openBOR consoles RAM problem

White Dragon

New member
OpenBOR seems to suffer from RAM problem on the consoles.
If you preload with the command "load" many playable characters, the game crashes on consoles.
for example my game loads 10 playable characters + 16 weapons +7 weapons + 4 weapons + 1 weapon.
Total: 10 playable characters and 28 weapons.
On windows and android works well. But on wii / psp crashes.
I can overcome this problem?
 
Yes that gives wii/psp disadvantages running modules, it is sad they have this limitations for now because many modules can´t be played on them so it would be nice this issue could be solved any way.
Much appreciated
 
Not really, it's just a matter of how many resources you have in use vs. available memory. A sprite is either in RAM or it isn't.

Script also changes the game big time. Depending on how they are written, you could be eating up TONS of RAM. Usually this is only a problem on the PSP or DC, since the Wii has quite a bit more RAM than either of them. Still, it's no where near what even the lowest end PC has.

Turn on the Frame Rate display in options and you can see current RAM usage. If it's more than 75% of a consoles given max RAM, your module is probably just going to be too much for it. My own projects (which are on hold bit still in place) were and are every bit as ambitious as yours, and I can tell you there is no way any of them are going to run on the PSP or DC any time soon - probably not the Wii either. It's just a trade off you might have to make for features vs. console compatibility.

I assume you know to #import functions instead of #including them; if not you are throwing at least half of your RAM away. Other than that just try to optimize your scripts as much as possible. Clean out variables and such, don't use what you don't need and so on. You know your way around a script well enough to know what I'm talking about.

Another would be to avoid load. There are tricks to load only what is selected for use and unload it otherwise. It's a PITA to do, but something that might help when you want to include a lot of playable models.

As far as Wii specific issues go, I'm afraid our resident Wii port guy (Plombo) has gone MIA for the time being. We'll see if he stops in and has anything to offer.

DC
 
Thats why i stay away from scripting as long as i can unless i have no choice, i encountered this problem with my marvel mod on psp and i added too much scripting, if you can do something without using scripts then do it that way.
In the beginning i was so excited to use scripts everywhere, for announcer during combo and some other stuff that wasnt that important to the gameplay at all and i killed the game, couldnt finish it unless i removed 4 playables and left only 1.
Try not to load everything in the beginning, load only important stuff, its possible to script select screen and not load all characters for select screen at once , i think there was conversation about loading only waiting/select and idle animations at first when loading pak file but it was rejected, i still think its not a bad idea.
 
Damon Caskey said:
Another would be to avoid load. There are tricks to load only what is selected for use and unload it otherwise. It's a PITA to do, but something that might help when you want to include a lot of playable models.

What tricks? I don't know...
 
bWWd said:
Thats why i stay away from scripting as long as i can unless i have no choice, i encountered this problem with my marvel mod on psp and i added too much scripting, if you can do something without using scripts then do it that way.

IMO that's not really good advice. There are times (more often than not) where script will actually save you RAM and processing, not to mention make whatever it is you are doing more stable.

The best method is to evaluate the feature and decide on a case by case (taking into account the module as a whole). If it's going to require a silly 10 step hackaround, just script and be done with it. You aren't proving anything (nor are you saving resources) by being "script free" and your trick probably won't work anyway (ex: grappling). At the same time, I do agree it's easy to fall in love with script and use it in places it isn't needed, and I am quite guilty of this. If it can be done with out of the box functionality then that's probably the way to go (ex. stylized HUDs).

TL;DR: Moderation for the win.

DC
 
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