great comments guys thanks. Sorry to keep this going, but I find the topic really interesting....
I appreciate the PC isn't ideal for rock-steady 60fps and ultra smooth movement, but something is bugging me...
For example if I fire up MAME and play something on there, framerate seems totally smooth and non-jerky.
I'm thinking, perhaps its not so much a limitation of the PC, but more of Blitz or my programming skill(most likely!). I have to qualify that and say so far I've only used my Blitz3D, so I've yet to check it I can get better results with BlitzMax.
In days or yore, if I was working on an arcade game in assembler for the Amiga, my game would run at 50Hz and I'd move the sprite say, 1pixel ever frame = 50pixels per sec. There were no timing issues to contend with.
So on the PC, I have to contend with different users running different monitor rates(Hz) eg. 60, 85, 100, etc...so 1pixel per frame could be 60pixels per second on one machine or 100pixels on another.
So I employ Delta-Time, and limit the framerate to say 50Hz. Now when I watch the sprite travel from left to right, it looks smooth 90% of the time, but every now and then it jerks along ruining the smoothness.
Should I be using time based code for better results ? All the tutorials seem to steer you away from it.
I wonder if BlitzMax is better equipped to do what I want than Blitz3D. I'll get the trial and have a fiddle.
Any comments welcome
I appreciate the PC isn't ideal for rock-steady 60fps and ultra smooth movement, but something is bugging me...
For example if I fire up MAME and play something on there, framerate seems totally smooth and non-jerky.
I'm thinking, perhaps its not so much a limitation of the PC, but more of Blitz or my programming skill(most likely!). I have to qualify that and say so far I've only used my Blitz3D, so I've yet to check it I can get better results with BlitzMax.
In days or yore, if I was working on an arcade game in assembler for the Amiga, my game would run at 50Hz and I'd move the sprite say, 1pixel ever frame = 50pixels per sec. There were no timing issues to contend with.
So on the PC, I have to contend with different users running different monitor rates(Hz) eg. 60, 85, 100, etc...so 1pixel per frame could be 60pixels per second on one machine or 100pixels on another.
So I employ Delta-Time, and limit the framerate to say 50Hz. Now when I watch the sprite travel from left to right, it looks smooth 90% of the time, but every now and then it jerks along ruining the smoothness.
Should I be using time based code for better results ? All the tutorials seem to steer you away from it.
I wonder if BlitzMax is better equipped to do what I want than Blitz3D. I'll get the trial and have a fiddle.
Any comments welcome