PlayBasic V1.64N3 _Retail Upgrade_ is Now Available (13th, Oct, 2012)
The PlayBasic V1.64N3 upgrade was slated as a bug fix, hence the version number, as after releasing V1.64N2 a few fairly major issues were discovered in the mapping command sets. While those issues have been addressed, we've again taken this opportunity to apply another round of bug the optimizations to the package. There's even some completely new functionality in way of multi core support with the addition of threading, being added to the Blit Image library functions.
Bug Fixes
Bug wise, the main changes would be the improved block classification routines in when importing blocks in the maps, as well as localizing the sprite to map collisions and tweaking the ray to map intersection commands, which would only work on the first level. But really the biggest issue that's been addressed, would be the legacy issues with recursive function calls. Where it seems older versions from the PB run time had some logic issues with how the stack was being managed in certain situations. After much research, it was decided that the best way to remedy the situation, would be to replace the how the run time uses the stack. While more work that i'd like for a quick upgrade, the results speak for themselves, by not only fixing the issues, but it uses less memory and is quicker at runtime.
New Feature: Multi Core / Threading
The addition is multi core support or threading support is big one. This features allows the programmer to push big blit image rendering tasks off your current cpu core onto a second cpu core on your system. The idea being, that you can get your program doing two things at once. The threading commands in this version I consider to be prototypes. Meaning the function names and parameter many well change in future releases. But rather than hold this feature back, you can use it today !
Threading is disabled by default, so your programs will run entirely on the same cpu-core that they're started upon. The current implementation of threading only allows a single 'function' to the pushed onto the second core at once. So it's doesn't support queuing up render tasks. Yes, that's exactly what I've in mind, hence why the commands may change in the near future. Therefore the only commands that support threading are the BlitImage render functions. The reason being, they're generally large task functions, where if we can interleave our code, we'll get the best performance improvement. In other words, if you can work out a way to set up an effect where you can use a blitimage function to perform some action in the background, then that's an ideal situation.
As always we highly recommend reading through the V1.64N2 / V1.64N3 WORK IN PROGRESS GALLERY for some deeper insight in what new additions are hidden away in this release. There are lots of then !
Don't have a retail version of PlayBasic ? and want to find out more information about PlayBasic programming > please visit the www.PlayBasic.com and download the free learning edition.
The upgrade process simply requires the user download the upgrade, then run it. The only interaction the upgrade process requires is agreement to the terms and conditions. Beyond that you just hit NEXT for each question.
