I've been creating a football game as a basement project. Each play that is called is shown on screen as bitmaps crashing into each other. It's a low tech game- even a throwback, but it's very realistic in the results it produces.
Here's the issue: I would like to save each week's game data to disk but I'm concerned that the file sizes this creates are too big. Each week's data includes the positions of every player on the field for the duration of the play (every 20th of a second) which is stored as 22 List (of point) variables. This data really works great as the play is calculated, but saving the info to disk has resulted in a much larger file size than I thought. An entire seasons wroth of plays (16 weeks * 16 games per week * about 150 plays a game) is 4.3 gigs.
The reason I want to save all this data is to let the user watch "film" of the next opponent he is playing. Having access to every play of the season would allow the user to plan his game plan like a real NFL coach. It's suppose to be fun and challenging, and I don't want to lose that aspect of the game. However, that file size is almost as big as the entire Skyrim game install; it's not something a user of this type of low-tech game is used to! lol
The first thing I would ask if I was to answer this thread is : "Do you need to create all that data?". The answer is yes because of the physics involved in player's colliding and balls being thrown. The frame rate is crucial to create something that looks real. But there is an option to lessen the amount of data needed to be saved (see #1 below).
So, I ask the pros out there what should I do?
1) Tighten up the file size: I can get the file size down a great deal by cutting out 80% of the frames stored in each play. I'd have to give up instant replay on these plays (normal speed only show 1 out of every 5 frames - instant replay shows them all). This brings an entire season to about 1 Gig. Much better, but still pretty big. This would be simple to do as well. Giving up the slow motion replay would be less than ideal as you can really pick out important things with it (just like in real football).
2) Have options to save each week's files: I could let the user decide if the disk space is worth it themselves. They could choose not to save any data, save the data but give up the instant replay, or save everything.
3) Not even worry about the file size. Most PCs don't even blink at this amount of disk space. It's just unusual for this type of game.
4) Throw out the entire idea: Saving every game's data is not a crucial aspect of the game I'm creating. It's more like frosting than cake. Maybe the disk space isn't worth it to begin with.
Finally a programmatic question: Are there any tricks to reduce file sizes saved to disk that maybe I'm unaware of? 99% of the data stored are Point objects. Is there a way to use less memory by breaking a point object up into individual integers maybe?
Thanks for any advice in advance.
neefman
Here's the issue: I would like to save each week's game data to disk but I'm concerned that the file sizes this creates are too big. Each week's data includes the positions of every player on the field for the duration of the play (every 20th of a second) which is stored as 22 List (of point) variables. This data really works great as the play is calculated, but saving the info to disk has resulted in a much larger file size than I thought. An entire seasons wroth of plays (16 weeks * 16 games per week * about 150 plays a game) is 4.3 gigs.
The reason I want to save all this data is to let the user watch "film" of the next opponent he is playing. Having access to every play of the season would allow the user to plan his game plan like a real NFL coach. It's suppose to be fun and challenging, and I don't want to lose that aspect of the game. However, that file size is almost as big as the entire Skyrim game install; it's not something a user of this type of low-tech game is used to! lol
The first thing I would ask if I was to answer this thread is : "Do you need to create all that data?". The answer is yes because of the physics involved in player's colliding and balls being thrown. The frame rate is crucial to create something that looks real. But there is an option to lessen the amount of data needed to be saved (see #1 below).
So, I ask the pros out there what should I do?
1) Tighten up the file size: I can get the file size down a great deal by cutting out 80% of the frames stored in each play. I'd have to give up instant replay on these plays (normal speed only show 1 out of every 5 frames - instant replay shows them all). This brings an entire season to about 1 Gig. Much better, but still pretty big. This would be simple to do as well. Giving up the slow motion replay would be less than ideal as you can really pick out important things with it (just like in real football).
2) Have options to save each week's files: I could let the user decide if the disk space is worth it themselves. They could choose not to save any data, save the data but give up the instant replay, or save everything.
3) Not even worry about the file size. Most PCs don't even blink at this amount of disk space. It's just unusual for this type of game.
4) Throw out the entire idea: Saving every game's data is not a crucial aspect of the game I'm creating. It's more like frosting than cake. Maybe the disk space isn't worth it to begin with.
Finally a programmatic question: Are there any tricks to reduce file sizes saved to disk that maybe I'm unaware of? 99% of the data stored are Point objects. Is there a way to use less memory by breaking a point object up into individual integers maybe?
Thanks for any advice in advance.
neefman