Soooo, I finally received my copy of GM8 Pro. And I must say that I'm happy with it so far. I didn't bother testing too much with Lite and I wasn't part of the beta testing, so it was a new experience for me. I started by converting my current project to GM8 and making changes such as getting rid of external .png loading and optimizing my code. I love the new sprite editor and the code box. The new error detection is superb compared to the last. I hated situations where it would tell you there's an error on a particular line and it ended up being two lines above it.. The highlighting brackets is neat too. It's less confusing when looking over messy code.
So after I got the hang of the way things looked I tested my game and noticed a really big speed boost when it came to loading times. Before when I had to load .png files externally it took anywhere from 10 seconds to 30 seconds to load them all. (Varying times depended on how hot my laptop was). With the built in .png support, my game loaded in just 3 seconds. That's objects,scripts,sounds,.png files, and everything else! Everything ran faster. Now I can get rid of the annoying "Loading graphics" screen at the beginning of my game and people won't have to waste time starting it up. I haven't done much else with GM8 but, I'm looking to switch to it and get used to the new changes. GM7 Pro to GM8 Pro isn't much of a difference, but the sprite editor, .png support, faster loads, and better error detection and organization in the code boxes is worth it to me.
I find the default size of the code editor (when you haven't maximized it) is quite annoying. For starts it is practically full screen anyways, but the green tick on the top left also conviently overlaps the 'Create a new game' button in the main gm window, meaning if you double click it you can actually end up looking at a blank project without meaning too.
(This is only with the execute a piece of code D&D function and not scripts as their window behaves in a non consistent manner)Are you used to double clicking the check button? It hasn't been a problem for me yet, but I see what you mean. I just looked at it.
I think being able to check ellipses for collision (among a couple other things) and having PNG support was worth the upgrade all on their own. b: The rest is just free candy.
NO! WE LOST ANOTHER!
Anyway, the codebox additions sound interesting. But tell me, does it loop external MP3s any better? I know MP3s aren't easy to loop, but hell, a sound_jumptoposition might be nice for quick looping without repeating the intro.And don't tell me to "just use MIDIs." MIDIs are far inferior to MP3s in every way possible. Except for filesize conservation.When they release that feature that 90% of video games already have, I'll gladly pay the registration fee again.Yeah GM8 only has some relatively minor improvements but they are in some of the most important parts of game maker so it makes it worth it.
I don't have it yet, because I don't have a way to pay for it right now.Yeah, the "not much difference" part is the part im caught on. Too pricy for what it is, considering I already purchased GM before.
I'm not sure about better sound support, but I wish they would consider that whenever they decide to make a new version. I tend to use .dll's like FMOD for all of my sound needs. I wish I didn't have to use outside sources for sounds.
Tip me in on those DLLs, because if they help loop MP3s better, then I'd grab 'em.
I don't like using outside resources either, but storing the MP3 in the game file is asking for trouble, and can often corrupt the file (Marbles3D, anyone?).What I'd like is if they offered an "upgrade fee," like $5-10 to upgrade (5 for this version since it's so minor). That way they'd keep more than half of their users, and still satisfy their own greedy desires.As best I know, they haven't added MP3 support. I've been using supersound, which does MP3 and OGG pretty well, though not perfectly. Hiccup is gone so long as the song is rendered properly (FL has a bit of a hiccup on wrapped export), but might overlap by a frame or two. Nothing huge, you'll usually miss it if you're not paying attention and the song's put together properly.
There's also SXMS, I think it's called, which is considerably more complicated but if you ever want to pour effects over your sound or render frequency levels and such, that's the way to go. the old ViBe demo somewhere about this site (may be broken now, though) used it, and it's pretty spiff if you can handle the mass of scripts.