Disable Certain Background Transitions

[Aabra]

It would be nice if we could disable specific background transitions. (Specifically the ones that eat up a lot of cpu) Most transitions work great on my system however whenever I get a transition where the background moves in from one side with a motion blur and bounces around before settling - hyperspin lags a *lot* and it looks extremely bad.

It would be nice if we could enable or disable certain transitions for both personal taste, and also to help those with somewhat older systems. (Mine is a P4 3ghz with 1.5 gigs of ram)

[billpa]

There have been some brief discussions about this. I could see it happening but as of right now, its not one of BBBs top priorities. I am running about the same system as you and I notice the same thing with that one transition in particular. Just curious, have you had any lag on themes (slow down) in particular some of my heavy SWF themes like Chicken Shift, Double Dragon, Elevator Action.

[BadBoyBill]

Whats your framerate on your output swf's billpa, I just realized that someone sent me a fla the other day and it was at the default 12fps, then I dawned on me that this is way slower than HS's set framerate which could cause a slowdown.

I will look into having a setting to remove the intense backgrounds.

[Aabra]

Elevator Action does slow down a fair bit, Double Dragon slows down a tad, but Chicken Shift is more or less ok - although maybe it's slowing down... I don't know how fast the chicken and eggs are supposed to be moving.

The background transition is what really makes the difference though. Big themes like Dr. Mario work great if I get a basic transition, but even a simple theme like X-Men will slow down if I get that motion-blur one.

All hell breaks loose however if I get the motion-blur transition at the same time as a complicated theme like Elevator action.

[BadBoyBill]

I'll add the option in the next release to disable transitions. Can you list out which ones are the worst.

[Aabra]

Sure thing. Anything with motion blur is bad, I'm going out for dinner with my gf so I can't list them all now. I'll do it in a few hours when I get back.

[billpa]

my default has always been 60fps

[BadBoyBill]

I'd set it out to 120 unless your doing frame by frame pictures. I think we talked about that but I forget.

[billpa]

yea...I will try that out...and everything will be done natively in Flash 9...no more AE. In fact, I will make that a priority...to redo a few of the SWF heavy themes.

[Aabra]

Ok, I went through this as much as I could. I realize that I've got pretty much the perfect computer to test this out. *Just* enough to run Hyperspin well, but I'll immediately notice anything that starts hogging cpu. hehe

So here are the transitions as I see them, I'm sure I'm missing a ton. The basic rule of thumb is that anything with a motion blur on it causes *extreme* lag - to the point where the sound from the video stutters.

Anything with a true fadein from 1 corner or side to another also eats cpu - although not even in the same realm as the motion blur but it is noticeable if the theme itself is also a bit complicated. There were 2 fades that I saw - one was a real fade and another was different - like 8 bars which were fading in differently. (hard to explain with words) the second one was much more cpu effecient.

Any transition where the background isn't really modified, it's only sliced into a few pieces uses almost no cpu. eg: The ones where the top half meets the bottom half, left meets right.... there's another where there are maybe 4 slices which slide in quickly from the top or sides.

Also when the image expands out from the middle (But is *not* using the fade... there's a similar one that does the same thing except fades in) it uses almost no cpu. In contrast the version of this which does fade in uses a moderate amount of cpu - I would disable this one on my crappy computer. :bawling:

When the screen is divided into several slices and those slices all more or less skew into place it uses a moderate amount of cpu. Less than the fadein from the middle but more than most of the others. It's borderline for me - I'd have to play with it a lot more before deciding whether to enable or disable it.


I'm sure I've left some out but hopefully this info will help you out. Again though I want to emphasize that the motion blur ones are *way* worse than any of the others. The worst any of the others cause is a mild annoyance. The motion blur ones however ruin the experience.

Thanks for all your work on this. It really is awesome. :)

edit: Just wanted to add that a bit of slow down also occurs in the transitions where the background is divided into *many* (like 40?) squares.

[BadBoyBill]

Thanks, these will have the option to be disabled in the next version.

[kingb33]

It would be nice if we could disable specific background transitions. (Specifically the ones that eat up a lot of cpu) Most transitions work great on my system however whenever I get a transition where the background moves in from one side with a motion blur and bounces around before settling - hyperspin lags a *lot* and it looks extremely bad.

It would be nice if we could enable or disable certain transitions for both personal taste, and also to help those with somewhat older systems. (Mine is a P4 3ghz with 1.5 gigs of ram)

this transition you mentioned is the one transition that really bogs down my computer as well....and I have pretty high spec machine too.

[Aabra]

Awesome. I can't wait for the next version. Thanks so much BBB. I just noticed one more transition however that bogs me down. It's the exact same as the *really* bad one with motion blur, except without the motion blur. The one that slides in and bounces around for a while. That one also bogs me down pretty badly.

Strange that bouncing doesn't affect my computer at all when it's artwork for a theme, but when it's the background it seems to choke. Maybe it's that particular style of bounce that's the problem? *shrug*

[scrapple]

anxiously waiting on this as well... my themes are crawling right now with the flashy background transitions.... id like a feature to just disable all flash animated backgrounds, so they just appear without any effects.

[brian_hoffman]

Without any? Wow thats a pretty slow system... You must not be able to run many emus at full speed.. Why I agree that the ability to disable features for some may be needed for a few.. I wouldnt like to think that because of this demand that it will hinder billy from wanting to add better effects for those fortunate enough to have very fast pc's.

[BadBoyBill]

I think without animated backgrounds really would take away from the whole concept of animated themes, it must be pretty bad if its slowing down on just regular transitions. Doing an animated frontend to run on slower pc's is probably quite the challenge, I suggest lowering the resolution down to 640 x 480, which will help alot and don't run any other programs at the same time either. I will have options to remove some of the blur transitions, but probably not all, I cant try and make this run awesome for you and at the same time hold everyone else back that wants more intense features that I'm holding back from.

[Aabra]

Oh I don't think anybody is saying to stop making intense stuff for those with good computers. We're all just a bunch of losers with our P4 comps. :(

For each transition add a new variable cpuintensity (or something similar) and give it a value of 1, 2, or 3.

Then make a setting: transition_complexity - or something along those lines.

Default would be 3. (everything) However users could set it to 1,2,3, or even 0.

0 would disable all of them and simply pop the next background up when a theme is selected - 1 would enable the very low intensity transitions, 2 the medium ones, and 3 the very intense.

That's all that's needed really. A checkbox or something with all the transitions listed, etc that needs to be updated every time a new one is added isn't necessary.

[BadBoyBill]

It's easy to just say that, but my point is also that if you start taking away from HS then it starts not being HS anymore and something less, I said I would have the option to remove the more cpu intensive background transitions alread also, but I dont want to keep writing on my spare time to having the ability to removing things from HS, but rather adding. I also threw out some suggestions of lowering the resolution, this helps, if you run an older pc then your probably gonna need to run HS at a lower res to make up for it.

[BadBoyBill]

Ok I think Im gonna put some time into getting background transitions to be switched on or off, I dont think I'll do the different levels, it will be either on or off for a group of animations, which I'm pretty sure by now what they are, mainly the blur ones. What will happen is you can turn them off but they will be replace by maybe just a plain ol' fade transition or something. I will also probably add the option to turn every background animation off.

This is mainly important for background animations since its doing these blur animations to large images which can slow the rest of a theme down. But on the other hand, I will be adding better effects for normal artworks which arent as big of pictures but there will be no option to turn these off, if a theme creator chooses to use an animation then thats what it will be, you will have the option yourself to edit the theme or choose not to use that theme. So there will be blur animations possible in the future for normal artworks and other cool ones that I have in mind. These wont be as hard on the cpu as doing a whole background.

[theob42]

quick question, are these slowdowns a result of a slow cpu or slow video card. i have a p4 2.4 ghz 1.5 gb ram for my arcade, but i havent tried hs on that yet. would a faster video card help? or a faster chip. if its the chip then i might need to get a new comp together, cause i really like HS and its definately gonna be my front end for my cab.

[Dazz]

quick question, are these slowdowns a result of a slow cpu or slow video card. i have a p4 2.4 ghz 1.5 gb ram for my arcade, but i havent tried hs on that yet. would a faster video card help? or a faster chip. if its the chip then i might need to get a new comp together, cause i really like HS and its definately gonna be my front end for my cab.Your CPU is the limitation. A P4 really can't handle it.

[BadBoyBill]

Definitely new chip, not new vid card.

[theob42]

ok great thanks, so then hs supports multicore cpus? so a dual core? or quad would definately do the job? and how does the video card factor into this? sorry for so many questions but just want to run HS as smooth as it possibly can run :)
actually does the video card matter that much? would onboard video do the job if i have a good dual core or quad core???

[BadBoyBill]

actually does the video card matter that much? would onboard video do the job if i have a good dual core or quad core???


If you have a dual core, doesnt have to be the best, and onboard video, HS will run perfect and very fast.

[billpa]

If you haven't tried HS on that comp, I would give it a whirl. I have the same specs and I can run HS well with Advanced Animations turned off. Everything is processor intensive for the most part so onboard video will be fine. Any run of the mill dual core will work great. They are pretty cheap nowadays.

[theob42]

ok great thanks guys