Autorun... lags?

[redscores]

Okay, my problem is following.

I am creating an intro, the game should start with stormy weather, I try to do that with an Autorun event, but the storm effect kicks in like 10 or 15 milliseconds afterwards...

And it "lags" at the start of the map. Like an delay that distorts the screen... hard to describe.

Any ideas how to initialize your map in a better way?

 

[Andar]

That "lag" happens because autoruns are not the first thing to be checked. I heard that an event on parallel process is faster, executed as the first step of a map initialisation. So move the storm effect into a parallel process event that can later be controlled by the autorun.

 

[redscores]

Still, the screen tearing when the autorun kicks in is horrible...

 

[Celianna]

Still, the screen tearing when the autorun kicks in is horrible...

Explain? Not quite sure what you're referring to here. Andar is correct in that you'd have to use a parallel process if you want the effects to kick in immediately without seeing a slight lag.

 

[Shaz]

And are you erasing the event afterwards? Changing weather only needs to be run once. If you leave it in a parallel process event that doesn't exit or go to a new (non parallel process) page, it'll keep starting the weather over and over.


What other events do you have, that are also set to autorun or parallel process?

 

[redscores]

Well, I use a parallax processing event for fast initialization and a autorun event for the content.

But even if I disable the parallax event....

It is like... the game stops for a millisecond when the autorun kicks in and then proceeds.... kinda like lag.

 

[Andar]

Well, I use a parallax processing event for fast initialization and a autorun event for the content.

But even if I disable the parallax event....

It is like... the game stops for a millisecond when the autorun kicks in and then proceeds.... kinda like lag.

First, you're probably talking about parallel process events - please do not use the word parallax for that, because parallax backgrounds and parallax mapping are two things that have nothing to do with parallel events, and you're only confusing people if you continue to talk about parallax events.

Second, please post screenshots of both the parallel process event and the autorun event. Most probably you made a mistake in their initialization or in deactivating the parallel process, and that results in the lag. And if you show us screenshots we're probably be able to tell you how to correct them very fast.

 

[Shaz]

Make sure the screenshot shows the WHOLE event window, not just the list of commands. And if you have multiple pages/tabs, show us all of them.

 

[redscores]

Okay, how should I do a screenshot of this?

And let me tell you: I have no background tabs and my PC is way above average.

The lag comes WHEN the autorun event starts! the very moment it starts the screen stops for a millisecond.

 

[Andar]

Okay, how should I do a screenshot of this?

http://www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windows

We need to see the parallel process event and the autorun event with all event pages, so you'll need to take several screenshots.

 

[Celianna]

How to take a screenshot


You've heard people say to take a screenshot, but how does one take a screenshot of their game? Simple, while the game is running, hit the Prt Scr button on your keyboard, which is located right next to your F12 key. If you're using a laptop, you might have to use the Fn key in combination with the Prt Scr key to get it to work.


Now that you've pressed the button, it's time to paste this screenshot into an image editing software. If you don't have anything fancy such as Adobe Photoshop, GIMP or Paint.NET, no worries; you can use MS Paint instead. Open up your image editing software, create a new file, and then hit ctrl+v on your keyboard, or simply right click on the screen and select paste. This should instantly paste the screenshot into your image editing software. You can go ahead and crop the image to suit your needs, or if you don't even know what that means, you can just upload it as it is.


Save the image as a PNG, or if you really need to, as a high quality JPG.


How to upload the image to the forums


Now that you have you have an image on your computer you'd like to show us, how can you get it to show up on the forums? Firstly, you need to find an image hosting site, photobucket.com, imageshack.us and imgur.com are popular ones. If you have another image uploading website, great - use that one! Either way, upload it to the site, and then get the direct link. Don't get the resized link, or the thumbnail link, but the direct URL. You'll know you have the direct URL if the URL ends with the file extension you saved your image in (which will hopefully be .png).


Once you have this direct URL to your image, simply use the IMG tags in your forum post and paste the URL in between them. If this image is big, please leave the image in spoiler tags.


IMG tags:

[img=www.website.com/image.png]

 

[redscores]

Oh god... what? I am not saying I don't know how to take a screenshot in general, but how should I take a photo of the lag I see... 
 
But if you need the events:

 

 

 

[Peridot Gaming]

It's not a screenshot of the lag that is being asked for.  Everyone wants to see screenshots of your event pages.  It is quite possible that something on one of the tabs of the events is causing the lag effect.  This is what Andar has asked for twice.

 

[redscores]

I posted screenshots, added them in the last post.

And I tried it with completely empty autorun events, that lag always happens.

 

[Andar]

I posted screenshots, added them in the last post.

And I tried it with completely empty autorun events, that lag always happens.

OK, two things that strike me strange about those events:

1) what is that empty repeating moveroute for???

It does nothing, is set to repeat and gets erased with the event in the next command step?

Please remove it.

2) Scrolling text, set to lower speed as the first command?

Please don't tell me that what you assumed is "lag" is in reality the time needed for the slowed down (your speed setting to 1) scrolling text to appear on the screen...

Test it with a show text command, That should appear without delay if it's the first command - only if that command also "lag"s, we have to search for the source of your lag.

EDIT:

And in your first post you're talking about lagging weather effects - there is nothing like this in the events linked, so I can't say if one of the removed commands was responsible for the lag.

 

[redscores]

OK, two things that strike me strange about those events:

1) what is that empty repeating moveroute for???

It does nothing, is set to repeat and gets erased with the event in the next command step?

Please remove it.

2) Scrolling text, set to lower speed as the first command?

Please don't tell me that what you assumed is "lag" is in reality the time needed for the slowed down (your speed setting to 1) scrolling text to appear on the screen...

Test it with a show text command, That should appear without delay if it's the first command - only if that command also "lag"s, we have to search for the source of your lag.

EDIT:

And in your first post you're talking about lagging weather effects - there is nothing like this in the events linked, so I can't say if one of the removed commands was responsible for the lag.

Not laggy weather event, the weather event kicks too late in (which I fixed by using a parallel event to start the weather.)

But if you read closely, the "lag" issue is not a part of the weather issue, there are two sentences which don't refer to each other.

The weather issue is fixed, the problem is this (will explain it one last time...):

I start the map, normally it should go buttery smooth (tried without an autorun event)

When I start the Map with an autorun event that kicks, the screen will "stop" for a few milliseconds. Not a issue with the text or whatever in the event.

But it is like a LAG, the game stops for a few milliseconds and you see a distortion on the screen....

Seriously... I did explain this 10 times....

EDIT: The empty movement route is to prevent the character from moving, I mostly use that in the game when I do cutscenes.

 

[Andar]

I start the map, normally it should go buttery smooth (tried without an autorun event)
When I start the Map with an autorun event that kicks, the screen will "stop" for a few milliseconds. Not a issue with the text or whatever in the event.

But it is like a LAG, the game stops for a few milliseconds and you see a distortion on the screen....

OK, other question:

What is there on the map that should go smooth?

Are you talking about animated autotiles? Are you talking about other events that should move or be animated? Or what else are you talking about, as a map is usually static.

And that moveroute-command is basically useless, because it's removed before it can have any effect - it's the autorun that stops the player from moving.

 

[redscores]

The screen should go smooth.... I thought that was clear... it shouldn't lag, to be exact: the parallax background (starlit sky).

I don't get it, what am I explaining wrong!?!

It goes like this:

Game Start

Game Screen appears

Around 5 milliseconds micro-lag when the autorun starts (The parallax screen stops for that short time and on the upper half of the screen has a "tear" like a distortion for the time of the micro-lag).

Then the game proceeds and shows my scrolling prologue and an parallax background

I can't explain this much more detailed.....

 

[Celianna]

You can upload your game project and we'll see what's the matter. But you need to realize that autoruns DO have a slight start-up lag in the beginning. Put your 'scrolling text' in a parallel process instead. Andar is correct in saying that autoruns prevent the player from moving, but you already turned the player invisible ... it's not even necessary.


Also this screenshot you took:

Try to make 'transfer player' the last command in the event, and put everything else before that. Things can go wrong when you start turning on switches after the player is off of the map.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

If its just the stuttering effect of an autorun starting up, you could just add event commands to fade out the screen, then start the autorun, then fade screen in. Then the player wont see any stuttering.