Flopsy plays Lix's lemforum pack

[Simon]

No options for Lix that affect performance. >_>;;

I don't easily see how to improve, either. Does the recording framerate tank only during large maps?

General loose ideas: Choose different encoder (software vs. hardware encoding), update video drivers, updating DirectX (but probably DirectX just ships inside Windows nowadays?) Or I can add newer Allegro libraries (that will then call into DirectX), even though Allegro library versions likely won't matter much.

-- Simon

[Flopsy]

It doesn't tend to matter what level it is I've found. The whole video either ends up being poor quality with screen freezes and screen jumps throughout, it stays on a still image for 5 seconds before catching up then freezing again or it is perfectly fine.

I'll try what you suggested next time I try to record.

[Forestidia86]

What version no. of Lix are you using?
Maybe providing a 32-bit build can help, although this is only a wild guess, but the older videos still seem to be on the 32-bit version.

[Simon]

Attached is a Lix 0.9.33 Windows 32-bit executable. Flopsy, put this where your normal Lix executable sits, and run it instead of the normal lix.exe (that is 64-bit). Does it record any better?

If it complains about missing libraries, tell me, I'll get 32-bit Allegro libs for you, then.

-- Simon

[Forestidia86]

The 32bit dlls can be found in this archve in the bin folder.

[Flopsy]

Thanks Simon and Forestidia

My initial tests of recording suggest this build might suit recording Lix a lot better.

I might only be doing post commentary going forward anyway because the levels are getting too hard to be recorded live now, the last 5 levels I have done have resulted in no solves until I solved them off camera. I'll try and record the post commentaries quite soon after I solve them anyway so I can remember what I tried before solving the levels.

[Simon]

Thanks for the feedback! I should start building and offering the 32-bit Windows version again.

Still, I wonder whether the slowness really came from the architecture of the executable. I know that the D garbage collection behaves differently, but the impact shouldn't be that big... Or the Allegro libraries' versions differ between the 64-bit and 32-bit build. I should update Allegro libraries anyway in the Windwos builds that I ship. Until then, I'm happy that we found a solution.

-- Simon

[Flopsy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N4Fz_MSfeQ

Part 42 - Daunting 24-26 is out

Another older video but the next video will definitely be a more recent video.

[Simon]

Thanks. Especially helpful to see what doesn't solve in the fixed 15-20 mins.

Derailed Level: Wibble had similar trouble with Derailed Level; it sits next to Railroad Plot merely because of theme, not of difficulty. Derailed by itself candidate for ranking harder.

Crimson Room: Also eligible for ranking harder; even though not-solving after 5 minutes is only weak evidence for ranking higher.

-- Simon

[Flopsy]

I have actually solved all the levels which I had trouble with in recent videos, I do a replay round up video in the next video I believe.

I also went back to attempt the levels which had been added to the pack recently, I did have live attempts at them but that was the video that got messed up sadly so I just ended up showing the solved replays instead. They didn't take long to solve anyway.

I don't think Crimson Room is as hard as I'm making out to be in the Part 42 video, I solved it rather quickly when I revisited it. It was Repeating Patterns which took much longer!

[Proxima]

The Crimson Room was previously ranked higher and moved down. I think it's in a good place now.

[Wibble]

Thanks. Especially helpful to see what doesn't solve in the fixed 15-20 mins.

Derailed Level: Wibble had similar trouble with Derailed Level; it sits next to Railroad Plot merely because of theme, not of difficulty. Derailed by itself candidate for ranking harder.

Crimson Room: Also eligible for ranking harder; even though not-solving after 5 minutes is only weak evidence for ranking higher.

-- Simon

Derailed Level did take a while, though most of it was me trying to force a route that just didn't work. I think Daunting is the right difficulty level for it though (maybe later in daunting if it is derailed [see what I did there] from Railroad plot).

Crimson room just has a lot of options so is fine to solve, yet tough to solve quickly.

[Simon]

All right, I'm happy to leave all these where they are, then, especially when Repeating Patterns was the hardest for Flopsy and the easiest for me among Crimson and Derailed.

If Derailed is not that much harder, we can also leave it next to Railroad Plot for theme.

-- Simon

[Flopsy]

I uploaded another video for this recently, it's a replay round up video again where I go through the levels I failed to solve and played the newer additions in the earlier ranks of the pack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cYIkSUUAPk

[Simon]

Thanks!

Platformers don't turn on hitting terrain, yes, I believe this is a misdesign. Over 10 years ago, I copied this behavior from L2 because I assumed L2 to be the gold standard.

On a fresh design, I would have the platformer turn. It's inconsistent w.r.t. the builder, and (platformer and builder) are much more closely related than (miner and digger, where the digger won't turn on steel but the miner does).



Even with the turn-on-hit builder, a builder bridge is easy to make traversable in both ways. A two-way-walkable platformer bridge is much harder with a turn-on-hit platformer, unless the two shoresides are exactly the same height. The non-turning platformer gives us more leeway. But I doubt this counterargument wins against the inconsistency argument.

At least we can fix some backroutes by giving platformers instead of giving builders.

-- Simon