I'm about to buy MMF 1.5, and just want to know what bugs there are so I'm ready for it. I know about the bug regarding animation speed in the event editor but what others are there?
Craps, I'm an old man!
Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
13th September, 2003 at 16:20:38 -
sometimes its hard to tell the difference between MMF's bugs and your own. so sometimes you'll get people saying "MMF is really buggy" just becuase they've made an error in their code.
ok, so concrete bugs include the animation speed, and you get problems using 3rd party extensions and certain active x controls. sometimes MMF will crash, as will any software, and once before it has corrupted my cca file, which CT said is pretty much unheard of now.
you can't buy any software expecting it to be bug free; i don't think you'd be dissapointed with MMF with reagards to stability. like i said, most bugs are the fault of the user.
you can't buy any software expecting it to be bug free
You know, I just realized I have a really stable game that I installed on my computer about 3 years ago. TAK has never crashed on me, even though I played it for about 270 hours.
I hate the picture editor, but the way the codiing is set up in the event list is so much easier to read. But it seemed to max out at only 280 object on screen.
I'm not sure bout MMF 1.5 but if my knowledge of 1.5 serves me right, I don't think they fixed 'em in MMF:
- 3rd party extensions are usually quite buggy and crash unexpectedly
- Some little problems may happen with active objects at times, sometimes making them disappear, sometimes simply having a certain active object in a frame could just crash the computer. This could be fixed by simply copying and pasting everything to another frame, but it's tedious.
- "Always" events and timer events don't always work as they should. The timer events don't even do 0.01 seconds .
- From what I've heard, the "Create" actions sometimes don't work, though it could just be a problem with the Always/timer conditions.
That's a few I've had problems with. It ain't always the fault of the user. I'm certain of it. Though I guess the MMF speeds and animations could also count as bugs, depending on how you use em. I don't really have much problem with those anymore. My games are more text-based these days.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
- 3rd party extensions can crash if you don't use them right
- I've never had this. Hitting the object limit? (you can change it)
- MMF game loop runs at 50fps, you CAN'T do 0.01 seconds.
- Again, object limit, I've never had this.
Plus MMF is still being updated so it's pretty much bug-free now.
That won't work. It's multi-screen, and uses 640x480 scrolling(maybe 800x600 if I need a larger screen for a control panel), so it needs all the shots created to hit objects outside the screen.
Hmm.....nothing under 1.7ghz will run it I guess.
BTW, has anyone seen the frag box? That thing is so small. I wish I could afford it.
Behaviors SUCK. Don't ever use a behavior. You can't make new ones, you can't rename the existing one. It's just a hole for events to get lost and bug up the natural order of MMF's event loop.
Don't use global objects. It causes memory leaks.
Always remember to destroy your objects if you're using a lot of them -- using too many and having events try to access them after they've left the playfield's "Allowable" area will cause the game to crash eventually.
Using too many fastloops produce unexpected results. The focus of event conditions is lost sometimes when taken into a fastloop (Shooting actions are an example). Use a Create Object action instead. Mixing Event Conditions involving Alterable Values and Global Values with fastloops can sometimes affect the trigger of these events. If using an "On Loop" condition in an event, always place that at the very top of the conditions list.
Global Values, Score, and Lives do not reset when the game is reset. You must do this manually on the title screen.
Arrays will not load on Start of Frame. Use the Event "Timer = 00:01" instead and allow the array approximately 300ms to compensate. A global array helps eliminate the need to do this every frame of the game.
A few well-known Problems with specific extensions:
DMC2. Always remember to TerminateBass() on End of Application event. Failure to do so can result in crashes and instability.
Movement. Using too many movement event conditions / objects to check for will result in most earlier builds of MMF1.5 to crash unexpectedly on startup. Use object with discretion.
System Background Box. This extension appears on the Windows Control layer, meaning it will always appear above all Active Objects and Background Objects.
Oh, I almost forgot. When you're using Qualifiers, they can also act strangely depending on how they're used. If used in a fastloop they sometimes (rarely) interfere with unrelated events that involve a qualifier. It depends on how often you're messing with Alterable Values before the Qualifying objects' values get crossed or your events won't affect them at random. It's rare this will happen to you unless you use fastloops on every frame for specific custom engines like I do....
An object identified through events by it's qualifier won't always respond to Overlap / Collision events.
That said, Collision events will not work with a custom engine that sets the X/Y values manually every frame. Use an Overlap event instead. You won't be able to do a Bounce or Reverse action normally in this situation, but if you're using a custom engine to detect this kind of stuff, I'd assume you'd want to program your own, anyway.
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