Fenix Knowledge Base

[Racemaniac]

we all discover strange things that shouldn't do what they do, or that simply don't work.
lets group all those things, cause if we all keep it to ourselves it's a lot of information lost

things i know so far:
1. the split command doesn't work on the gp32
2. let_me_alone() doesn't kill the father process of the process that uses it, i don't know about other processes...
3.unlike java, where i got quite some experience, the initialisation of an array (array[2] for example) reserves memory for a number of elements up to the index given, not like in java for the given number of elements, so in fenix array[2] will give an array of 3 elements, in java it would be one of 2 elements.
4.fenix has a strange way of rounding numbers,it just gets rid of the decimals (so 5.99 becomse 5), main problem with this is for example when you use the advance command, it does the same with angles... and since there are a limited number of directions you can move in it can be disturbing (was visible in quiest's minigame project, the sliding game's "disc" had a drift to the left because of this)
5.when stopping a song, and unloading it, make a little waitloop in between, or you'll get noise...
6.fenix has no protection against arrays going beyond their values, if you habe the array initialised as array[5], and write in the code array[6]=...., the compiler will give an arror, but if you use array, and i gets for example the value six, you'll have a typical pointer overflow, no telling what will happen...

 

[Goity]

There's something wrong vwith making space style shooters on fenix also for some reason.

 

[Hokutoy]

7. When using "XADVANCE" comand in GP32 for first time in the game, your process will freeze for a few seconds. Next time it will work fine.
Tip: To avoid this "bug" use Xadvance comand early in your game, between black screens or in the menu so your main game will not get freezed.

 

[Quiest]

^ same goes for "ADVANCE"

8. not being able to save an array of strings sucks
9. alpha command working, but not really, can`t tell when & why (not)...

Racemaniac, I tried your solution with the kill father but it is still crashing on my blu+... are you completely sure on point 2?

I also do not notice any noise when unloading a song :huh:

 

[Racemaniac]

^ same goes for "ADVANCE"

8. not being able to save an array of strings sucks
9. alpha command working, but not really, can`t tell when & why (not)...

Racemaniac, I tried your solution with the kill father but it is still crashing on my blu+... are you completely sure on point 2?

I also do not notice any noise when unloading a song :huh:

​

about 2: i had the same happen in my metaphysik, the warp calls the next level, which does a let_me_alone, so all objects are removed, the next level had a warp on the same place, but it didn't animate.
i added a signal(father,s_kill), the old warp was removed and evertything worked, so i'm pretty sure about that
about the sound: i'm not sure of the exact cause, i had this:
stop_music
unload_song
load_song
play_music
i had to put a waitloop somewhere or i had noise.... i don't know what exactly caused it...

 

[Quiest]

Ah okay, I got that wrong, I stop a song, then I unlopad pretty much else (fpg, fonts) and thgen the song, so this might be enough wait time for not crackling.

 

[Racemaniac]

strange it still didn't work on your blu+
i had come to a point where just as you described the game froze on my gp32 (so not just the things with alpha that were invisible, it completely froze), i added the kill father, and it worked, and i saw the trail!
i'll send you the code perhaps?
*edit1*
hmmm, strange, i tried modifying your code, it doesn't show alpha, maybe i altered something else too... i'll have to investigate ^^
*edit2*
hmmm, i've been trying it ,besides the father issue other things must be happening here...
i had altered the alpha to something like nr*50 or so, don't really remember, then i had like your blu+ a freeze when teh game loaded
i then added the signal(father,s_kill) and the game worked on my gp32, with alpha!!

i now added your calculation of the alpha's, and it freezes, if i just give it those alphas, still freezes... so besides the father bug there's another bug working, but that can be hard to trace...

 

[Quiest]

10.
Don`t declare any variables (except privates of course) in included files.
It won`t run properly on the gp32.
Strange thing I noticed: it does not screw up everything just those stuff that needs the included files number 2,4,6,8, etc., so every second included file.
For example, I did every minigame in an included file now and I had the globals for every minigame in these files too and I included them in the order they are in the menu, making every second minigame crash. (Mario, MiniSlug, MLand, Tunnel, etc)