[DimensionWarped]

Azu, on 14 August 2011 - 09:03 PM, said:

Problem with GM is that a lot of people doesn't seem to know how to optimize.

It has nothing to do with that. How well Gamemaker in general performs varies greatly depending on certain elements of a system that can be very hard to change. My primary computer has a rather high end AMD Phenom II X4 processor and a moderately decent Radeon HD 5770, yet it grinds to a halt playing certain GM games that an old Core 2 Duo laptop will run at full frames with no effort whatsoever simply because on the one computer, an svchost container starts eating CPU like crazy. It doing heap validate calls over and over and it page faults like crazy. I'm talking like 35,000 page faults per second. On some GM games, they still run alright (notably Spelunky), but as they get more complex, it just becomes totally unmanageable. In fact, I can fix the performance issue just by killing the svchost process, but then Windows goes berserk, various drivers stop working including sound, and it tries to force itself to shutdown (which can be canceled fortunately). Unlike Linux there isn't really a good way to get stuff back to running properly afterwards either. I don't really know a proper fix. Oddly, just unplugging my mouse increases the frame rate by about 60% and

MMF2 has the advantage of at least being consistently shitty across all platforms.

That said, if compatibility isn't a primary concern, GM has way more control than MMF2 and its a lot faster to program with. I don't know if there is a major performance advantage... I've found pretty interesting ways of storing object references in MMF so that object selection doesn't become the obscene performance hit that it can be doing what people have traditionally done, but I'd much rather work in code than in MMF's cumbersome event format, especially when you start trying to do nested conditions which is a heinous pain in the ass with MMF.

This post has been edited by DimensionWarped: 15 August 2011 - 10:20 PM

[W.A.C.]

I have decided to use Construct Classic but I have an important question to the community: How important is 4:3 mode to you? The game I'm going to make will definitely be in widescreen by default but I am not sure how difficult it would be to get in 4:3 as well. I'm basically wondering how important is that mode to people and if it's worth the hassle. >_> The resolution by default will probably be 426x240 so in full screen mode, I don't think it would necessarily shaft 4:3 users too much unless their monitor is really old. Throughout my life, whenever I had the option to watch a film in widescreen instead of seeing it get cropped for 4:3 TV's, I always preferred seeing it in widescreen regardless of the TV size even if it was in super widescreen. Since the game would be designed with widescreen in mind, having a 4:3 option would essentially crop what people see. :/

[BlazeHedgehog]

Though I make 16:9 fangames, I am still one of the dozen or so people still running 4:3.

But I am probably in the minority. Still would be nice, though.

[W.A.C.]

Possibly a minority, but a lot of people still don't have widescreen monitors. Doesn't your latest fangame project have both a 4:3 and 16:9 mode? How difficult was that to implement? I might want to do things like have it where enemies are shooting or throwing stuff from quite a distance but take advantage of the widescreen to where they aren't doing that offscreen. Plus I also have some ideas for cutscenes that rely a bit on the fact it's in widescreen.

[DimensionWarped]

The number of people without widescreen monitors is getting pretty small these days. It really doesn't matter whether you do primarily 16:9 or 4:3 though since you can crop either to the other (or settle on some happy medium) and the only real impact it should have gameplay-wise is on various side to side differences like when you start having your various actors do their acting and such. For the record, 16:9 should take priority since left/right tend to be more important for that sort of thing than up and down.

[Shadow Hog]

You're also kind of ignoring that 16:10 is also very prevalent in modern day monitors, of course.

Although given the choice between 16:10 and 16:9, I'd go with 16:9 (the wider aspect ratio).

[Namagem]

You guys are forgetting about the best game creation tool out right now: Stencyl.

Seriously, if you haven't, check it out.

[Mercury]

Namagem, on 30 August 2011 - 12:57 PM, said:

You guys are forgetting about the best game creation tool out right now: Stencyl.

Seriously, if you haven't, check it out.

Au contraire:

Mercury, on 15 August 2011 - 03:53 AM, said:

But the three big ones aren't your only option. Stencyl came out recently, and looks pretty solid (especially for beginners). There shouldn't be compatibility issues with it, either, seeing as how it exports to Flash.

Azu, on 15 August 2011 - 07:27 AM, said:

I don't think anyone has made a Sonic Engine for Stencyl or is planning too.

Black Squirrel, on 15 August 2011 - 11:35 AM, said:

STENCYL:

Lots of talk about it being the best thing since sliced bread, not much has been shown to prove it. I've yet to see any sort of fangame use Stencyl as its IDE of choice. Probably not good for fangames at this stage.

Candescence, on 15 August 2011 - 12:10 PM, said:

Quote

Lots of talk about it being the best thing since sliced bread, not much has been shown to prove it. I've yet to see any sort of fangame use Stencyl as its IDE of choice. Probably not good for fangames at this stage.

And the event system is a massive turn-off. The Scratch system? Seriously? Also, Flash?

[DimensionWarped]

Shadow Hog, on 30 August 2011 - 08:44 AM, said:

You're also kind of ignoring that 16:10 is also very prevalent in modern day monitors, of course.

Although given the choice between 16:10 and 16:9, I'd go with 16:9 (the wider aspect ratio).

You can barely even buy 16:10 anymore, and most of them are 1680x1050 rather than 1900x1200.

[KingofHarts]

I think it shouldnt matter about limitations... it all comes down to what you prefer working with... If you are new, I suggest giving a test run with hacking, and/or some fangaming programs also... see what your preference is. Take a look at hackers. They have more roadblocks to work around than any fangaming software out there, due to the limitations of the platforms they are based on. Software like Game Maker, and MMF2 don't have those types of limitations... They may have their own ways of working which can make some aspects difficult, but it can all be worked round with experience and know how... arguing over which one is superior seems like a moot point to me. But, thats only my opinion. BTW I use Game Maker... I agree that there are many unlikeable things about it... but as I said, they can be worked around... Besides, the reason its less prominent as a popular fan game program is because kids are the majority who use it... Do a google search for a game creation program and its the first thing to pop up. Anyone don't believe me, ask this guy screen-named Mercury... maybe you've heard of him...

[Hez]

Shadow Hog, on 30 August 2011 - 08:44 AM, said:

You're also kind of ignoring that 16:10 is also very prevalent in modern day monitors, of course.

Although given the choice between 16:10 and 16:9, I'd go with 16:9 (the wider aspect ratio).

Im highly considering rereleasing Sonic Classic 1 in 16:9 ratio. I also am considering making Sonic Classic 2 16:9 only.

[W.A.C.]

KingofHarts, on 02 September 2011 - 02:30 AM, said:

I think it shouldnt matter about limitations... it all comes down to what you prefer working with... If you are new, I suggest giving a test run with hacking, and/or some fangaming programs also... see what your preference is. Take a look at hackers. They have more roadblocks to work around than any fangaming software out there, due to the limitations of the platforms they are based on. Software like Game Maker, and MMF2 don't have those types of limitations... They may have their own ways of working which can make some aspects difficult, but it can all be worked round with experience and know how... arguing over which one is superior seems like a moot point to me. But, thats only my opinion. BTW I use Game Maker... I agree that there are many unlikeable things about it... but as I said, they can be worked around... Besides, the reason its less prominent as a popular fan game program is because kids are the majority who use it... Do a google search for a game creation program and its the first thing to pop up. Anyone don't believe me, ask this guy screen-named Mercury... maybe you've heard of him...

I've been trying to learn Construct lately and probably one of the biggest issues is the lack of tutorials compared to something like MMF2. I know that Construct is definitely capable of what I want to do but I wonder if I should consider MMF2 for the sake of having more resources. Considering how so few projects use Construct, it would be cool if I released a fangame using that program since it's a pretty underrated program that's quite good. As for Game Maker, it has never really interested me. It's capable of good things, but I generally don't care for how it's setup for playing games and the fact a lot of people can't even run Game Maker games makes me never want to use it.

Hez, on 02 September 2011 - 12:12 PM, said:

Im highly considering rereleasing Sonic Classic 1 in 16:9 ratio. I also am considering making Sonic Classic 2 16:9 only.

When I play Classic 1, since the full screen mode is in a resolution that's smaller than mine which results in the game looking blurry, I maximize the window so the pixels are sharp and then use my monitor's 4:3 mode so it isn't stretched. Definitely not ideal since it would run better at a normal full screen mode. I know that in VVVVVV, for full screen resolution options, there's an "auto" setting for full screen that allows it run at an ideal resolution. Perhaps you could implement something like that?