For nested loops just break up the top level loop across multiple ticks. That still cuts up the entire job in to smaller pieces.

oh yeah, that's way easier than my suggestion, but I already made it, so here ya go:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/splitsplits.cap

splits em up into chunks of 10,000 regardless of nested loop position

Lets compare the Xbox Live services with Steams services:

You can't buy music with Steam, you can with Xbox Live.

You can't watch tv and rent movies on Steam, you can with Xbox Live.

You can't rate your games and content with Steam, you can with Xbox Live.

You can't video chat on Steam, you can with Xbox Live.

xbl has to do those things because it's a console, valve knows I can buy music, etc, elsewhere, as well as video chat. it's a pc, I don't want steam to do all that crap. besides I thought all those features were free, and it was just the online gameplay that you're actually paying for? also one or two pc games here and there charging for a separate dlc or user account is one thing, one companies actions. if microsoft was able to stop each new pc game from releasing something without first haggling about the details is a whole 'nother thing. epic did a complete 180 after talking to ms, from (approx quote) "if [microsoft] would stop being so greedy they could get what they want anyway." to "we want what microsoft wants, to make as much money as possible". it's almost comical, like they take them to a brainwashing chamber.

my hate for the console isn't just rampant fanboyism. this whole dlc thing is getting worse and worse, and in my opinion microsoft has caused alot of this, and it affects every platform now. they turned a few companies to the dark side, and now it's a fad.

The problem with this charging for online service is that I don't want it to catch on. PS Plus is the beginning of the end unless one of the other new consoles saves the world. it isn't some tradeoff like everyone says, you're not paying for better service. the fact that they tried to pull this crap on windows proves it has nothing to do with necessity. xboxlive does nothing that hasn't been done multiple times for free.

you pay your isp for bandwidth, you pay microsoft a toll to be allowed to play your games online.

The only other solution is to break up the work over multiple ticks. For example, instead of doing a million loop iterations which takes ten seconds and goes in to "not responding" mode, break it up in to 10,000 iterations per tick over 100 ticks. Not only does this keep the app responding during the processing, but it also gives you the opportunity to update the screen with the progress. That's probably your best bet for the time being.

here's a sample implementation:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/splitting.cap

all the cap does is move the red box around the screen 1 billion times.

press space to do it all at once. click no when it gives you the 1000000 loop iteration warning, so you have a chance to try to interact with the window, and drag the drag-n-drop blue box.

right click to see it run 10,000 at a time, you can interact with the window and the blue box as expected

only one person can play at a time, why would you need multiple accounts? I play portal 2. turn off steam, and my kids can play on their computer afterward with separate save files if need be. I can log onto battleforge with any number of battleforge accounts on pc. anyone at my house can log onto their account and play mortal kombat on the ps3. I must be missing the benefit here.

simply saying XBL is more expensive isn't entirely accurate.

I disagree. XBL being more expensive is entirely accurate.

pc - free online play

mac - free online play

gameboy ds - free online play

psp - free online play

android - free online play

mac - free online play

iphone - free online play

ps2 - free online play

wii - free online play

ps3 - free online play

dreamcast - free online play

starting to see a pattern here? if everything else that provides the same service is free, if ms is charging one cent it's more expensive. they are charging you because they can. it's a complete scam

any game that forces you to buy the game more than once for you to play with more than one user account is similarly scammy. On my ps3, not only can other people on different accounts on my ps3 play my games, I'm allowed to share all my games and DLC that I pay for off of psn with 3 other people. my friend and brother have both downloaded probably a few hundred bucks of free games and content. this isn't a piracy scheme, sony actually allows this, and doesn't allow it after the initial 3 people per file. if you think ms needs the extra money to bring you xboxlive, you must not be familiar with microsoft.

hotmail probably gets more hits a day than xbl, combine that with msdn, windows update, windows antivirus, bing, and the gazillions of other microsoft owned and run ip that get nonstop bandwidth abuse. steam is a superior service by a supersmall company, and it's free. it's pure and simple, it isn't even a debate. XBL is a total scam, and there's no excuse for it not to be free. it doesn't do anything that hasn't been done before and is still being done for free on other platforms, by much smaller companies, with much less money, and resources.

edit: and another thing, unfortunately the corruption bleeds onto other systems, but another thing you're paying for with xbl is ms's greedy bs where they force everyone to charge for dlc. companies try to release content for free on the 360, and then ms steps in forces them to charge. this is why steam went to ps3 and not 360, ms wanted to control everything. now what? they're stuck with a crippled version of the game. you buy once for ps3, you own it on ps3, mac, and pc, your cloud game saves transfer so you can continue your game on a different platform, and all 3 platforms can play co op, later today, I'll play pc portal2 with my friend on his ps3 complete with voice chat. game updates and bugfixes are pushed out the second valve wants them to be. completely superior experience on all other platforms...why? because ms tried to bully valve, and not let them do what they needed to properly release the game. i believe I heard ms finally caved in, and will allow steam in the future, but what a load of bs. originally gears was supposed to have free map packs, but once again ms stepped in to kill the user experience. it all worked out in the end though, because now you have 80 companies who charge to change the color of your character sprite, and an army of fanboys who say that it's somehow a good thing that they have to pay for a "service" they can get for free anywhere else

i don't think it's the only game that doesn't respond while loading or generating levels.

windowed games look unprofessional to begin with, but getting rid of the caption at all would be good, also, maybe a screen that says "loading..."

or don't make it do all the calculations at once. make it pause every few seconds to respond to user input

here's some

these fps's would change within a hundred or so sometimes when run multiple times:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/1.JPG">

2152 fps

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/2.JPG">

2150 fps

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/3.JPG">

1995 fps

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/4.JPG">

50 fps

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/6.JPG">

18 fps

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/5.JPG">

20 fps

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/8.JPG">

75 fps

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/New%20folder%20%285%29/7.JPG">

75 fps

I think they shouldn't be too different, they're both interpreted at runtime, as far as I know. a construct action gets interpreted and calls a c++ function, or a python command gets interpreted and calls a c++ function. if you're talking about doing everything within python that a plugin does after being called, of course the c++ should be much faster.

I don't think it should even be tiles to be honest, I think it should be something like this:

either the s method, or the proposed plugin could do the same thing

it doesn't bother me that much, definitely lame to be down so long, but it's over. I like that the five games are actual good games. it's definitely stupid and embarrassing that sony is so clueless about security, but if there's any fanboyism that I find unacceptable, not just on principle, but in it's danger to the future of gaming is xbox fanboys "you get what you pay for" response to this. 360 is the first system with a real online userbase that charges to just play online. microsoft seriously failed trying to replicate this on pc with games for windows live, but you can see how many companies ms has turned to the nonstop-charge-for-dlc bandwagon. sony implemented playstation plus, which isn't horrible, since you don't need anything on it, but it's a step in the wrong direction.

Aside from the dangerous aspects it's just a false argument. anonymous has hacked the sites of all the major credit card firms. they say they they could have taken down the entire system so no one could make credit card transactions anywhere, but that wasn't the goal. it has nothing to do with what you pay for, aside from the fact that steam on pc is a superior free service, if anonymous wanted to take down xboxlive they would. microsoft would be better prepared by far, windows is the most attacked piece of software period, but the inferiority of psn is not due to it being free. it's due to sony's cluelessness in security.

I have an s plugin example that rotates several sprites together like this. it let's you drag and drop them into place, which drops each one into an array. then you can rotate and move them all with a single action.

this is all I do to move it. it's just one more command over a regular sprite:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/allmovements.JPG">

if you're not a fan of regular programming though, s is probably pretty weird. I'm planning on eventually making a free plugin for cclassic, and c2, when I have some free time that'll be much simpler. it'll be a suite of plugins that will eventually be able to do everything s can, but be super minimalist and easy to understand. can't give any timeline on it,just eventually. but i digress.

the part that relates to what you're saying is the objectarray plugin. it would be just like a regular array, except you'd put actual objects in there. it would have alot of uses, but this is one of them.

it would be two actions to set up:

--Take spacial snapshot

//this would tell the objectarray the objects locations, angles, and size in relationship to the objectarray itself. basically telling it that you're ready, and the sprites are in their proper positions to look like one big thing

then you just move your objectarray like a regular object, put platform behavior on it if you want. rotate, resize, move. even destroy.

then you use a single action

--apply spacial info

// this would update all the sprites' locations, angles, and sizes as if it were one object

it would also be simple to put it in "autoupdate" mode so you just do

--Set autoapply to true

at the beginning of your cap to automatically apply spacial info, so you don't have to call the action manually. also to make it autosnapshot if an object is moved outside of the plugin.

where are your variables declared?

make sure they are declared in the file main.h

under

class ExtObject : public CRunObject
{
public:[/code:1ivvzjgz]

also make sure you begin any functions you've named yourself with ExtObject::youractionnamehere(LPVAL params)

As far as learning as a beginner, and asking too many questions.   ask away, nonstop, if I don't answer it means I probably haven't had time for a detailed answer yet. I and others learned alot of the basics while learning to make construct plugins. Sometimes the answer might be "read a tutorial on such and such", but if you're determined you can learn to program using construct and it's SDK.  this is where I started learning to program in earnest, and I'm confident that if I had just been learning off regular, less exciting examples in tutorials dealing with text, and ugly command line stuff, I wouldn't haven't learned nearly as fast as I have.

as far as this question
I would say it's a good idea to google local and global variables, it's very easy to find them on google.  also  Class Inheritance.  It might not make alot of sense to begin with, but it'll give you a better idea of the forces at work that are stopping your programs from compiling.   if you see other words in the explanations that are mysterious to you, look those up, too.  Understanding the things that cause errors that don't have to do with your actual task are good to get out of the way early on.