Speeding up the Bonus Screen

[Pazolli]

While Kjurtyl did a fantastic job on the bonus screen it could use a bit more speed. Plus the "timebonus.tiff" is excessively large (kB wise). There's a few things we could do to pick up the screen but first I would like to trim down the "timebonus.tiff" file so it contains no shading and just the appropriate words on a fully transaparent background preferably in an image file with smaller dimensions. This smaller size file may also provide a minor speed boost. I tried to do the image adjustments myself using my own graphic tools but always ended up with a grey tinge around the edges. So Alan could you set this up for us and send me the tiff file?

Thanks,
Mark

P.S. Things are a bit busy for me in the first part of this month so sorry if I'm not as active with the Inkubator project.

[Pazolli]

I need sleep but I just wanted to clarify what should be done with the "timebonus.tiff" file. Right now there's a whole heap of shading, lose all of that (we'll get Quartz to do it instead) and reduce the file's dimensions to recapture the free space.

Night all, :)
Mark

[BobbyWatson]

On a 266 Mhz iMac, the bonus screen is indeed very slow. As is Hooptie in General when using the new music jukebox. But that's probably because I have a slow computer :)

BobbyWatson

[Kjurtyl]

I usually turn the music jukebox off because it slows down the game too much for my tastes (on a 350 mhz Imac). I was under the impression that the jukebox was not yet fully completed and may prove faster in the future.

The bonus screen can be made much much faster than it is now. While I was working on it, I had been able to make it go fast enough even for my relatively low specs. There are a lot of factors that cause the slowdown and I believe an optimized "timebonus.tiff" would most probably speed things up a bit, yet it should be only a first step of a series if we hope to have that screen go fast at all.

What concerns me most is that by displaying the bonus on a blank screen (just the timebonus.tiff, no 80% opacity overlay, no gameplay displayed behind it), I have seen the speed augment respectably. We could design a "self-contained" bonus screen with art like the time out screen or the game-over screen, (for purposes of analogy only,) which should in theory speed things up aswell. That, of course, remains to be tested along with a few ideas I've been entertaining on the subject.

- Kjurtyl

P.S. I lost my internet access, and I'm trying to get it back, this message was sent through a computer that is not mine which is why I haven't been able to participate much myself lately.

[Pazolli]

Originally posted by Kjurtyl
I usually turn the music jukebox off because it slows down the game too much for my tastes (on a 350 mhz Imac). I was under the impression that the jukebox was not yet fully completed and may prove faster in the future.


This is correct. Music is currently off by default in all versions of Hooptie.

Mark.

[DaFalcon]

Working 40 hrs per week this summer has been more time consuming than I somehow thought it would be, so sorry I haven't been responding much just recently. I have three revised graphics for you, one of them should work for what you want, I hope :-) The last one is meant to just take the whole screen with no transparancy effects at all, and maybe that'd be fastest for you...

[edit: I will try to e-mail the file to you, because I am having trouble uploading it]

[Kjurtyl]

Just got my internet access back; I can confirm getting the files. I'll run some tests on them when I have the chance but I'm leaving tomorrow around noon for an undetermined period of time. At worst I'll be able to get to it on sunday night / monday morning.

I may be left with less time to dedicate to the project as well since my father has recently gone to hospital with preliminary tests showing an almost certainty of cancer.

-Kjurtyl.

[Pazolli]

I'm so sorry about your father Kjurtyl. Perhaps DaFalcon you could forward the graphics to myself?

Thanks DaFalcon,
Mark.

[flipflop]

I'm sorry to hear about your father too, Kjurtyl. Our thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family through this difficult time.

Take care,
- John

[Pazolli]

I just wanted to point out that my contributions over the next two weeks to the project may be limited and considering Kjurtyl and DaFalcon have both also expressed that other things will be occupying their time for a while. I think the Inkubator project may experience a bit of a slow month. That said it is important to remember that Hooptie is still open to contributions and anyone can contribute to the project without the need for anyone's okay. Anyone is also welcome to use the forums to obtain support on their work or co-ordinate group efforts to improve the project. Though I know some of you may not be eager in contributing without progress being as lively as in the past. I really hope you'll stay with us during the slow periods or at the very least rejoin us when things pick up. Hopefully we'll be back in two/three weeks time with more energy than ever before (and with a bit of luck perhaps even a level editor as well ;))

Cheers,
Mark Pazolli

[Kjurtyl]

Well, I'm back. Slowed down, perhaps, but definitely not out.

I've made some changes that speed up the bonus screen a bit. Specifically I merged the two 'for' loops into one and simplified the remaining loop.

I'm still in the process of testing the screens to see if it could be tweaked to go faster. Right now it looks like devoting an entire screen to the bonus drawing is slightly faster.

-Kjurtyl.

Update: I've commit some changes that definitly speed up the screen. Hopefully we'll find other ways to increase its speed.