Ren'Py 6.99.14 Prereleased

[PyTom]

There's a bit at:

https://www.renpy.org/dev-doc/html/multiple.html

But the generosity of my patreon sponsors let me write an article with a ton of examples. (The article took about 3-4 hours of work to write, code, screenshot, etc.)

[PyTom]

6.99.14.3122)

There are two changes here. The first fixes a problem with screens that only manifested if screens were compiled at different times. (So it couldn't manifest in a released game, as everything is recompiled when a release is made.) But the bug would hit developers when switching from one screen to another - parts of one screen would replace parts of another with little reason.

The second is a new pagekeys property that can be given to viewport and vpgrid, to make the pageup and pagedown keys scroll the viewport vertically.

Enjoy. I've had quite a bit of positive feedback, that earlier bugs have been fixed, so I feel this version is close to being released for real. Thanks to everyone who tested and continues to test.

ZUMA lives.

[Arowana]

Thanks for your hard work as always, PyTom! I'm really excited about all these possible performance improvements and speedups you're implementing.

Unfortunately, my game doesn't seem to working well in the latest version (6.99.14.3120). Most noticeably, it actually seems to be lagging a lot more than when I was using 6.99.13 (the last official release). A lot of the animations and transitions now look slow and choppy, especially when they're first shown. Even the text in the textbox appears choppily (in staggered chunks) instead of smoothly. I noticed that whenever I click to advance the text, the ongoing animations often get a bit laggy before returning to normal. At first I thought it might be an issue with my textbox, but the game is sometimes still laggy even when the textbox isn't being shown.

I'll try my best to isolate the issue into a test game, but I'm having trouble figuring out what's causing the problem so far. I do use a lot of animations (ATL for looping background animations, the 3D Camera plugin, etc.) and ConditionSwitch, and it sounds like there might have been changes to how those work? In particular, I was looking at this comment:

As an important note, the first time you open a game in 6.99.14, it will open much slower as Ren'Py compiles all the Python expressions it encounters. The game will open faster the second and later times it is run, and will run faster once it is open.

It sounds like that might only affect how long it takes the game to start though? So I'm not sure if it explains why my game is lagging throughout.

Let me know if you have any ideas about what might be causing this issue or how I could try to troubleshoot it. And of course, thanks again for your help!

[PyTom]

First off, can you try config.manage_gc = False?

[Arowana]

First off, can you try config.manage_gc = False?

Thanks so much! I just tried this, and it reduced the lag a lot. Is there any disadvantage to disabling this option that I should know about?

I'll keep on testing later. So far, things seem to be working well again, though I'm noticing some textbox animation issues that I'll report on github.

[vollschauer]

I can confirm that ATL, transitions between screens and even just skipping the text is total laggy/choppy for me with the 6.99.14 build. Yes it's a bit better with config.manage_gc = False, but still worse than the 6.99.13 build. I have to say that I currently use 99% renpy python commands and functions for my project.

[Imperf3kt]

I'm unable to migrate from Ren'Py 6.99.11.**** to 6.99.14.3***

I've constantly got some kind of error whenever trying to install using the update feature.

I'll take notes on the exact error (though its a different error all three times I tried) when I try again tomorrow

[PyTom]

I can confirm that ATL, transitions between screens and even just skipping the text is total laggy/choppy for me with the 6.99.14 build. Yes it's a bit better with config.manage_gc = False, but still worse than the 6.99.13 build. I have to say that I currently use 99% renpy python commands and functions for my project.

It's not enough to tell me this, you'll need to show me this. Though if you're really using 99% Python, I'll look, but you may be disabling some of the features that let Ren'Py perform. That's certainly not the case I optimize for.

[PyTom]

6.99.14.3127)

This fixes a regression that could cause multiple say screens to be displayed at once. That was the cause of Arowana's problem.

[PyTom]

6.99.14.3134)

This release fixes the garbage collector. In the last release, Ren'Py would cause a full garbage collection run each time garbage collection was necessary. Now, Ren'Py will use the same algorithm Python uses to select garbage collector generations. This drops the time it takes to garbage collect to far less than a single frame, which should eliminate most frame dropping.

A reference cycle in ATL Transforms has been eliminated. This was one of the main causes of garbage collection in the first place, so the remaining pauses should be farther between.

Ren'Py now predicts screenshots on file slot pages accessible from the buttons on the current screen, which should make switching file slot pages much faster.

[Imperf3kt]

I'm unable to migrate from Ren'Py 6.99.11.**** to 6.99.14.3***

I've constantly got some kind of error whenever trying to install using the update feature.

I'll take notes on the exact error (though its a different error all three times I tried) when I try again tomorrow

I gave up after several more failed attempts and just installed from the website again.
So far no problems, all appears to work great.
Thanks PyTom!