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Thread: Musings of a Tilemap Junky

  1. #1
    The Time-Loop Continues ZC Developer
    Gleeok's Avatar
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    Musings of a Tilemap Junky

    There's been a recent influx of programming related topics, and a lot of talk about OOP, so I thought I'd just share what I did today, which is say that "tiles are done like this, presto bango fix up the placeholder code and then move on." Yeah, I sort of had some placeholders in for different map stuff that I wanted to get rid of. The truth is that 2D tilemaps are very simple, like stupid simple. I've thrown together at least different versions over the years for different things. Usually just for fun when I'm prototyping an idea and want to see how it works with a whole graphics scene. Sure they are very basic, but more than enough for something like Pac Man or Breakout. Anyway, the point is that tilemaps are not hard by any means, and thinking you have to use a specialized 2D tile engine library is a little bonkers if you ask me. Anyway.

    So back to to the point: If it is so easy why did I have all the placeholders in the first place? Which as it turns out is a totally good question by itself. So today I had the day off and just went ahead and solved the problem once and for all.

    Well, I wanted it to support a bunch of features, I mean, RPG's are very complex. I hadn't ever made one before and I didn't want to screw anything up. When you think about what might need to have it can seem like it's complicated: You might have tiles that don't do anything, null tiles, static tiles, animated tiles, dynamically moving tiles, tiles that change into other tiles (eg; like combo->next). So when you start thinking about it from a code perspective you usually come up with something like this:

    Code:
    class Tile /*maybe : public MapEntity?*/
    {
    public:
    	virtual ~Tile() {}
    	virtual void Update() = 0;
    	virtual void Render() = 0;
    	virtual Rect GetCollisionRect()  return Rect::Empty; }
    	//etc...
    private:
    	int m_id; //reverse lookup
    	TileSet* m_parent; //needed for rendering
    	Region region;
    	//other stuff
    };
    
    class AnimatedTile
    {
    public:
    	void Update() { m_tileAnimation.Animate(); }
    	void Render { m_tileAnimation.RenderTile(this, this->GetParentTileSet()); }
    	//etc...
    };
    
    //ad nauseum...
    Which basically solves every problem because now tiles can do everything we need them to do. ...right? ..wait. ..no. ...yes. ..? I mean it's grade A 80% lean choice OOP so... no. This what happens when you read c++ tutorials online people! What this actually is is an Entity system in disguise, and absolutely not a tilemap system. The whole point of tiles is they have a grid. If there is no grid, then you definitely shouldn't even have tiles at all. Plus this code is like 1000 bugs all waiting to strike, and another downside is that it is slow and very time consuming when all is said and done. I definitely do not want to spend 5 years getting it to work right with everything else in the game when they are added.

    So I thought about what the actual problem is I came up with this: Tiles have static properties and also dynamic properties, but, tiles don't actually exist. That is, there is no such thing as a single tile at all. Tiles are part of a larger set, grouped by their image and perhaps animation--all tiles with the same id need to stay in sync, for example, and if the don't then you have problems--by layers, and groupings, and maybe even resembling larger objects. Tile groupings can even be scattered throughout the map, so you'd want to treat far away tiles similarly to nearby tiles instead of putting them to sleep like entities.

    In the end I just ended up with the simplest solution. Which is mutable TileData, and immutable properties of each tile. Which is just this, minus some unfinished things:

    Code:
    enum TileAnimationType ENUM_TYPE(u8)
    {
    	TileAnimationType_None,
    	TileAnimationType_Loop,
    	TileAnimationType_PingPong,
    	TileAnimationType_OneTime
    };
    
    enum TileAnimationFlags ENUM_TYPE(u8)
    {
    	TileAnimationFlags_FlipX = 0x01,
    	TileAnimationFlags_FlipY = 0x02,
    	TileAnimationFlags_Reverse = 0x80,
    };
    
    struct RPG_API Tile
    {
    	uint16 id; // depricated. (currently used in saving)
    	uint16 _padding;
    
    	/// The starting top-most rectangle position (in pixels) in the texture.
    	uint16 sourceX;
    
    	/// The starting left-most rectangle position (in pixels) in the texture.
    	uint16 sourceY;
    
    	/// The texture coordinates when rendering the tile.
    	Rectf uv;
    
    	/// The frame counter.
    	uint16 frameCounter;
    
    	/// The animation delay of each frame. (In fixed 16:1 point)
    	uint16 animationDelay;
    
    	/// The current animation frame.
    	uint8 currentFrame;
    
    	/// The maximum number of animation frames.
    	uint8 numFrames;
    
    	/// The type of animation.
    	uint8 animationType;
    
    	/// Animation flags. (Used internally)
    	uint8 animationFlags;
    
    	// aggregate
    
    
    	/// Updates the tile animation.
    	/// The tiles' texture information must be supplied along with the size of the tile.
    	void UpdateAnimation(float textureWidth, float textureHeight, uint32 tileWidth, uint32 tileHeight);
    
    	/// Sets the current animation frame and updates rendering data if needed.
    	/// Does not reset the frame counter.
    	void SetCurrentFrame(float textureWidth, float textureHeight, uint32 tileWidth, uint32 tileHeight, u8 frame);
    
    	FORCEINLINE bool IsAnimated() const { return numFrames > 1; }
    
    	static Tile Default;
    };
    CE_MAKE_TRAIT(Tile, is_pod);
    And that's it, minus additional properties for gameplay mechanics. So simple, right? It may not solve every single problem you think might come up by itself, but it doesn't cause any either. Plus it can only be managed by components with specific knowledge about what it is they have to do with just straight forward, simple data. Speed goes way up and complexity way down. For example, when a map layer is told to render tiles it can cull and go through all the tiles in view at once, and simple throw all that data into an array, which renders the entire tile layer to the GPU in a single draw call. Can't get any faster than that. Actually, most layers will even share the same tileset so in that case every layer on screen can even be batched together... but that's really not necessary.


    [edit] In case of possible name confusion, the tilemaps work like this:
    -- Tileset->Tile array[]
    -- TileMap->TileLayers[each layer holds a tileset pointer]->TileLayerCell array[]->also references a tile.

    (so in ZC terms, the term 'tile' is like a 'combo', and 'tiles' are physical files like tilesheets or /png.)


    [editmore] Ugh.. too tired to fix any grammer issues. That's grampers job.
    Last edited by Gleeok; 07-05-2015 at 09:00 AM.
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  2. #2
    Quest Builder Anarchy_Balsac's Avatar
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    Sometimes even simpler, for the Marauder Shields video game, the tile and item maps are one and the same (this made putting background tiles behind enemies and items challenging)

    This is because the Platformer Starter kit I built it out of reads the entire thing as a text file matrix for each stage.

  3. #3
    The Time-Loop Continues ZC Developer
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anarchy_Balsac View Post
    Sometimes even simpler, for the Marauder Shields video game, the tile and item maps are one and the same (this made putting background tiles behind enemies and items challenging)

    This is because the Platformer Starter kit I built it out of reads the entire thing as a text file matrix for each stage.
    That is a little strange. Did it do that in the starter kit originally? I can't really see the benefit of that... :confuse:
    Was it ever finished?




    Anyway, back to the discussion about how optimizing early is bad and evil and all that stuff. Guess what I did today? Yep, you totally guessed it.

    CPU side tilemap rendering is now 3x faster! (remember GPU is already maxed out basically) :) Since we are storing everything in tight arrays we have zero extra indirection or overhead compared to something like lists or maps so rewriting it to be fast was trivial. For some reason I couldn't get the profiler to check L2 cache hits or branch misses on this computer, but it seems like it's not an issue as everything is very compact already. Whatever. Stupid Microsoft.

    At my max resolution of 1280x744 we've got 960 tiles on screen per layer, x2 layers = 1920 possible draw calls, which takes me 0.16 milliseconds, or, 1% of out the total target frame rate of 16.0 milliseconds, and was 3-7% CPU usage. With a normal sized resolution CPU usage was at 0%, and with a C# script over the top of it running a tetris game was maxed at 2%.

    Keep in mind that and I've got a shitty laptop right now too. To put this in perspective for you guys: I can't actually play any game made in game-maker on this computer without major lag or fear of overheating, and even an rpgmaker vx game puts me at 80-90% CPU use.


    At the end of the day you just have to feel good about some things, like not just throwing whatever crap you've got lying around into a bun and calling it a Big Mac, but actually creating something from scratch even though it takes a little longer, and really, just caring about things in general.
    This post contains the official Gleeok seal of approval. Look for these and other posts in an area near you.

  4. #4
    Is this the end?
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    I don't think you're using the same definition of "optimization" as everyone else. Just designing things efficiently isn't really the same.
    It sounds like you came up with the flyweight pattern.

  5. #5
    Quest Builder Anarchy_Balsac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gleeok View Post
    That is a little strange. Did it do that in the starter kit originally? I can't really see the benefit of that... :confuse:
    Was it ever finished?
    Yes it was, I think they do that for simplicity. And yes, I finished it a long time ago, most people got it from the link on HoldTheLine.com. but since that site is dead, here's direct links to my google drive:

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By...WNpQncwYVFNUW8
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By...3RpVmlCeWprUDg

  6. #6
    The Time-Loop Continues ZC Developer
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saffith View Post
    It sounds like you came up with the flyweight pattern.
    Interesting, I had to look up what a "flyweight" pattern was. I may not quite understand the concept correctly from the definition I saw though. To me "flyweight" just describes every program ever written in c, or just relegating the functionality of objects to the things that manage them. I don't know if that's right. ..?

    Quote Originally Posted by Saffith View Post
    I don't think you're using the same definition of "optimization" as everyone else. Just designing things efficiently isn't really the same.
    Tell that to the stupid compiler.

    ...
    I don't have the original assembly file anymore but it was fairly retarded let me tell you what. Now I'm not very good at digesting that kind of stuff because I'm not very good at reading and understanding it in depth, but it was dumb. Obvious offenders were reading from too many points random memory that never changes, likely causing cache issues (Though like I said vcp didn't want to track them for some reason), and just having to pull out anything that was confusing to it from the inner loop. Pretty not-hard to do things, but it just seems like a waste a time. However in this case there was a large improvement so it was well worth it IMO.

    I can post the newer code listing though. I did add a few good ideas in there.

    Code:
    ; 255  : 	
    ; 256  : 	float32 tilePosX = (x1 * tileWidth) + (minX - x1) * tileWidth;
    
      0005e	8b 45 10	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR _minX$[ebp]
      00061	0f af 45 08	 imul	 eax, DWORD PTR _tileWidth$[ebp]
    
    ; 257  : 	float32 tilePosY = (y1 * tileHeight) + (minY - y1) * tileHeight;
    ; 258  : 	float32 currentTilePositionX = tilePosX;
    ; 259  : 	float32 currentTilePositionY = tilePosY;
    ; 260  :  
    ; 261  : 	Quad2D* vertexPointer = (Quad2D*)spriteBatch->PushCurrentVertexArrayPointer();
    
      00065	8b 7d 0c	 mov	 edi, DWORD PTR _spriteBatch$[ebp]
      00068	89 45 08	 mov	 DWORD PTR tv870[ebp], eax
      0006b	8b c6		 mov	 eax, esi
      0006d	0f af 45 fc	 imul	 eax, DWORD PTR _tileHeight$[ebp]
      00071	db 45 08	 fild	 DWORD PTR tv870[ebp]
      00074	d9 5d 14	 fstp	 DWORD PTR _tilePosX$[ebp]
      00077	d9 45 14	 fld	 DWORD PTR _tilePosX$[ebp]
      0007a	d9 5d ec	 fstp	 DWORD PTR _currentTilePositionX$[ebp]
      0007d	89 45 08	 mov	 DWORD PTR tv867[ebp], eax
      00080	8b 47 28	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR [edi+40]
      00083	89 45 18	 mov	 DWORD PTR _vertexPointer$[ebp], eax
      00086	db 45 08	 fild	 DWORD PTR tv867[ebp]
      00089	83 c4 30	 add	 esp, 48			; 00000030H
    
    ; 262  : 
    ; 263  : 	spriteBatch->SetBlendMode(GetBlendMode());
    
      0008c	8d 43 2c	 lea	 eax, DWORD PTR [ebx+44]
      0008f	50		 push	 eax
      00090	8b cf		 mov	 ecx, edi
      00092	d9 5d fc	 fstp	 DWORD PTR _currentTilePositionY$[ebp]
      00095	e8 00 00 00 00	 call	 ?SetBlendMode@SpriteBatch@@QAEXABVBlendMode@@@Z ; SpriteBatch::SetBlendMode
    
    ; 264  : 	spriteBatch->SetTextureID(GetTileset()->GetTextureID());
    
      0009a	8b 43 14	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR [ebx+20]
      0009d	e8 00 00 00 00	 call	 ?GetTextureID@Tileset@@QBEIXZ ; Tileset::GetTextureID
      000a2	50		 push	 eax
      000a3	8b cf		 mov	 ecx, edi
      000a5	e8 00 00 00 00	 call	 ?SetTextureID@SpriteBatch@@QAEXI@Z ; SpriteBatch::SetTextureID
    
    ; 265  : 
    ; 266  : 	const Color layerColor = GetColor();
    
      000aa	8b 4b 30	 mov	 ecx, DWORD PTR [ebx+48]
    
    ; 267  : 
    ; 268  : 	for(int32 y(minY); y != maxY; ++y)
    
      000ad	89 75 08	 mov	 DWORD PTR _y$16981[ebp], esi
      000b0	3b 75 1c	 cmp	 esi, DWORD PTR _maxY$[ebp]
      000b3	0f 84 16 01 00
    	00		 je	 $LN7@InternalDr@2
    
    ; 269  : 	{
    ; 270  : 		const TileMapLayerCell* currentCell = &m_tiles(y, minX);
    
      000b9	8b 45 f0	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR _maxX$[ebp]
      000bc	d9 45 fc	 fld	 DWORD PTR _currentTilePositionY$[ebp]
      000bf	2b 45 10	 sub	 eax, DWORD PTR _minX$[ebp]
      000c2	d9 45 ec	 fld	 DWORD PTR _currentTilePositionX$[ebp]
      000c5	c1 e0 03	 shl	 eax, 3
      000c8	89 45 f0	 mov	 DWORD PTR tv393[ebp], eax
      000cb	eb 02		 jmp	 SHORT $LN9@InternalDr@2
    $LN73@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 267  : 
    ; 268  : 	for(int32 y(minY); y != maxY; ++y)
    
      000cd	d9 c9		 fxch	 ST(1)
    $LN9@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 269  : 	{
    ; 270  : 		const TileMapLayerCell* currentCell = &m_tiles(y, minX);
    
      000cf	8b 43 24	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR [ebx+36]
      000d2	0f af 45 08	 imul	 eax, DWORD PTR _y$16981[ebp]
      000d6	03 45 10	 add	 eax, DWORD PTR _minX$[ebp]
      000d9	8b 53 18	 mov	 edx, DWORD PTR [ebx+24]
      000dc	8d 14 c2	 lea	 edx, DWORD PTR [edx+eax*8]
    
    ; 271  : 		const TileMapLayerCell* lastCell = currentCell + (maxX - minX);
    
      000df	8b 45 f0	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR tv393[ebp]
      000e2	03 c2		 add	 eax, edx
      000e4	89 45 ec	 mov	 DWORD PTR _lastCell$16986[ebp], eax
    
    ; 272  : 
    ; 273  : 		for( ; currentCell != lastCell; ++currentCell)
    
      000e7	3b d0		 cmp	 edx, eax
      000e9	0f 84 c3 00 00
    	00		 je	 $LN54@InternalDr@2
    $LN6@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 274  : 		{
    ; 275  : 			const Tile* tile = currentCell->tile;
    
      000ef	8b 02		 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR [edx]
    
    ; 276  : 
    ; 277  : 			if(tile != null)
    
      000f1	85 c0		 test	 eax, eax
      000f3	0f 84 a6 00 00
    	00		 je	 $LN74@InternalDr@2
    
    ; 278  : 			{
    ; 279  : 				Rectf textureCoords = tile->uv;
    
      000f9	8d 70 08	 lea	 esi, DWORD PTR [eax+8]
    
    ; 280  : 
    ; 281  : 				// flip
    ; 282  : 				if(currentCell->flags & 1) Swap(textureCoords.min.x, textureCoords.max.x);
    
      000fc	8a 42 06	 mov	 al, BYTE PTR [edx+6]
      000ff	8d 7d dc	 lea	 edi, DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp]
      00102	a5		 movsd
      00103	a5		 movsd
      00104	a5		 movsd
      00105	a5		 movsd
      00106	a8 01		 test	 al, 1
      00108	74 0c		 je	 SHORT $LN32@InternalDr@2
      0010a	d9 45 dc	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp]
      0010d	d9 45 e4	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+8]
      00110	d9 5d dc	 fstp	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp]
      00113	d9 5d e4	 fstp	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+8]
    $LN32@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 283  : 				if(currentCell->flags & 2) Swap(textureCoords.min.y, textureCoords.max.y);
    
      00116	a8 02		 test	 al, 2
      00118	74 0c		 je	 SHORT $LN34@InternalDr@2
      0011a	d9 45 e0	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+4]
      0011d	d9 45 e8	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+12]
      00120	d9 5d e0	 fstp	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+4]
      00123	d9 5d e8	 fstp	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+12]
    $LN34@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 284  : 
    ; 285  : 				float vertices[4] = {
    ; 286  : 					currentTilePositionX,
    ; 287  : 					currentTilePositionY,
    ; 288  : 					currentTilePositionX + floatTileWidth,
    ; 289  : 					currentTilePositionY + floatTileHeight
    ; 290  : 				};
    ; 291  : 
    ; 292  : 				const Color color = layerColor;
    ; 293  : 
    ; 294  : 				vertexPointer->SetVertexUVColorData((float32*)vertices, (float32*)&textureCoords, color);
    
      00126	8b 45 18	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR _vertexPointer$[ebp]
      00129	d9 45 f8	 fld	 DWORD PTR _floatTileWidth$[ebp]
      0012c	d8 c1		 fadd	 ST(0), ST(1)
    
    ; 295  : 				++vertexPointer;
    
      0012e	8b 7d 0c	 mov	 edi, DWORD PTR _spriteBatch$[ebp]
      00131	d9 c2		 fld	 ST(2)
      00133	89 48 10	 mov	 DWORD PTR [eax+16], ecx
      00136	d8 45 f4	 fadd	 DWORD PTR _floatTileHeight$[ebp]
      00139	89 48 24	 mov	 DWORD PTR [eax+36], ecx
      0013c	d9 ca		 fxch	 ST(2)
      0013e	89 48 38	 mov	 DWORD PTR [eax+56], ecx
      00141	d9 10		 fst	 DWORD PTR [eax]
      00143	89 48 4c	 mov	 DWORD PTR [eax+76], ecx
      00146	d9 cb		 fxch	 ST(3)
      00148	83 c0 50	 add	 eax, 80			; 00000050H
      0014b	d9 50 b4	 fst	 DWORD PTR [eax-76]
      0014e	89 45 18	 mov	 DWORD PTR _vertexPointer$[ebp], eax
      00151	d9 45 dc	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp]
      00154	d9 58 b8	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-72]
      00157	d9 45 e0	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+4]
      0015a	d9 58 bc	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-68]
      0015d	d9 cb		 fxch	 ST(3)
      0015f	d9 50 c4	 fst	 DWORD PTR [eax-60]
      00162	d9 ca		 fxch	 ST(2)
      00164	d9 50 c8	 fst	 DWORD PTR [eax-56]
      00167	d9 45 dc	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp]
      0016a	d9 58 cc	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-52]
      0016d	d9 45 e8	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+12]
      00170	d9 58 d0	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-48]
      00173	d9 c9		 fxch	 ST(1)
      00175	d9 50 d8	 fst	 DWORD PTR [eax-40]
      00178	d9 c9		 fxch	 ST(1)
      0017a	d9 58 dc	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-36]
      0017d	d9 45 e4	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+8]
      00180	d9 58 e0	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-32]
      00183	d9 45 e8	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+12]
      00186	d9 58 e4	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-28]
      00189	d9 58 ec	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-20]
      0018c	d9 c9		 fxch	 ST(1)
      0018e	d9 50 f0	 fst	 DWORD PTR [eax-16]
      00191	d9 45 e4	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+8]
      00194	d9 58 f4	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-12]
      00197	d9 45 e0	 fld	 DWORD PTR _textureCoords$16992[ebp+4]
      0019a	d9 58 f8	 fstp	 DWORD PTR [eax-8]
      0019d	eb 02		 jmp	 SHORT $LN3@InternalDr@2
    $LN74@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 267  : 
    ; 268  : 	for(int32 y(minY); y != maxY; ++y)
    
      0019f	d9 c9		 fxch	 ST(1)
    $LN3@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 272  : 
    ; 273  : 		for( ; currentCell != lastCell; ++currentCell)
    
      001a1	83 c2 08	 add	 edx, 8
    
    ; 296  : 			}
    ; 297  : 
    ; 298  : 			currentTilePositionX += floatTileWidth;
    
      001a4	d9 c9		 fxch	 ST(1)
      001a6	d8 45 f8	 fadd	 DWORD PTR _floatTileWidth$[ebp]
      001a9	3b 55 ec	 cmp	 edx, DWORD PTR _lastCell$16986[ebp]
      001ac	0f 85 3d ff ff
    	ff		 jne	 $LN6@InternalDr@2
    $LN54@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 267  : 
    ; 268  : 	for(int32 y(minY); y != maxY; ++y)
    
      001b2	ff 45 08	 inc	 DWORD PTR _y$16981[ebp]
    
    ; 272  : 
    ; 273  : 		for( ; currentCell != lastCell; ++currentCell)
    
      001b5	dd d8		 fstp	 ST(0)
    
    ; 299  : 		}
    ; 300  : 
    ; 301  : 		currentTilePositionX = tilePosX;
    
      001b7	d9 45 14	 fld	 DWORD PTR _tilePosX$[ebp]
      001ba	8b 45 08	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR _y$16981[ebp]
    
    ; 302  : 		currentTilePositionY += floatTileHeight;
    
      001bd	d9 c9		 fxch	 ST(1)
      001bf	d8 45 f4	 fadd	 DWORD PTR _floatTileHeight$[ebp]
      001c2	3b 45 1c	 cmp	 eax, DWORD PTR _maxY$[ebp]
      001c5	0f 85 02 ff ff
    	ff		 jne	 $LN73@InternalDr@2
      001cb	dd d9		 fstp	 ST(1)
      001cd	dd d8		 fstp	 ST(0)
    $LN7@InternalDr@2:
    
    ; 303  : 	}
    ; 304  : 
    ; 305  : 	// This will simply increment the current vertex pointer in the array.
    ; 306  : 	// Since we validate storage beforehand this is extremely fast.
    ; 307  : 	spriteBatch->PopCurrentVertexArrayPointer(vertexPointer);
    
      001cf	8b 45 18	 mov	 eax, DWORD PTR _vertexPointer$[ebp]
      001d2	2b 47 28	 sub	 eax, DWORD PTR [edi+40]
      001d5	6a 50		 push	 80			; 00000050H
      001d7	59		 pop	 ecx
      001d8	99		 cdq
      001d9	f7 f9		 idiv	 ecx
      001db	6b c0 50	 imul	 eax, 80			; 00000050H
      001de	01 47 28	 add	 DWORD PTR [edi+40], eax
    Good enough for me. Now I don't have to worry about it at all.

    ...There's probably not much more I can do anyway; too many FPU loads and stores going on.


    [edit] Tip of the day: Don't ever trust the compiler to do things for you.
    Last edited by Gleeok; 07-07-2015 at 06:00 AM.
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  7. #7
    Is this the end?
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    Interesting, I had to look up what a "flyweight" pattern was. I may not quite understand the concept correctly from the definition I saw though. To me "flyweight" just describes every program ever written in c, or just relegating the functionality of objects to the things that manage them. I don't know if that's right. ..?
    Looking at it again, I think I misread that before. You're probably using the flyweight pattern, but that's not what you were describing.
    It's basically deduplication. When you've got a lot of objects that are largely identical, don't give every one of them its own copy of the common data. Just keep one copy of each and give each instance a pointer. It's the same way combos work in ZC, for instance; each one on the screen is just a combo number rather than a separate copy of the definition.

    Tell that to the stupid compiler.
    What I mean to say is that the "root of all evil" optimization isn't high-level design. It's stuff like rewriting a function in assembly to save a few clock cycles. Small things that make the code harder to understand and maintain for relatively little performance gain.

  8. #8
    The Time-Loop Continues ZC Developer
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saffith View Post
    Looking at it again, I think I misread that before. You're probably using the flyweight pattern, but that's not what you were describing.
    It's basically deduplication. When you've got a lot of objects that are largely identical, don't give every one of them its own copy of the common data. Just keep one copy of each and give each instance a pointer. It's the same way combos work in ZC, for instance; each one on the screen is just a combo number rather than a separate copy of the definition.


    What I mean to say is that the "root of all evil" optimization isn't high-level design. It's stuff like rewriting a function in assembly to save a few clock cycles. Small things that make the code harder to understand and maintain for relatively little performance gain.
    I think I see what you mean though. [side note; awful explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyweight_pattern ]
    It's like a chess program. Each piece has no information about itself, not even it's position. Then you get to the board, which defines all the pieces together as bit states. Then you have to up to a component that manages boards just to see if there's something at square 31, and so on. Very efficient.

    Yep, ZC does do a lot of things well. Which is why I always think that rewriting it would be easy, because it's easy to see where the bare bones of it is very sane, and where it isn't.


    There's probably many different definitions people have of what "optimization" is I guess. Trying to save a few cycles from a function that gets called 1000 times to me is stupid. Trying to stop potential L2 cache miss 1000 times on different particles, entities, and collision stuff is not stupid. That's just the way I see it.

    Let's just put it this way:
    I have a 1.8GHZ CPU which comes out to *roughly* 30,000,000 CYCLES/FRAME. If I was taking 3% of that, then optimized it down to 1% of that, then those come out to be an improvement of 20,000 CYCLES/FRAME or 1,200,000 CYCLES per SECOND.

    ....I wonder if I can SIMD that? ..hmm.
    Last edited by Gleeok; 07-09-2015 at 07:22 AM. Reason: math is hard when you are tired
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  9. #9
    Keese Samer's Avatar
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    I understood everything you said @Gleeok .
    I never tried doing tile editor programming before but it seems relatively difficult w/o a plan.

    Arrays and hash tables, basically any ADT has no information about itself unless it's dynamically allocated properly.
    I know you know (return by reference instead of value for relative faster accesses)

  10. #10
    The Time-Loop Continues ZC Developer
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    I'm just glad no one noticed my totally and completely wrong hypothetical argument calculation of cpu cycles thing yet... whew, that was a close call.... >_>


    Quote Originally Posted by Samer View Post
    Arrays and hash tables, basically any ADT has no information about itself unless it's dynamically allocated properly.
    I know you know (return by reference instead of value for relative faster accesses)
    Dynamic allocation is another good topic. That's another thing I realized I've been doing wrong this whole time (D'oh!). There should be zero allocation/deallocation (s) in a perfect system. I'm still working on it, but I'm confident that if/when it gets done that number will be zero.


    [edit] @Samer : A tile editor is actually very simple to make. It's basically just two scrollable panels in a window that let you use OpenGL to render what's inside. The rest is just rectangles and offsets. Simple addition and subtraction.The problem I have is:

    1) I suck with layouts and UI stuff, and
    2) I have trouble working with very large API's or tools like QT or wxWidgets, etc..

    To actually put in the code that does something is easy for me, but reading through documentation and getting the editor to do what I want it to is extremely time consuming and frustrating. For example, it took me about 15 minutes to write this function that lets you pick out any amount of random tiles you want from an image, then add them to a tileset and create new files for them, but then it took 2 hours just to get the UI window to not crash. :mad: Here's another one: I stopped working on the editor completely because after adding a timer to it so I could show tiles animating at 60FPS, the OpenGL windows just start freaking out completely. No idea why, it wasn't documented. I finally just said" fuck it."
    Last edited by Gleeok; 07-09-2015 at 08:01 AM.
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