Performance in the latest windows SDL experimental build (downloaded last night) seems to be a lot worse than the version from 30/06. Just creating a new character and running around I move a lot slower. Given how much travelling is involved in the game, that’s annoying enough for me to choose the older version.
Specifically, the 30/06 one reads version 0.6.187-g1fcae4b
The latest one is 0.6-450-g44eaf8e
The only performance problem I have (with all builds I tried, including the 0.6) is a slight hang-up the moment my sleepy time goes past 6 AM.
That’s nice for you.
I just timed running 10 map squares by holding down the direction key through fields with a new world and char on the new version - can’t give an exact time because it took a second or so to switch to another window to start & stop the timer, but it finished at 17.8 seconds so I guess around 1.6 secs/square after taking that off.
Same test in the old version - I’d kept my old folder. The map meant I could only run 9 squares, but it came in at just over 9 seconds and that’s including the start/stop times. So, around 1 sec/square.
Both characters were identical (I just took the default without spending any points).
The difference is very visible to the eye. After playing the old version it feels like running through treacle. I’ve now tried 3 times with reset worlds so I think it’s something with the version rather than a problem particular to one generated world.
[quote=“nickk, post:141, topic:1713”]Performance in the latest windows SDL experimental build (downloaded last night) seems to be a lot worse than the version from 30/06. Just creating a new character and running around I move a lot slower. Given how much travelling is involved in the game, that’s annoying enough for me to choose the older version.
Specifically, the 30/06 one reads version 0.6.187-g1fcae4b
The latest one is 0.6-450-g44eaf8e[/quote]
There does seem to be a distinct difference in speed, from earlier SDL builds, but I don’t personally see too much of a slowdown.
I wonder, does the 30/06 build include the autopickup feature?
It doesn’t seem to have autopickup - at least it doesn’t appear in the options menu.
I didn’t change the default setting for autopickup on the newer version though and the options menu has “Enable item auto pickup” as false. That said, I have no idea how much code still runs for autopickup when it’s disabled.
have people had performance issues on windows before SDL? I never did. just curious. My understanding is that SDL is supposed to make the game run faster.
There were some words on it past the 0.5 builds; it’s that the linux game with ncurses had a significant edge over the native windows renderer, so a faster one was introduced.
There’s a big problem: apparently blood shows on top of corpses.
Also the blue background for “multiple items” is not shown. Is it possible to add an “animation” tile which would show that there are more than 1 item on a tile? I am thinking of + and ++ for many items in a corner, I used to do it this way in the old Gremour’s tileset version.
@Deon: yeah, I can add that. I will also add a check for corpses into the field/item drawing code.
Oh, I wanted to put in a few words about that to the dev who’s killing with the tilesets. 
I’ve looked over the work you’ve put in, and it seems to me they’re shapely, rather than descriptive (and there’s resolution, too). So I want to propose to you that you consider making several tiles for item stacks that will essentially depict a Box Item. I’m sure you’ve familiar with those that are used for moving stuff - in offices, for storing items from home into your car’s trunk, etc. You might wanna look in the possibility beyond “stacked” simplicity (if you made a Pile Tile, even if it’s cute 'cuz it rhymes being that of a “perky” item or it’s upper part as seen in a box; for ex. if there are many clothing items on the street, you could draw some sleeves hanging from the box, or if there’s a smashed fridge in the store with many bottles, you draw the top of a bottle that would “stick out”. So basically, you could look into types of items, and ask that they are coded in by their number in the mentioned stack. Still, if you draw corpses, and you do for sure, you might wanna have corpse+box tiles; the only flaw I’m able to comprehend because it’s even more tiles, and some carcasses have volume big enough to be “top” drawn.
Hope you make something of it. Good Job Nevertheless!
Hope I’m not throwing this post off its tracks, but tile support could also benefit from screen overlay function, if even possible, could be used for fog and rain and border-effects when taking damage, for hallucinations and buff/debuff stuff, cloud shadows, tint changes brought on by environment (yellow hue for heat, blue for cold/dark, green tint for radioactivity, things like that)…
Not sure how much BRUTAL WORK it’d cause my dear, dear friend GALEN!! whipcrack!