Just when I was about to start alpha another problem strikes. I added help text messages to the chat window, and this is the first time we tested a full chat window full of messages.
In theory (and usually in practice) rendering static text is a trivially fast operation. Once you calculate the dimensions you save to a billboard and save the billboard. If you need to resize the text you just calculate when necessary.
I have no idea what the hell CEGUI is doing but in the same scenario in debug I go from 30 FPS to less than 10 FPS. Even if I just do
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My FPS drops by 10. So I’m profiling CEGUI with Devpartner Studio to see if I can find what the problem is. It’s not too hopeful because I don’t know their code. But it’s worth a shot.
They recommend in the forums to use multi-line edit boxes, but I think rather than do that I will abandon CEGUI for the chat Window and render to texture the font, then just store that the correct way.
Profile attached. This is with 6 static text lines on the screen. Click to see the full image.
