Sorry your browser is not supported!

Is it better to delete sprites and images of lets say, for example, menus in a game and reload the images and create the sprites when that menu is called on? To take it further things like gun bullets should they also be deleted when off screen or hit the targets? Or is it better to have a bunch "preloaded and made" ready to just be repositioned ? This is in regards toy 2d game btw and thanks in advance.

i pre-load all images i may need and never delete them.

when it comes to bullet sprites (assuming lots), i always delete them on impact but i may not delete them if they leave the screen.

assuming "a lot" of bullets as in Liberator, initially i let the bullets leave the screen (where the map is larger than the screen) and didn't delete them until they hit something or left the map. for game balance purposes, i now delete them if they leave the screen since it was too easy to fire blindly and hit enemies that i couldn't see.

but, at some point i do always delete them while others would suggest moving them out of view, setting them invisible, etc,, and re-using them but i personally see no performance hit of note in deleting and re-creating them on demand.

liberator handles it all pretty well, even under HTML export (maintaining ~30FPS, and a solid 60 on WIN which i'm sure could do hundreds if i let it) and you see i probably have more sprites doing other things than i do bullets. ie, the tank tracks, explosions, decals, etc, all sprites (while the tanks and bullets and a few physics obstacles are all that move). speaking of tanks, i DO re-use those (immediately) where, on kill, i simply reposition them. but, again, it's just easier for me to re-use them vs recreating, adding physics back onto them, etc.

the current project i'm working on has slightly more than i've worked with before but still minimal Menu items. in trying to be efficient, i still always pre-load any images i might need then generate the sprites on demand and .insert their IDs into a MenuArray[]. when i close the menu, the last thing i do is use the array for reference and delete all sprites generated for the menu. some of that is for efficiency, the rest is simplicity in "closing" a menu.

again, others may suggest to move sprites off screen and re-use them but i think you and i are safe in deleting and re-creating where our media is relatively quite small compared to AAA releases while AppGameKit has our back in handling sprites pretty well.

Thank you for the detailed answer. I guess I was trying to see if deleting the bullet and re-creating the sprite would be more or less effort then just repositioning it.

I will estimate how many bullets I expect can be on the screen at one time, then make a little more. I'll use a routine that cycles through them and just hide what's not active. If its sprites you won't use anymore (level specific sprites, background images), you can delete those upon level completion as you load the next. It all really depends on the structure of your game.

Hello dandrew

I look at it this way either way at some stage you need to recreate the sprites and maintain them il refer to that as housekeeping
reuse of code is one reason programmers may sometimes look for other approaches

heres a checklist

1> Will I need that sprite again (this includes the actual identification that goes with the ID)
2> Is there only one image needed for that same sprite and is that image also needed (so the id needs keeping to for the image and someway of the sprite id perhaps)

Constants are great for creating a sprite assigning it the same id where you dont and wont get another id created the same causing conflicts later down the track
i.e createsprite(1,idimage) will create a sprite with a constant of one that's great sometimes for lets say you have your main spaceship this means deleting it and recreating can work fine

now bullets for example you might have shot 100 bullets and there may be others who have shot 100 bullets this is where deleting is a little trickier

what I do in that case is use an array to stored the identification of bullets, images and there locations sometimes because the next time you use bullets there may be 50 there may be 150 constants are nolonger appropriate

I define types
i.e

then you can remove from the arrays as you delete the bullets

not sure if youve used commands like abullet.insert.(something) but can also remove at the same time