Memory Problem
Author
OK, my pong clone is finished - mostly. Problem is, it crashes my computer forcing a manual restart after about 5 minutes of play. I wanted to get to the bottom of this so I checked my system resources and watched it as I played. To my horror, every time a goal was scored, a whopping 15% of the system and GDI resources disappeared! As soon as I exited, they returned to the usual. So what''s up here? I could probably have Unreal, and ICQ, tons of thing running in the background and have mnore resources than with my pong game? Any suggestions?
If it helps, my pong clone is a WIN32 app and uses GDI to do graphics. Could the problem be playing a wave file when a goal is scored?
Thanks,
Peon
Well, I would have to see the code to point out the specific problem, but what you are seeing is most likely a GDI memory leak. Basically you are allocating device contexts that you aren''t de-allocating when you''re done with it (fortunately the system is picking it up and taking care of it for you when the app exits.)
You might consider checking for device contexts that you create (CreateDC and the like) and fail to release properly (ReleaseDC and DeleteDC). Windows does have a finite pool of device context space, and if you run out it causes Bad Things (TM).
It most likely isn''t your sounds if you''re eating GDI resources btw... GDI stands for Graphics Device Interface, it only handles drawing.
-fel
You might consider checking for device contexts that you create (CreateDC and the like) and fail to release properly (ReleaseDC and DeleteDC). Windows does have a finite pool of device context space, and if you run out it causes Bad Things (TM).
It most likely isn''t your sounds if you''re eating GDI resources btw... GDI stands for Graphics Device Interface, it only handles drawing.
-fel
Author
OK, I figured as much. I double checked all my code but still, a leak somewhere. I finally commented out parts of my GameMain() so that only one function would execute. I wasn''t surprised when the problem continued. Here is the function that I tested:
Looks OK, no? The only other that is "going" is WinProc, maybe the problem is there? FYI, I lose about 15% of the GDI resources every 5-10 seconds -- BAD!
Peon
int DrawScreen(){ // draw the scores HDC hdc = GetDC(hwnd); SetTextColor(hdc, RGB(255,255,255)); SetBkColor(hdc, RGB(0,0,0)); SetBkMode(hdc, TRANSPARENT); sprintf(buffer, "%d", iPlayer1Goals); TextOut(hdc, 100, 20, buffer, strlen(buffer)); sprintf(buffer, "%d", iPlayer2Goals); TextOut(hdc, 300, 20, buffer, strlen(buffer)); // Draw the logo SetTextColor(hdc, RGB(255,255,255)); SetBkMode(hdc, TRANSPARENT); TextOut(hdc, 0, 0, "B A T T L E - S T Y X v1.0", strlen("B A T T L E - S T Y X v1.0")); // create a pen to illustrate actual play area HPEN white_pen = CreatePen(PS_SOLID, 1, RGB(255,255,255)); SelectObject(hdc, white_pen); MoveToEx(hdc, 0,40, NULL); LineTo(hdc, 400,40); DeleteObject(white_pen); ReleaseDC(hwnd, hdc); return(0);} Looks OK, no? The only other that is "going" is WinProc, maybe the problem is there? FYI, I lose about 15% of the GDI resources every 5-10 seconds -- BAD!
Peon
Hi Peon,
I think the problem is that you cannot delete objects when they are selected into device contexts. So you have to select them out first. Try this:
I''m not sure how efficient it is to continually be creating and deleting the pens, so you may consider making white_pen a global (or static) and only deleting it at destruction time. But perhaps this is a negligeable overhead.
Good luck!
I think the problem is that you cannot delete objects when they are selected into device contexts. So you have to select them out first. Try this:
HPEN *old = SelectObject(hdc, white_pen); MoveToEx(hdc, 0,40, NULL); LineTo(hdc, 400,40); SelectObject(hdc,old) DeleteObject(white_pen); I''m not sure how efficient it is to continually be creating and deleting the pens, so you may consider making white_pen a global (or static) and only deleting it at destruction time. But perhaps this is a negligeable overhead.
Good luck!
Author
quote:I''m not sure how efficient it is to continually be creating and deleting the pens, so you may consider making white_pen a global (or static) and only deleting it at destruction time. But perhaps this is a negligeable overhead.
Well yeah, it''s a pong game - speed is not an issue
I''ll remember that though, I had no idea. I''ll go try out what you said. Please work!
I had this problem a while ago.. and I think the problem was creating too many objects and deleting them each frame.
Make all your HGDIOBJ(HPEN, HBRUSH, etc) objects static or global, initialize them once and destroy them once.
This should fix it.
And you don''t really need to be calling GetDC and ReleaseDC every frame, you can call it once at startup and once at shutdown if you like.
Make all your HGDIOBJ(HPEN, HBRUSH, etc) objects static or global, initialize them once and destroy them once.
This should fix it.
And you don''t really need to be calling GetDC and ReleaseDC every frame, you can call it once at startup and once at shutdown if you like.
When you select your pen into the window DC you need to save the result (i.e. the old pen), and then select the old pen back before you release the DC.
Author
I ended up making my pens global, which solved the problem. The Get, Release is fine for now but you''re right Quantum, I tried what you said and it works nicely as well (better for speed, I assume) Newbies take heed - TOTWPGs is a great book, but be careful because not EVERYTHING is explained 
Thanks all
Peon
Thanks all Peon
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