Ok, did some extra testing on the desktop machine (which has a 7900 unlike the laptop which has a 9800M GTS graphics card, so less muscle) and the results are pretty interesting.

Here are some pre-made test caps, btw:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1328856/32x32.cap

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1328856/512x512.cap

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1328856/1024x1024.cap

So it's basically a tiled 32x32, 512x512 and 1024x1024 texture.

When the layout is power of 2 size the fps is pretty much identical on this system for all the caps ~800 fps. If the layout size gets changed to something more common like 1024x768 the fps get cut in half.

Copy-pasting the tiled background does the same, as long as the position isn't centered perfectly (in that case fps is about 70%).

If a non power of 2 texture is used the fps is about 90% of that. Which is strange.

Basically it looks like the GPU just really dislikes anything that isn't power of 2. Be it texture or layout size. It's happiest when it gets to just render what's inside its memory straight up, no cropping. Also the performance seems to vary quite a bit among graphics cards (logical, of course).

Sliders

Argh, sliders are annoying to implement. Doable, though. Still, they take up screen estate and generally must have limits. Will think about it.

A cool thing to have would be to spawn a particle object in the editor with your current settings which could be copied out, but I guess that's quite impossible.

It still had a similar slowdown for someone else who did their own.

Or rather Somebody else I did some tests with 32x32 tiles and every time the tiled stuff was slower.

Like - single 32x32 sprite - 5000fps

Same sprite stretched - 4800fps

Tiled background of same size as the stretched one - 4000fps

Each new instance of the tiled background ~ 20% performance hit according to the fps shown in title.

AWESOME!

You rock!

Hehe, thanks!

Nice tool

Well, more time for more worthy projects for him I guess

Btw - so far it seems like the Speed randomization which is at 1000 by default does nothing? Also the color fade time seems to have no effect (in 83)? Could that be right?

Will try to improve it to have ALL the options from the Particle object soon.

Hi everybody!

Made a little tool in Construct itself - it makes learning the particle tool easier by allowing realtime control of almost all the parameters. You do need to type them in, but it's still easier than changing the settings, starting a layout, exiting, rinsing, repeating.

<img src="http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg36/some9000/ParticleStudioDX9runtime.png">

Anyhow, it's a .83 cap. I might add togglable one-shot options and the other fade types as well. Depends on feedback - if anyone needs it.

Grab it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1328856/ParticleStudio.cap.

It still plays music if it's played like music.

Yeah, actually there are several parameters the particles would benefit from, but so far the answer has been that they are pretty complex already. Seems like you are better off just spawning objects with the necessary behaviors. It's not too hard either. Just do a repeat or every x ms event.

Guess that's an option. Limits it a bit to whatever gets picked in that subevent and needs the sub event itself.

The direct route would be nice.

Will have to do that. I was sort of hoping for, say, Ashley to say something like: "Ah, right, just do this...", though

Yeah, that's a shame. A quick way would have been really handy.

Also - perhaps there's a way to find formulas for the levels - will take a little time, will save some time later if you decide to change the level structure.

Like,

Strength adds 3 each level? Strength = Level*3

Agility adds 1 every 3 levels? Agility = Floor(level/3)

If you want exponential growth just have something like: Health = Level*30*1.25

Etc.

Hello, all!

A slightly technical question, can't really find anything similar here.

Is there a way to access ANY object by its UID inside any expression?

As an example, if we knew the UID of an object and needed to get its X coordinate from some event where this object never even comes up, could we do something like this:

AllObjects(UID).X

Maybe I'm just used to a similar approach from some macro programming, but if there was a way to access things using indexes easily that' d be awesome. If there isn't this is a nice feature to have