1 large room background or multiple rooms

[Knox]

Hi,

Ive got a question on room backgrounds. I know we can have room background images larger than our game resolution, but has anyone tested the limits if this?

Say I want to use a room for a very large map that you can scroll...How big a map could one use for a 1024x768 game until it gets "laggy"...or does that not depend on background size but more on number of objects/characters.animations, etc...

Would it be "better/faster" to use 1 room and 1 large background, or break it up into smaller backgrounds and use multiple rooms?

[Gilbert]

There had been several threads about this, but since the search function is broken it's not as easy to find information as before. Anyway, after quick googling I found this, which is an old thread, so I'm not sure whether the limit was changed or not. Anyway, the maximum height is (or was) 1400 pixels and there is (was) no limit on the width of a room (a height of 1400 pixels is not a very large limit considering the fact that we now support 1024x768 resolution though).

For when a game becomes laggy I think that depends heavily on the player's systems but my guess is there shouldn't be much of a difference. Possibly memory usage is a bigger concern here, and note also that if a room is large and you move a character across a large room with complicated walkable areas the path finding routine can take longer to determine a path too.

[Knox]

Ah, I just learnt now how to search via google! Ok, seems like there are lots of threads on this.

Im testing out right now a large map (2800x2800) and so far no problems...adding objects and walkbehinds, etc...we'll see what happens!

[Matti]

I use a 1024x12000 BG in one of my projects and it works quite well. There aren't many objects/characters yet though..

[Calin Leafshade]

Is your game likely to run on anything without a nuclear reactor?

[Knox]

Haha, are you talking about my game or Matti's? 1024x 12000, holy crap!