At 70fps it will use about 98% cpu load. At 80 fps, it will use about 98% cpu load. At 100 fps, it will use about 98% cpu load. Notice a pattern emerging? Basically, anything below 70, and you're introducing delays which cause slowdown on the cpu and therefore more CPU time. Simply because you're using 98% CPU time doesn't mean thats the fastest your program can go - Blitz simply chews up all idle CPU time. If you turn off frame limiting and vsync, you'll probably get about 200fps, still with 98% CPU load.
Most 2D games will work pretty well on slower processes as long as you're not using TFORMIMAGE or resizing/scaling any images. The fact your cpu usage is high doesn't reflect how much power is required to run the game. A simple "REPEAT:RENDERWORLD:FLIP:FOREVER" will use 99% CPU time, even on a P4 3.4 Extreme. The only way to really find out if your game runs okay on slower processors is testing. Submit a demo to the forums, let a few people try it out, and ask what kind of CPUs they have and how it performed.
As far as what Wolron was saying about 'dirty rectangles' - only needing to draw the parts of the screen that are updated - the fastest way to achieve this is via buffer copying. After the flip, copy the FRONTBUFFER to the BACKBUFFER. Then, just draw the changes on the backbuffer that have been updated. No other drawing required. FLIP it, and these changes are reflected while the rest stays the same.
+BlackD
Most 2D games will work pretty well on slower processes as long as you're not using TFORMIMAGE or resizing/scaling any images. The fact your cpu usage is high doesn't reflect how much power is required to run the game. A simple "REPEAT:RENDERWORLD:FLIP:FOREVER" will use 99% CPU time, even on a P4 3.4 Extreme. The only way to really find out if your game runs okay on slower processors is testing. Submit a demo to the forums, let a few people try it out, and ask what kind of CPUs they have and how it performed.
As far as what Wolron was saying about 'dirty rectangles' - only needing to draw the parts of the screen that are updated - the fastest way to achieve this is via buffer copying. After the flip, copy the FRONTBUFFER to the BACKBUFFER. Then, just draw the changes on the backbuffer that have been updated. No other drawing required. FLIP it, and these changes are reflected while the rest stays the same.
+BlackD