Thoughts about 1.2

[Kirdan]

Ok, I downloaded and compiled 1.2.1 and have played a few games.

First... it seems to me the AI is easier to beat nearing too easy. (ok.. maybe I'm just getting better).

But worse. The game has become annoyingly slow on my 1.4Gz Pentium M and the new graphics is (although nice) much harder to se XP levels on.
I suspect the more detailed graphics is part of the reason for the slow updates.

I much say I prefer the old 1.0/1.1 graphics. To me wesnoth is a strategy game. I'm used to playing boardgames with small cardboard pieces, It's not that important that it is "artwork", just as long as you clearly can se the information and the games moves rapidly.

Maybe it's time to offer graphic themes for units and map, like FreeCiv does?

[Tux2B]

I think that the main problem is that it is slow on Windows, while being a 2D game it shouldn't be that slow.
As most people use Windows, it would be a good thing if the code was optimized. And besides, I don't think that they are the graphics that slow the game down.

[Kirdan]

I'm not on Windows. I'm on Ubuntu Dapper.

[Tux2B]

In that case Wesnoth really needs optimization, IMHO.

[torangan]

Don't worry, performance is rather high on the priority list those days. But especially for Linux builds, an important question is which options were used to compile it and which compiler version. You can't compare binaries there easily.

[Gus]

If OpenGL became used instead of SDL, this would certainly provide a good speed-up. I really am excited about this =)

[Tux2B]

But then, your graphic card would need to be compatible enough with Linux to have 3D acceleration.
And it isn't the case with my computer

[Gus]

I'm no expert, but it could maybe work roughly as fast as with SDL, using software OpenGL.

[torangan]

No, OpenGL on software will be slower then SDL as it does updates of the whole screen instead of sections. If done by the graphics card this is faster, done in software it'll be slower.
BTW I wouldn't consider the new graphics the sole source of slowdown. Rather the expansion of the possible options for WML. There are way more variables to influence the engine those days which require some processing power as well.

[Gus]

No, OpenGL on software will be slower then SDL as it does updates of the whole screen instead of sections. If done by the graphics card this is faster, done in software it'll be slower.

I'm not sure i understand correctly what you say, so forgive me if i'm wrong.
- OpenGL with any video card bought in the last 5 years would be significantly faster than SDL now.
- software OpenGL would be slow. You seem to say it will be slower than SDL, i'm not sure about that, but as i said before, i don't know much about this from a programming standpoint, so you may very well be right.

BTW I wouldn't consider the new graphics the sole source of slowdown.

It's not about the "new" graphics, but the fact that SDL is very resource-consuming.

[Eleazar]

But worse. The game has become annoyingly slow on my 1.4Gz Pentium M and the new graphics is (although nice) much harder to se XP levels on.

Please explain.

[torangan]

OpenGL with a halfways recent graphics card can be faster IF you've got a driver support the 3D part. On Linux, FreeBSD or others there's no guarantee for that.
Without a good driver it'll most likely be slower then SDL because the rendering methods which are efficient with hardware support aren't as efficient what's used in SDL.
SDL actually is a rather slim and fast 2D API. The problem is rather that screen sizes are getting larger and the amount of data to transfer grew faster then transfer speed. From what I know you can't be much faster then SDL without hardware support. Don't mistake OpenGL for the ultimate hero resolving all problems. Scrolling will be faster and animations will take less CPU but the AI won't get faster from it for example. Neither will complex WML processing. 1.2.2 should feature faster saves for example because YogiHH cut down the amount of redundant data in saves. Not related to graphics at all.

BTW one important thing to note about 1.2 vs. 1.0 is the question: do you mean speed or gamespeed when you say it's slower? The latter deliberatly got slowed down, animations do take more time by design. One should always compare turbo speed on both before stating that 1.2 is so much slower...

[Kirdan]

BTW one important thing to note about 1.2 vs. 1.0 is the question: do you mean speed or gamespeed when you say it's slower? The latter deliberatly got slowed down, animations do take more time by design. One should always compare turbo speed on both before stating that 1.2 is so much slower...

Gamespeed.

I play with fast movements, and I very often (with 1.2) find my self mouse clicking before the system is ready for my move, often clicking the wrong place because scrolling/movement of units are slow. No so with 1.0/1.1

As I says. Wesnoth is a strategy game to me. It doesn't matter if there are 2 or 20 animations when a unit fights or dies (and please.. no sound). I just want a responsive system. 1.2 is IMHO becoming not responsive to the limit of being annoying.
But maybe I just haven't tuned it enough. I just did a configure/make/make install on Ubuntu Dapper on a 1.4GHz Pentium M, which runs the standard Dapper package just fine.

[Gus]

SDL actually is a rather slim and fast 2D API. The problem is rather that screen sizes are getting larger and the amount of data to transfer grew faster then transfer speed. From what I know you can't be much faster then SDL without hardware support.

For having coded a bit using SDL, it uses a lot of resources, either CPU or memory. I can't give numbers, though, so maybe it is simply a matter of perspective. Anyway, i don't have speed problems on my comp ^^

[zookeeper]

I play with fast movements, and I very often (with 1.2) find my self mouse clicking before the system is ready for my move, often clicking the wrong place because scrolling/movement of units are slow. No so with 1.0/1.1

Unfortunately, that's not merely a performance problem, but a design/engine bug. Until fight animations, for example, have finished, you can't do anything. Which can get highly annoying, since animations of course shouldn't block anything in most cases.

But hopefully it'll get fixed eventually anyway.