Slow AVS when you use bitmaps / About Effectlists

[rarefluid]

When creating AVS-presets I came across some things I try to understand, maybe someone here can clear things up.

Ok, first, when I create a preset and then plug in a picture, the framerate drops a lot. Why is that. The pictures are not too big, 140*140 or 240*240 pixels, or is that too much?! I tried 8Bit and 24Bit-images, no difference.
Something else about images is that when an image isn't in the place it is supposed to be, winamp simply crashes (under Windows 2000). Shouldn't there be a check when a preset is loaded, if the files it needs are existing? and why doesn't only the AVS crash?!

Another thing are "Effectlists" how do you use them, do they slow down the AVS much, or can they be used to speed some plugins up. I in most cases try to avoid them. Using buffer-saves and -restores works too.

Any information and discussion is appreciated.


Ok, and in the end one of my plugins that uses a bitmap and effectlists. Put the bitmap into the "\winamp\plugins\avs"-directory, otherwise the plugin will crash Winamp (on my PC...). Have Fun.
Leiterbahnruling (http://forums.winamp.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=350114)

KIM

[rradikal]

i'll do what i can to answer. :)

1. adding an image causes decrease of framerate and it natural -
winamp has to render more points ... i don't know what u mean by "a lot" ... on celeron 300 with superscope spiral and fadeout
adding pic divides framrate by 2 for example ...

2. why does ur winamp crash when file isn't found is werid for me.
on my comp file isn't just displayed - rest is running ok.
but i use win98 ... maybe it's 2k problem? :)

3. imho fx lists will always slow down framerate coz they require
some calculations for mixing and this eats the cpu time ...

what do u think?

[transfrmr]

The problem with Winamp crashing when it doesn't find an AVS-related file is well known and common. I'm running Win98 se and it does it too. I'd like to know why rradikal's doesn't though :)

[rradikal]

i dunno - seems i'm the chosen one :)
have to think about changin nick to neo ;)

maybe u should try installing polish win98?
;-)

btw, my winamp hangs when it cannot find the right avi ...

[rarefluid]

When I use pictures in presets. the framerate drops about, say 2-3 frames first and stays like that for a while. After some time playing around with the preset the framerate drops very low (about 20 f/s for a SMALL Window and a Duron800...). This is what puzzles me, the preset then runs about 25-30% slower. Maybe it is a problem with Win2000 though...
Same thing with a preset that runs for a long time and I don't work on it. It slows down after a while...

I'll try to figure out when it exactly happens...

KIM