Messages

Yeah, I fried my hard drive once, fooling my computer into thinking it was a floppy disk, and having it make the noise of a lawnmower or a kitchenette. Yes, by accident, and yes, I'm serious. Backups are a good thing.

Helm is alive?

Well, the character he based that nick on is about to be killed off permanently, but our Greek AGS mate is someone whom I'd like to meet again...

Have you tried running the rawdraw code in a separate repeated_execute function from another script?

No, but I'm not sure how that would help, since it still executes the same code during each frame.

Also, I don't think you'll see any marked improvement between mp3 and ogg since both are compressed,

Well, they're compressed in very different fashion, using completely different libraries.

AGS 2.72 already uses ddraw for rawdrawing so I'm not sure you'll see a benefit switching to 3.0, but it's possible.

Hm... I know percentual transparency is a performance hit, but what about scaling? Is a scaled rawdraw much slower than a non-scaled one? And what if the scale turns out to be exactly 100% some of the time?

Which is faster - RawClearScreen(), or RawRestoreScreen() to a screen that happens to be pre-cleared, or RawDrawRectangle()?

The help text for IsChannelPlaying() states:

"if the user doesn't have a sound card this will always return 0."

Is that even possible with contemporary computers, or is that a remnant from the DOS era?

I believe I have a rather novel problem with AGS:

If the repeatedly_execute script gets too complex, it causes the (MP3) music to stutter.

This is still under v2.72, and the reason is probably that the rep_ex makes extensive use of RawDraws (yes, I know you're not supposed to combine those), as well as looping through a substantial number of structs for custom things that move around. Interestingly, the frame rate is unaffected, and is somewhere between 30 and 40.

Aside from the obvious ("don't do that, then"), I was wondering if anyone, in particular CJ, had a suggestion on how to deal with this? Perhaps I should upgrade to 3.0, or use OGG, WAV, or MIDI instead? Or perhaps there's some clever workaround? Would PlayMusic/PlaySound/PlayAmbientSound make any difference?

What does all of this stem from? It's not that AGS is afraid of competition, as it were, but if people are being mislead like this then we must be doing something wrong. Is it our overall retro feel?

Is it possibly that AGS has a longer history, and therefore a substantial part of the games made with AGS don't actually use several modern features, because back then AGS didn't support them?

I do know that if you go to the games.php page and pick a game completely at random, you will very likely end up with a game that does not demonstrate the power or versatility of AGS.

Maybe it's time to send out a few emails to people who are often around in the forums to chase them up... I can help with this if you decide to do it.

Well, we do have this big honking banner at the top of the forums... perhaps it should be bold and in blink tags?

I believe it's also a very flexible engine, though a bit harder to use. If you plan to make a modern looking game (high-res, sprites with an alpha channel) then I think Wintermute would be faster and more stable.

Really? I haven't seen any instabilities in AGS in the past couple years...

This does sound like a bug. I'd suggest you grab the last version of the AGS 2.7 line.

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute () {
  if (cJasper.IsAnimating == false) cJasper.Animate (etc etc etc)
}

Also, there are specific functions for idle loops; look up "idle" in the AGS manual.

Can you suggest a book that would help me more to understand the language used in AGS?

Any book, or website, that teaches you C, C++, Visual C++, C#, PHP, Java, or Javascript.

Also, Can i use a VB script in (add script) in the editor?

No.

The Ivy is cuter

Not mine, but cute nonetheless. My apartment is too small (and on too high a floor) to have pets.

I cannot escape the guard when they put the blame on me of killing the king.After i somehow manage to get out the gyard comes back.what should i do?

Go with the flow. You can't escape getting blamed. You can, however, escape, find out who the true assassin is, and confront him/her later.

Spoiler

where is the hole i get the comb out of?  i tried every pixel on the screen south of the giant's camp and i can't seem to see or even find it

[close]

You meant "hide", not "spoiler"

It's the black patch in the upper left corner. Note that you can't get it out by hand.

That is essentially a transcription of our website blurb

Anyway, it's nice to hear they like our game.

schools

Heh. Imagine some random ten-year-old kid walking in. "Hi dad!"

The regulars had better hurry or their places will be taken up by everybody's partners and family

(not that I object, mind you, it just strikes me as funny)

[0, 4]

lbla.Text=String.Format(0, 4,  magic));

While the solution has already been given by Pablo, the problem is in the line above. The first and second arguments to String.Format need to be strings, not integers.

Yay! I'm in.

The RAR format is becoming an increasingly common alternative to ZIP and if 7z is in fact "much smaller" then it will probably replace the RAR format as well,

Er, since when, exactly? RAR has been around for about two decades and has pretty much always been as popular as it is now, which is to say, not very. There is half a dozen other file formats that are even less popular, 7Z included, but ZIP has pretty much "won" that competition by virtue of being easiest to use, and having the most memorable name.

Having slightly better compression doesn't factor into that because people tend not to notice. As I recall, LHA was better than ZIP, but who has even heard of that nowadays? In this day, where hard drives are a dime a dozen, those few percent aren't going to make a difference.