slowdown and entities

BlitzMax Forums/MiniB3D Module/slowdown and entities

jkrankie

(Posted 2009) [#1]

My game gets slower as time goes by, even though it's largely not doing very much. I think this has to do with the way i'm creating entities.

i have my types for enemies ect. set out like this, which inherits from a base type:

Type invincibleenemy Extends enemybase
	
	Function Create:invincibleenemy(inx:Float, iny:Float, inspeed:Float)
		Local n:invincibleenemy = New invincibleenemy
		n.speed = inspeed
		n.x = inx
		n.y = iny
		n.energy = 10000 * difficulty
		n.value = 0
		
		n.entity = copyentity(someentity)
		ScaleEntity n.entity, 10, 10, 10
		EntityColor n.entity, 150, 150, 150
		PositionEntity n.entity, n.x,n.y,0
		EntityShininess n.entity, 1
		
		Return n
	End Function
	
	Method Update:Int(p1:player, enemylist:TList, bulletspeed:Float, recuables:TList)
		Angle = calculateAngle(x, y, p1.x, p1.y) - 90
		radius = speed
		x = radius * Cos(Angle) + x
		y = radius * Sin(Angle) + y
		
		RotateEntity(entity, 0, 0, Angle)
		PositionEntity entity, x, - y, 0
		
		Return False
	End Method

End Type

and i create new enemies using something like the following:

local e:enemy=new enemy.create(x,y)
somelist.addlast e

after the enemy is killed or whatever, i loop through the list and free any entities.

this works fine for max2d stuff, where the gc cleans up after me, but i'm worried that i'm creating more entities than i know how to free using this method with minib3d.

Cheers
Charlie

jkrankie

(Posted 2009) [#2]

Ok, i've managed to work out i was right. Using functions in types in the way i was using them (setting up the meshes there) is bad, as you can't free any entity you create. You should use a method to do this, not a function.

what was weird was that if i did:

local e:enemy=new enemy.create()
list.addlast e
freeentity e.entity

it would free the entity from the copy entered into the list too.

Cheers
Charlie