Timming issues - Millisecs()

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Dax Trajero (Posted 2004) [#1]

Being a newbie, I'm wondering if everyone uses the same methods for the in-game timers ? eg. ; this code starts my timer player(1)\accel_timer = Millisecs() ; start timer player(1)\accel_flag = true ; check if timer has reached designated time if millisecs() - player(1)\accel_timer => 60 player(1)\accel_timer = 0 ; stop timer player(1)\accel_flag = false end if Is this a reliable method, or is there another way ?

Rob Farley (Posted 2004) [#2]

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here. You want to explain what the problem is rather than suggesting a solution.

Dax Trajero (Posted 2004) [#3]

sorry, I'll explain... during my game I have a various timers that are used for things like accelerating a car sprite and braking a car sprite if the user presses the accelerate key, then I start a timer running.... player(1)\accel_timer = millisecs() during the main loop I check the status of that timer to see if 60ms have elapsed... if millisecs() - player(1)\accel_timer =>60 if they have, I run so code to increment the car's gear. I'm just wondering if everyone uses simple timers like these ?

Dax Trajero (Posted 2004) [#4]

this is the first code and the first game I've ever written so the whole concept of timing in my game is complete guesswork. I just want confirmation this is how other people do it too!

Rob Farley (Posted 2004) [#5]

Timers are used throughout pretty much any game. Your use of timers however I'm still slightly hazy about what you're trying to achieve. For timing of game play you either want to use delta timing or set the amount of updates per second of your game loop. Regarding your gear changing thing, I would suggest that you have a revs and targetrevs value and do something like: (psuedo code) if accelerate key_is_pressed then increment targetrevs else decrement targetrevs if revs<1000 and gear > 1 then gear = gear - 1 : targetrevs = 8000 if revs<1000 and gear = 1 then targetrevs = 10000 if revs>8000 and gear < 6 then gear = gear + 1: targetrevs=1500 revs = (targetrevs-revs)/100 ; rev smoothing I'll write a proper bit of code later... but got to go home first!

Dax Trajero (Posted 2004) [#6]

ok, what am I trying to achieve in this instance ? answer - to make sure the "gear" variable is incremented exactly every 60ms reagrdless of what I do with the variable "gear" I just want to know that I'm using the right method in order to increment a variable after exactly 60ms

Rob Farley (Posted 2004) [#7]

Then it should work, but changing gear every 60ms sounds very very fast, that's over 16 gear changes per second.

Rob Farley (Posted 2004) [#8]

Anyway... As promised! ; auto gear shifting accelkey = 57 ; spacebar targetrevs#=2000 revs#=2000 gear = 0 x=200 y=150 SetBuffer BackBuffer() Repeat Cls ; accelerator key, space bar If KeyDown(accelkey) Then targetrevs = targetrevs + 100 Else targetrevs=targetrevs - 90 ; calcuate revs and stuff If targetrevs<800 Then targetrevs=Rand(900,1300) If targetrevs>9000 Then targetrevs = Rand(8000,9000) If revs<3000 And gear > 1 Then gear = gear - 1 : targetrevs = Rand(7000,8500) If revs>8000 And gear < 6 Then gear = gear + 1: targetrevs=Rand(1500,2000) revs = revs + ((targetrevs-revs)/10) ; rev smoothing ; draw the rev counter Color 150,150,255 rad=100 Oval x-rad,y-rad,rad*2,rad*2,True rad=80 Color 0,0,0 Oval x-rad,y-rad,rad*2,rad*2,True rad=90 Color 0,0,255 For n=1000 To 9000 Step 1000 Text x+(Sin(n/30+180)*rad),y-(Cos(n/30+180)*rad),n/1000,True,True Next Color 255,255,255 rad=90 Line x,y,x+(Sin(revs/30+180)*rad),y-(Cos(revs/30+180)*rad) Text x,y-20,Mid("N123456",gear+1,1),True,True Delay 30 ; slow it down a bit! You'll probably have to change this on your pc to make it look right! Flip Until KeyHit(1)

Dax Trajero (Posted 2004) [#9]

cheers Rob! If I added that the game is in 2D, runs at 60fps and the cars are tiny sprites, would it make any sense ? thanks again!