Managing a consistent framerate

[Robin]

I am at my wits end. I can't figure out why, at the end of my little demo here, it completely freezes up. I don't know if it's all of the ships I'm drawing, or it's a combination of the drawing and the collision detection.

If you guys wish to sample my game, here it is.

It errors when you start the game, sorry.

[Ertain]

Hmm, must be the framebuffer.

[Lafolie]

Yeah, it returns an error to do with love.graphics.setRenderTarget()

[miko]

I am at my wits end. I can't figure out why, at the end of my little demo here, it completely freezes up. I don't know if it's all of the ships I'm drawing, or it's a combination of the drawing and the collision detection.

I think the reason here is that you keep moving your enemies inifinitely (so their y position becames a really large number, and drawing anything at such extreme locations can be demanding, and using such numbers for computations also). You should remove your enemies when they go off-screen both for drawing and collision detection.

This one line fixes the crashing for me (remember, this is a hacky workaround, not a real solution):

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    pincerAttack = function(changeInTime)
    if swarm.enemy[2].buzzard1.y>1000 then return end

I have some more comments here. First of all, you know that love.update() is executed every frame, don't you? Well, inside it you define a new love.keypressed function 60 (or so) times a second. What you should do instead, is either move you checks to once defined love.keypressed function or switch its current value between the earlier defined functions:

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if condition then love.keypressed=myFirstFn else love.keypressed=mySecondFn end

Also, you can shorten this construct:

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 if not menus.letsGetThePartyStarted then
...
 elseif menus.letsGetThePartyStarted then
...
end

into this:

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 if not menus.letsGetThePartyStarted then
...
 else
...
end

Why are using a framebuffer in group.draw_waves()? It should be used to "cache" your current drawing, but if you regenerate it every frame, you only make things worse.

In summary, this code could get lots of optimization (or, should I write, it could waste way less resources).

It errors when you start the game, sorry.

Change line 28 in libs/background.lua from

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mr_framebuffer = pcall(love.graphics.newFramebuffer, gf.getWidth()+50, gf.getHeight()+50)

to

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  _status, mr_framebuffer = pcall(love.graphics.newFramebuffer, gf.getWidth()+50, gf.getHeight()+50)

pcall() returns a status code (boolean) as its first argument. It has nothing to do with framebuffer support.

[Ertain]

Thank you for the help, Miko.

[BlackBulletIV]

Also, you can shorten this construct:

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 if not menus.letsGetThePartyStarted then
...
 elseif menus.letsGetThePartyStarted then
...
end

into this:

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 if not menus.letsGetThePartyStarted then
...
 else
...
end

Even shorter would be:

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if menus.letsGetThePartyStarted then
  <code that was in the else part>
else
  <code that was in the if part>
end

[Ertain]

Yeah, maybe I should organize it like that. :-?

[Ertain]

By the way, about that framebuffer issue: how shall I exactly draw to it? I know I first load it in love.load(), but do I first set the render target (in the draw() step) as the framebuffer, and then use a draw() function to set the images in the buffer?

[BlackBulletIV]

To render to it, either use love.graphics.setRenderTarget or Framebuffer:renderTo.

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love.graphics.setRenderTarget(fb)
-- draw stuff
love.graphics.setRenderTarget() -- set back to screen

or

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fb:renderTo(function()
  -- draw stuff
end)

[miko]

By the way, about that framebuffer issue: how shall I exactly draw to it? I know I first load it in love.load(), but do I first set the render target (in the draw() step) as the framebuffer, and then use a draw() function to set the images in the buffer?

There is lots of examples in this forum, check them out! For example, my code here: https://github.com/miko/Love2d-samples/ ... e/main.lua