I'm more than familiar with timedelta (you have to be with c++), and that by multiplying by timedelta you'll always get the same speed.

i.e. 1 second divided by 100 ticks will always be the same as 1 second divided by 10 ticks or 1 second divided by 1000 ticks, all taking 1 second to complete.

The thing is, the sort of timing I'm talking about for my game mainly involves 100 millisecond or above uses of the "Every x Milliseconds" function, and these aren't action parts of the game, but mainly timed movements.

You'd have to be running a pretty crappy computer to drop below that speed.

I need to put my other computers together so I can check any differences in speed.

Supposing I was to replace the "Every x Milliseconds" in my game.

What would I replace it with?

Remember, we're not talking about adding a value to a sprite position, but rather checking a condition every x milliseconds.

Krush.

It was my understanding that using "Every x milliseconds" will result in the same speed whatever computer it's run on, and whatever frame-rate it ran at, because it's already factoring in the time delta and will run based on actual time passed.

In which case, your first post should run fine.

It's when you use "Every x ticks" that the speed is affected by frame-rate and computer speed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, because all of my game is based on "Every x milliseconds".

Krush.

Now I wonder about the game around it but... is there any? is it online? can anyone explain how the official paid version works?

These are the videos on YouTube that I was on about.

He's done 33 videos on Minecraft, and he's learning about the game as he's playing which I think adds to the fun of watching them.

If you read my first post in this thread, you'll see how sceptical I was about the game.

This morning I purchased the game, and this afternoon I enjoyed a couple of hours building my base.

Great fun.

And if you read the info on MineCraft.net you'll see that there's quite a few nice things on the way with the updates planned (like hidden temples!!!).

24 hours ago I'd never heard of it.

Today, it's all we can do to stop ourselves playing it.

Seriously, you need to watch the videos I've linked to.

Krush.

Yeah, I'm probably being over-critical with the textures, as this sort of game is more about exploring, resource collecting, etc.

In the space of a few hours, I've been turned around on this game.

The series of videos by X are great, and really show you what the game is about.

I was just watching the second video where he says he going to build an entrance to his cave, and while he's collecting resources for it, he notices a cave disappearing into the ground.

So he decides to explore it, even though he doesn't really have enough coal for torches.

It's really creepy lighting up the different parts of the cavern, while he's hoping nothing spawns in the dark.

My phone rang just as he said something about hearing a skeleton, and he's jumped down a ledge too steep to get back up, so that's where it's paused right now.

You got to love the procedural generation of the world.

Very impressive.

I think I'll end up investing in this very soon.

Problem is, games like this take away my programming time, and I don't have a lot of time for that at the moment.

Krush.

Am I missing something?

Although I admire the 3D engine he's built, I don't think much of the graphics or the gameplay.

And it's not a free game!?

Like I said, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see much of a game here, let alone a commercial one.

EDIT: Actually, the more videos I see about this, the more I realise that gameplay-wise, it's got something interesting going on.

I'm still not convinced that the graphics are good enough.

I'm not talking about the block size of the landscape, but the low-res textures used for each block.

I wouldn't mind spending a couple of quid on this, but I wouldn't spend more than that in it's current condition.

Krush.

Yeah, I've had a quick test run with checking the files before the game runs, with some success.

Another one that I'm thinking might be a winner:

:: Place all external files in a \data[/b] folder with custom extensions

:: Check files are present and correct size before running the game

:: While the splash screens as showing at start of game, take each file, copy to \data\cache[/b] folder and rename to filenames and extensions that Construct can use

:: Optionally, delete the renamed files on game exit, but that's not really important because they'll be overwritten next time the game is run.

It sounds a lot, but with no more than 40 or 50 files at most, it'll be finished long before the splash screens are done, and the user won't notice anything.

Krush.

> Just use Xaudio to play midi files.

>

Just shows how much I know about Construct!

You're not alone mate.

I've been spending a lot of time in XAudio2 lately getting a lot of the sounds done for my game, and when I read the question about Midi files, I sat here and thought "Hmm, I don't know"

Krush.

Not sure if this can be classed as a silly mistake, but something to be avoided.

When I first started using Construct, I sometimes had 2 or 3 different projects open at the same time.

This would almost always cause Construct to crash to the desktop without warning, and as well as losing the work you'd done since the last save, it occasionally corrupted the file.

I don't know if this is fixed in later versions of Construct, or whether it was something specific to my systems, but it's something worth bearing in mind, and a good reason to keep a steady flow of backups.

Krush.

Is this specific to XAudio2?

Yeah, I'm using .ogg files for both music and fx, loading them with

-> XAudio2: Load file "c:\audio.ogg" to channel 1 (No loop)

and then playing them with

-> XAudio2: Set channel 1 position to 0 seconds

-> XAudio2: Play channel 1

All works fine across many layouts with the .ogg extension, but with a different extension I get no sound from that channel.

No error message from Construct saying that it wasn't loaded.

I even tried loading .ogg files without an extension, but I had the same result.

Krush.

Woah.

Time to take a step back 6Fix.

My reasons for wanting to change the file extension is genuine, and I don't think I could have done any more to explain the reasons for it.

If you don't get what I was saying, or don't agree with it, then fine.

But to say it is a silly request because of either reason is not right.

And if you have read my posts, you'll see that I never said it was for security reasons. Not once.

In fact, I went to great lengths to show otherwise.

Have you read the post where I explain what happened years ago with previous users messing with external files?

If so, your comments about security and the request being silly is even more baffling.

Maybe you've never released anything, and have never had to give support for it.

And as for defensive, damn right.

When someone who clearly hasn't bothered to read the reasons behind what I'm saying decides to make a judgement on it, I can't be anything else.

If Ash was to post here saying that allowing the renaming of ogg files would mean spending time away from more important things, or that XAudio2 does require file extensions, then I'd be glad of the info and look to other ways of deterring people from messing with files.

I have a couple of other ideas.

One of which is similar to what Ultimate Play The Game (Rare) used on their 16k Spectrum games in 1982, which ironically, I learned when taking their software apart nearly 30 years ago. lol

Thanks to Sol and everyone else who understood what I was saying, even if it was something that they had no use for themselves.

And thanks for not locking the thread.

I'm still hoping to hear from Ash on the subject.

Cheers,

Krush.

In all honesty though, what you're requesting is pretty silly.

Really?

Care to explain why?

Having read and written many files in binary format using c++ for many years, the name of the file and the extension is unimportant, and just serves to locate the file in the windows system.

As far as I'm aware, XAudio2 is no different, and the fact that Construct needs the file extension for audio files appears to be purely to save the Devs having to program Construct to read the file's header to determine the filetype.

INI files without an extension work perfectly, as an example.

I'd like to hear Ash's comments on this, because I'm pretty sure that XAudio2 doesn't require a file extension because, as I've already said, the filename is just a means to get a handle on the actual binary file.

Just because you've never used binary files, don't understand the concept, or have no need for files without extensions, doesn't make it silly.

Krush.

should you even support a game that's been tampered with?

Well, with the ones that I mentioned from years ago, I did drop support for those as soon as I found out what was happening.

I do like to give support to anything I release, because most of the time it's something simple to fix, or maybe even a bug that I've missed, which is useful to know.

So if I can put people off from playing with the files, then great.

Seeing as it looks like I'm right about the .ogg files being read solely on their extension rather than the file header (otherwise Ash would have said something by now), I'm going to have to look at another way.

I may look into checking all the data files on startup, checking the filenames and filesize, and only continuing if all is well.

If any file isn't there or is the wrong size, then I'll get my program to display an error message ("Program failed to run - Error 666") and when someone quotes this error message to me, I know that they've messed with the files.

Will save me a lot of time.

And it's no different to normal error trapping.

It's just Human Error trapping.

Krush.