Multithreading for older AS2 games? (Also addition question for dll loading)

[ghost]

This is a question about potential optimizations for ruffle both now and in the future.

Firstly, in older versions of flash, you could have external dlls be loaded that contain logic for more complex computation and potentially make more complex games feasible. If I recall, ruffle doesn't intend to implement that for the foreseeable future. This leads me to my other question: as an alternative, would multithreading capabilities be implemented so older AVM1/AS2 based games be more feasible for more complex stuff? There would still be limitations to a degree, but if I also again recall, there are plans for after everything 100% works, optimizations can be put into place. I believe that @TomFulp uses AS2 to this day, so I'm surprised they can accomplish what they do with a more limited language.

[kjarosh]

would multithreading capabilities be implemented so older AVM1/AS2 based games be more feasible for more complex stuff?

AS2 does not support multithreading so it's impossible to add that post factum. Ruffle already leverages parallelism (e.g. for rendering, which is done on the GPU), but AS2 is inherently single-threaded. Not to mention that multi-threading is not a silver bullet, Ruffle to this day has some negative performance implications resulting from GPU rendering.

Performance in Ruffle has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Usually there's a more prosaic reason of bad performance that can be fixed in a different way.

[ghost]

Performance in Ruffle has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

I've looked around and I've gotten mixed answers. Sometimes I see that single threaded would be the reason why games such as (as an example taken to a logical extreme) touhou or even the original GTA 1 would be very difficult if not impossible in an AS2 based game. But I've also read that it would be possible if I did a very scaled down version instead utilizing stuff like object pooling and the like. Sonic flash was made in mx 2004, so I suppose I could pull off something fast paced.

But since it's by design, impossible to multithread, I would have to be more creative in any game needing more firepower. I was also wrong about external dlls. I could run a system command called fscommand, but I don't know if ruffle will allow that for security reasons.

[Randomno]

I was also wrong about external dlls.

So are there any games using external DLLs? Would be interested to see them

[ghost]

No, I was greatly mistaken on the API. While there WAS a C/C++ API, it was only usable in the IDE environement such as adding importing a non natively support file format.

The actual command I had in mind was fscommand. More specifically, the "exec" argument such as fscommand("exec", "program.exe") which could allow running an external executable from within the flash environment, I believe only the projector could make use of it.

I don't know if ruffle will allow the desktop version to allow exec for security reasons. That is why my only real choice is to be very brutal with optimization for any game.

[kjarosh]

I suppose I could pull off something fast paced.

I would have to be more creative in any game needing more firepower

If you're the one making those games (which contradicts the original point), then using AVM1 is probably not a good idea at all. It's never been made to be performant, it's been made to allow interactive stuff to happen in movies. It's slow by design.

You're far better off using AVM2, as you can also use Workers there (I think so at least, they have never been very popular). But as I said, using parallelism blindly will not solve all your problems.

[sodscg]

Performance in Ruffle has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

I've looked around and I've gotten mixed answers. Sometimes I see that single threaded would be the reason why games such as (as an example taken to a logical extreme) touhou or even the original GTA 1 would be very difficult if not impossible in an AS2 based game. But I've also read that it would be possible if I did a very scaled down version instead utilizing stuff like object pooling and the like. Sonic flash was made in mx 2004, so I suppose I could pull off something fast paced.

But since it's by design, impossible to multithread, I would have to be more creative in any game needing more firepower. I was also wrong about external dlls. I could run a system command called fscommand, but I don't know if ruffle will allow that for security reasons.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, bullet hell games are possible, its mostly how you make it. as3 would be a better choice, but single threading isn't going to make it impossible.