Visual Harmonics

Copying arrays, need speed?

Nick Wiggill — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:22:23 +0000

I’ve added this one to the ActionScript Optimisations page:

http://agit8.turbulent.ca/bwp/2008/08/04/flash-as3-optimization-fastest-way-to-copy-an-array/

Memoisation: Give me space, take your time

Nick Wiggill — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:21:19 +0000

…Or vice versa. Memoisation is another option for those doing optimisation, and unlike the others you can find on the ActionScript Optimisations page, this one is more algorithmic than syntactical in nature.

In cases where you call an expensive function multiple times with the same parameters, you can cache the results of that function call using the parameters as a dictionary/hashtable key.

Go get the full story.

Managing entities effectively in Flash games

Nick Wiggill — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:14:23 +0000

Here’s some Very Relevant Information for those serious about maintainable game code: Game Poetry. (Quality articles all round over there, I may have to add this one to the blogroll…)

At some point if you’re planning on making bigger and better games, you’re going to need an effective entity management core in place. Whilst nothing like what we see in C++ titles, the nice thing about Flash is that it tends to whittle away the concepts to the very basics, due to it’s performance considerations.

Of course, games are not the only place you are likely to find this, as evidenced by the author’s running example.