Blank screen

[Samapico]

Try out the test release I just put up in the Downloads section...

 

Performance features:

-24x less memory used by ASSS regions

-Only one instance declared for each drawing layer, instead of declaring them in each map, which results in more or less 18MB memory used instead of 18MB memory used for EACH map.

 

The result of this is NO MORE blank screen caused by regions-intensive maps. However, LVZ images still use quite a lot of video memory, so it's not impossible you get blank screens with several LVZs.

 

Improvements:

-There was a small bug with ASSS regions where the bottom row and right column of tiles didn't show the regions correctly; that is fixed

-The selected region is now drawn ON TOP of all the other regions with its actual color, making it more visible

 

There are still some glitches like if you try to hide a region, it also selects it and shows it back...

 

 

 

By the way, I just took my 7300GT out of my computer to run on the sucky Intel chipset to test these issues better... And I did notice a huge difference.

 

With 3.4.09:

I could not even open a single map of hyperspace correctly, not all the regions were shown and as soon as something else had to be shown, everything went white.

I also could only open about 5 or 6 EMPTY maps before it went blank.

 

With 3.4.10:

I could open 10 maps easily, including 3 hyperspace maps

 

I did not test with lvz's yet, since I haven't improved those yet.

[rootbear75]

in order to use less memory, blank the windows of maps not actively being selected. or only have the last 2 selected being completely drawn.

[Drake7707]

That doesn't make much of a difference, the problem is the 'textures' for lvz or the temporary bitmaps for selection, regions etc that's causing the memory of the video card to overflow. The preview where you actually draw on doesn't take much memory at all.

 

Reloading lvz's takes quite a lot of time, especially when there are a lot of them, because it has to reload everything from disk. And discarding unnecessary temporary bitmaps not needed at the time is already happening.

 

 

One thing that can be done is like this (wonder why i think of it only now ): instead of caching it on the disk you could cache it in general memory by using GetDIBits to retrieve all the pixels from the hdc into an array (much like clsPic does). I think i'll write a resource manager for that ^^ brb

 

Option Explicit

Private Type resource
id As Long
path As String

cached As Boolean
pixelarr() As Byte
hdc As Long
End Type
Dim resources() As resource
Dim resourceCount As Integer

'current id count to make a unique id
Dim curIdCount As Long

'video memory used for resources
Dim memUsed As Long

Const MAX_MEMORY = 134217728 '128mb

Sub load(imgPath As String)
If resourceCount >= UBound(resources) Then
	ReDim Preserve resources(resourceCount + 100)
End If

Dim r As resource
r.id = makeUniqueID
r.path = imgPath

'// TODO
' calculate memory for resource
Dim memForResource As Long

If memUsed + memForResource > MAX_MEMORY Then
	'loading this resource will cause the memory to overflow
	'swap out a resource that's not used to standard memory
	freeMemory (memForResource)
End If

memUsed = memUsed + memForResource
End Sub

Private Function makeUniqueID() As Long
'make a unique id for each resource
makeUniqueID = curIdCount
curIdCount = curIdCount + 1
End Function

Sub save(id As Integer, path As String)
Dim hdc As Long
hdc = getResource(id)

'//TODO
'save resource to path
End Sub

Sub discard(id As Integer)
Dim idx As Integer
idx = getResourceById(id)

If idx <> -1 Then
	'discard resource
	
	'// TODO
	'calculate memory for resource
	Dim memForResource As Long
	
	'// TODO
	'destroy its hdc
	
	memUsed = memUsed - memForResource
	
	Dim i As Integer
	For i = idx + 1 To resourceCount - 1
		resources(i - 1) = resources(i)
	Next
	resourceCount = resourceCount - 1
End If
End Sub

Function getResource(id As Integer) As Long
'returns the hdc where the image is ready
Dim idx As Integer
idx = getResourceById(id)
If idx <> -1 Then
	If resources(idx).cached Then
		'// TODO
		'we need to restore the array back to a hdc, but we need to make
		'sure that we still have enough memory
	Else
		getResource = resources(idx).hdc
	End If
End If
End Function

Private Sub freeMemory(mem As Long)
'ensure that we have enough memory to load mem into the video ram
'move resources from their hdc's to arrays here
Do While memUsed + mem > MAX_MEMORY
	'// TODO
	'Clear out resources here
	'select resources by a certain criteria (oldest, least used ?) and cache them
	Dim resID As Integer
	
	cache (resID)
Loop
End Sub

Sub cache(id As Integer)
Dim idx As Integer
idx = getResourceById(id)

If idx <> -1 Then
	'force cache of the resource
	'dump them to an array
	If resources(idx).cached Then
		'it's already cached
	Else
		'//TODO
		'move the hdc to an array
	
		'// TODO
		' calculate memory for resource
		Dim memForResource As Long
		
		memUsed = memUsed - memForResource
	End If
End If
End Sub

'returns index of resource by id
Private Function getResourceById(id As Integer) As Integer
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To resourceCount - 1
	If resources(i).id = id Then
		getResourceById = i
		Exit Function
	End If
Next

getResourceById = -1
End Function

Private Sub Class_Initialize()
ReDim resources(100)
resourceCount = 0
memUsed = 0
End Sub

Private Sub Class_Terminate()
'delete all remaining resources
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To resourceCount - 1
	Call discard(resources(i).id)
Next

End Sub

 

I know, still a lot of todo's:

- hdc -> array dump

- array -> hdc

- memory calculation of a resource

- selection process of which resource to cache when there's not enough memory anymore (least used could be done with a timestamp for each resource, oldest could be done with a stack that pushes all the resources in it and the oldest is element 0)

[Dr Brain]

If it makes you feel better, ASSS takes around 20 seconds to load the Hyperspace maps into memory each time a new arena is created.

[Samapico]

That's about what it took for DCME in previous versions too... Now it doesn't take more than 5 seconds