Programming Strategies / Methods

Hi guys.
I've been coming across many new terms and strategies as of late, as I'm new to game programming. I haven't had BlitzMax for over a month. Anyways, these things such as "delta timing" and getting fps over 60ish are all foreign to me. If you guys could please tell me what all these things mean/are/give examples or tell me how you guys code your stuff, I'd be interested to hear all of the different ways. Any sort of explanations to things would be cool too.

Thanks,
pragun

edit: oops wrong forum, sorry!

For delta timing and a nice intro, check out wave's tutorial ( beginners guide to bmax ) located in the tutorial forum.

Ah, I must have skipped that part, thanks deux!

In a nut shell, Delta time is a method for controlling how far your game objects move, based on how fast your computer runs through the logical functions.

So if your game runs through all your update functions really fast on the first pass, your delta for your next moveMyShip functions will be adjusted.

The Problem is that Deltatime can move your ships to far to account for a slow pass of your logic code, this can result in missed collisions or worse.

I dont recomend it bud sadly I have a feeling there arnt to many other options.

personally, I think that you might be better off optimizing other parts of your game,
or rethinking the structure if it's already optimized, instead of implementing deltatime in your game..
either that, or upgrade the minimum specs required for your game..

so deltatime mainly benefits in case of a slower computer?

No, if a computer is fast the game will run fast (and vice versa), but if your program uses vertical sync the fps cant exceed the refresh rate.

The point is that you want your game to look like it runs at the same speed whatever the speed of the computer.

But go with what LarsG said above, IMO its better to use vertical sync and keep your code tight. I keep my programming computer (this one) reasonably low spec, so if it struggles with my code I know I need to do some optimizing.

vsync is the answer then... instead of delta time.