Preloading and unloading animations

  • #1, by BarneyWednesday, 02. October 2013, 00:25 11 years ago
    Can you please explain how this mechanic works? I've noticed that preloading long animations eliminates delays and makes the game run smoother. But it's a bit confusing. I don't really understand when I should use the "unload" function. Do I have to use it every time a preloaded animation has been played? What happens if I don't?

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  • #2, by afrlmeWednesday, 02. October 2013, 01:48 11 years ago
    preloaded animations stay in memory until you unload them...
    you are allowed to preload x amount of information, so in other words, if you no longer require the animations then you should unload them.

    say you keep flicking between 2 specific scenes - rather than having to reload animations each time you re-enter the scene, you could preload them so that you keep things running smooth.

    preloading is usually done just before changing scenes or on entering scenes & unloading on exiting scenes or when you no longer require the animations.

    something like that.

    http://wiki.visionaire2d.net/index.php?title=Actionparts#Pre...

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  • #3, by brut69Saturday, 05. October 2013, 03:30 11 years ago
    You can unload and preload characters as well. If a character is no longer going to be used then it is a good idea to unload it.
    The main character I find is best to preload it before the game starts. This reduces the game load at the beginning and it runs smoother in the first cutscene

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  • #4, by FantozziSaturday, 05. October 2013, 09:29 11 years ago
    This is interesting. May I add another question?

    I guess "Preloading" means loaded into RAM. So if the size of the animations would be bigger than available free memory - what would happen? Would older animations thrown out of memory or would the newer ones not load or would they get in a swapfile (sorry for my bad english)?

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  • #5, by afrlmeSaturday, 05. October 2013, 13:40 11 years ago
    you can assign a larger amount of memory to store preloaded animations into via the game properties tab.

    I think animations are split into texture chunks - something like that - so they don't actually use/require as much memory as you would think.

    SimonS explained how animations & textures work in a recent post, but I can't remember the name of the thread & there's currently no method for checking/searching for all posts of x member on the forum as far as I'm aware roll

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  • #6, by AlexSaturday, 05. October 2013, 17:55 11 years ago
    the cache size for graphics in the game properties tab has nothing to do with preloaded animations. That's the cache size used for automatic caching of all images.

    If you preload an animation then textures for all animation sprites are created and stored in VRAM (graphics card memory), if the VRAM is full (or the graphics card has no own VRAM) then textures are created in RAM. If RAM gets full then you've got a problem. In this case other parts of the RAM will be swapped (written to disk) and the game will become very slow, or even worse, it will crash. So never forget to unload your animations.

    By activating the console (TAB) in the player you can see all currently created textures in (V)RAM (type SHOW TEXTURES ON and scroll with page up/down).

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  • #7, by afrlmeSaturday, 05. October 2013, 18:06 11 years ago
    the cache size for graphics in the game properties tab has nothing to do with preloaded animations. That's the cache size used for automatic caching of all images.


    ah ok dokie.

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  • #8, by gustyFriday, 11. October 2013, 01:14 11 years ago
    I just discovered this thread. Thank you everyone for all your tips and information!

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