurs via code, you can allow an option to switch them off for slower systems. Also, you could do all that background blurring outside of flash.

[FLASH-MX]

Ah, some very good ideas there, how is this "blur code" used? I must apologize as my AS Skills are not exactly up to par.

[MaxManning]

First you need to create a filter :


import flash.filters.BlurFilter;
var blur = new BlurFilter(50, 50, 3);

first two parameters are for the x and y blur values, and the third is for the quality level.


Then, you can apply it to any movieclip like this :

Spaceship.filters = [blur]

You can even apply multiple filters to a movieclip. Google filters and actionscript and you'll find alot of info on the subject.

[FLASH-MX]

Hahaha beautiful, and I noticed "import", does this mean we can import filters from fireworks too?

[arkhan]

yeah..the second example takes up almost nothing compared to the firist one..
maan..those are really pretty looking sci-fi backgrounds..

[MaxManning]

No, you can only use the Flash based filters as far as I know.

But, for images that don't need to change such as backgrounds, you are better off adding blur filters etc in fireworks or photoshop and just exporting a .png or image file.

Flash based filters take up processing because they do them on the fly. If your blur filter is baked into the image, you'll get better performance.

[FLASH-MX]

Awsome, now ive got a much steadier base to do this from, and just wait until the first stuff comes out, ill tell you ive never put in so much work into 1 building before

[Gerbil!]

It stutters half way for about 10 minutes. Just like everything on my computer. XD

[eatmorchikin6464]

http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/1755/untitled26pq.jpg

And it was still running fine.

[arkhan]

you do realize you just said you have a p4 3ghz, and you have a bunch of firefox opened? its like feeding an elephant with peenuts XD.
and even so, the task manager there shows your CPU usage was around 90%+..figure that playing on a defalt gamer comp config nowdays (defalt by researches Iv seen around on game sites and etc) ..thats about 700Hz to 1GHz(this in USA)..thats less than 4 to 5 times the p4 3ghz(for the possible hiperthreading, multithreading or some other I dont remember names)..and if it lags on defalt config, you may expect that most people wont be playing it for performance issues..and thats kidna bad, when after months of work, with such a good entertaining intention, you spent all your free time developing a game for those people..

I really hope flash gets to use directX or openGL some day not far from now..would vanish those little problems away.

[Gerbil!]

http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/1755/untitled26pq.jpg

And it was still running fine.

-steals your computer-

Please tell me RAM will patch this up. It's overall great, except for the 190-192 MB of RAM for me. :<

[FLASH-MX]

Hahaha imagine that, flash games with System Requirements

[eatmorchikin6464]

-steals your computer-

Please tell me RAM will patch this up. It's overall great, except for the 190-192 MB of RAM for me. :<

Yeah, you need atleast a gig.

Oh, and that was as much as I could do that would show it. There were a few more windows open, and I coulda done more :P

I rock.

[FLASH-MX]

i sense a challenge, i will make a movie so demanding, it will have no other choice but slow your computer down

[eatmorchikin6464]

Good luck!

[FLASH-MX]

embarrasingly enough, after making it, my computer got so slow I couldnt export it.

[The Brown Cow]

Hahaha beautiful, and I noticed "import", does this mean we can import filters from fireworks too?
The import keyword tells Flash to load in code from a library. These libraries are part of Flash, and add additional functionality (mostly UI stuff). It has nothing to do with importing from other programs. Nice try though. :)

The first one runs reasonably well on my computer, but was very choppy on the computer at work. Ease off on the filter usage. You can glow apply background glows in Photoshop and import the graphic to save a bunch of processing power, for starters.

Great graphics by the way. As resource-intensive as it is, that glow effect gives a great sci-fi feeling to everything.

[eatmorchikin6464]

Yeah, that's what I would suggest. Do all your effects in photoshop and export them as images to use in your Flash, that should cut down.

[FLASH-MX]

After watching "Blade Runner" my mind went from the mafia to cyberpunk,
eh what can you do.
On graphics wise, what would be the best format to import the glows? I tried .GIF a while ago and noticed it lost a lot of its quality.

[eatmorchikin6464]

Depends on how many. I typically go with .png because it's the best ever, but it is higher in size, so you should probably stick to .jpg.

[The Brown Cow]

Probably PNG or JPEG. GIF loses quality because it has a 255 color pallette, which does not work well with gradients, glows, and other effects that have a wide range of colors.

[FLASH-MX]

Beauty, so I can design a city type BG in fireworks, use filters and glow and such, and importing it to flash as a jpg so its really just an img. Smashing advice guys, ill give it a go.

[Soon to be flash master]

wow man, that looks really cool. went a bit slow but on low quality it worked fine and looked pretty much the same.

good show!

[5had0w]

Nice dude =)

[Jaroldo]

i fine with it

[Halo Man]

why is practically everyone banned??