[engine] Making Wesnoth a lot faster
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[engine] Making Wesnoth a lot faster
In my experience, Wesnoth can be a rather sluggish game. When you open the game to begin with, it takes forever to load. Then, when you go to create a game, it again takes forever to load. And, when you actually start the game, it once more takes a often horrendous amount of time to load. And the more addons you have, the slower it gets. With all the addons i have, it will often take up to a minute at each stage
So here is my suggestion:
Rather than loading, reading and caching e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g each time you hit a loading screen, Wesnoth should instead read a single file for each addon/campaign/scenario/map which would contain only the name, a thumbnail, and any other minimal details (such as a description). It would not read the whole source code for that addon and it would not check for errors etc...
And then, when you start the game, THAT'S when Wesnoth should load everything that is needed. But ONLY whats needed for that specific game, and nothing else.
So here is my suggestion:
Rather than loading, reading and caching e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g each time you hit a loading screen, Wesnoth should instead read a single file for each addon/campaign/scenario/map which would contain only the name, a thumbnail, and any other minimal details (such as a description). It would not read the whole source code for that addon and it would not check for errors etc...
And then, when you start the game, THAT'S when Wesnoth should load everything that is needed. But ONLY whats needed for that specific game, and nothing else.
- Elvish_Hunter
- Posts: 1575
- Joined: September 4th, 2009, 2:39 pm
- Location: Lintanir Forest...
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
Moved to Ideas' forum, where it belongs.
Current maintainer of these add-ons, all on 1.16:
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
This would make manual/help that is accessible through main menu empty, no?
ride on shooting star
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
There's at least one feature request for it already. However, it hasn't been done because it's difficult.
- professor_max
- Posts: 66
- Joined: June 2nd, 2011, 7:06 pm
- Location: 4, 21
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
BfW has to check all of the campaigns to ensure that they are valid and can be played. Also, some addons use parts from other addons.
Please excuse my bad English - my first language is BASIC.
Proud to be a citizen of Nowhereisland.
Proud to be a citizen of Nowhereisland.
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
I hope this statement is based on 1.9.8 and not 1.8.6. There are some performance improvements for WML loading in the development series (that came with some rather huge costs, e.g. #16571 [Gna.org]).NeoAmos wrote:In my experience, Wesnoth can be a rather sluggish game. When you open the game to begin with, it takes forever to load.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
Loosely speaking; it requires a ground-up rewrite of how WML is handled by the engine; which in fact has been done in both silvertree, and later, frogatto. These are both gpl, and it could be backported from them... it's just that that's quite hard to do.zookeeper wrote:There's at least one feature request for it already. However, it hasn't been done because it's difficult.
Anyone who did would be our hero.
Play Frogatto & Friends - a finished, open-source adventure game!
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
These comments sound like features in Wesnoth 2.0, when that happens…
Wesnoth Bestiary ( PREVIEW IT HERE )
Unit tree and stat browser
Canvas ( PREVIEW IT HERE )
Exp. map viewer
Unit tree and stat browser
Canvas ( PREVIEW IT HERE )
Exp. map viewer
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
#define Offtop
What is silvertree?
#enddef
What is silvertree?
#enddef
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
It is (or rather was) an open source RPG using the (modified) Wesnoth Engine. However, its website is down now for quite a while, so I don't think it still exists.
Crend
Crend
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Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
AFAIK it didn’t use any part of the Wesnoth engine. However, its formula language was added to Wesnoth 1.5.x in turn.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
What shadowmaster said - not using the wesnoth engine at all. Not even remotely; it was a 3d game, for starters. That right there implies tossing the entire engine block out the window, to the use a car metaphor.
Some components were similar, since dave was "rethinking and rebuilding" his previous designs, and some of the design points of previous work (like WML's syntax) were fine and didn't need fixing.
Some components were similar, since dave was "rethinking and rebuilding" his previous designs, and some of the design points of previous work (like WML's syntax) were fine and didn't need fixing.
Crendgrim wrote:It is (or rather was) an open source RPG using the (modified) Wesnoth Engine. However, its website is down now for quite a while, so I don't think it still exists.
Play Frogatto & Friends - a finished, open-source adventure game!
Re: Making Wesnoth a lot faster
Okay, then I mixed up things there. Sorry.
UMC Story Images — Story images for your campaign!