In response to Kumorii
Just use a movement loop bro

Is this some meme answer to why BYOND games aren't smooth at all?
Literally movement is the first thing I deal with in a BYOND project. You think we're not scrapping BYONDs trashy movement in favour of a movement loop of some kind? I've tried making systems myself and using other peoples systems (including Ter13s movement library), they all produce the same results.

I have no idea why you even keep bringing up movement like that is the issue. The issue is hosting games with dream daemon, it's just easy to see how jittery a game is while moving around. I can produce the same results by simply calling walk on an object and have it move across the screen. Likewise, I can just use animate and see that BYOND isn't maintaining a stable FPS, and this involves no movement of any kind.

You guys need to try hosting a game in dream daemon one of these days.
In response to The Magic Man
i wasn't explicitly singling you out, Magic Man. No need to get upset. My point is that most people who complain about jumpy or "laggy" movement are trying to just use the -REP macros(as mentioned) which is just terrible and not going to give you good results no matter how you cut it.


Aside from that, are you sure you don't have anything else causing issues with your project? Because i don't experience any of these issues; locally or online. The project i'm working on now runs incredibly smooth; even online. Also, Feed runs/ran remarkably well online and it was always hosted with DreamDaemon; so again i don't see your issue.
In response to Kumorii
I've tried on two different computers, using a variety of projects including several that were essentially empty except for one test function (such as making an object move or animate when I clicked on it). The few people that responded to me stated they experienced similar things.
I don't know what it can be other than BYOND (more specifically dream daemon).
To be fair, BYOND seems to have a lot of hardware-specific quirks from my experience. Usually this seems to be tied to the OS bit/graphics card but who knows, other stuff could be at play; i'm not too smart with computer stuff, admittedly.
In response to Kumorii
Maybe it is related to specific OS/hardware. I'm using Windows 7 with an Intel processor and Nvidia graphics card. If this is the case, it is still a pretty serious issue that needs to be fixed.
I'm running on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit OS with an Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 card. (trash)
I wrote a fucking particle engine that supports upwards of 800 dynamically calculated particles at once before getting FPS issues.

If you can't load a new environment without stuttering, then that's your problem, not the engine's.

Honestly, it smells more like the bullshit Lugia spreads. If BYOND is so shit and you've moved onto something else, why stay here and wave the bad vibes around? Lol.

BYOND's not perfect, but it's definitely not unusable, as hundreds, if not thousands of developers over the years have proven.
In response to Kats
Your library literally says it's made for single player games only. I am specifically talking about hosting games in dream daemon (multiplayer games).
I can run games in single player mostly fine with only the occasional FPS drop (like once every 5-10 seconds). I (and others) notice performance issues when games are hosted using dream daemon.

It'd be great if you read all the posts in here before commenting.

For people who still don't understand the issue I made two videos.
https://gfycat.com/AlienatedThickGecko
This is singleplayer, the game is running in dream seeker and it's pretty smooth. (There is one jitter at around 7 seconds but it's very minor)

https://gfycat.com/InsistentFearlessArctichare
This is multiplayer hosted with dream daemon. It's much less smooth (it's actually worse in game but a lot of quality is lost through recording/converting it into a video).

Both of these are the same game, in the same location, doing the same things with everything else in the game disabled.
The only difference is one is being hosted with dream daemon and the other is not.
Magic Man, again; i don't think Kats was explicitly talking to you. Other people in this thread have been saying BYOND runs horribly even locally. Pretty sure she was moreso responding to them.
In response to Kumorii
Kumorii wrote:
Magic Man, again; i don't think Kats was explicitly talking to you. Other people in this thread have been saying BYOND runs horribly even locally. Pretty sure she was moreso responding to them.

I don't have a horse in this race, but it's worth pointing out that none of the comments I see in this thread have argued that BYOND runs horribly locally, save for an earlier comment made by Magic Man. However, he has since been pointing out, much like the couple of others arguing the same point, that there are performance issues with online environments ( multiplayer games ).
You guys need to try hosting a game in dream daemon one of these days.

DM is a server-directed environment. It is never going to be exactly 100% smooth as though it were being played on the client. The reason we're disagreeing with you is not because it "can't render at X fps", it's because by definition there are going to be small delays in processing due to the fact that it's being played over a network, and due to the fact that the viewport and glides have to be sent from the server to the client. There will be a missed frame here and there. It's the nature of the environment.

The main reason we talk about movement loops is because is almost completely mitigates the stuttering you see, and brings it down to almost none at all.

Yeah, you are right, there's little jitters here and there when "there shouldn't be". But there should be because the client doesn't know how your gameworld works, and how movement works.

Y'all are expecting it to act and feel like "every other multiplayer game" when it never will, BY DESIGN. The majority of those jitters can be smoothed out, though. The reason I was calling y'all's code shit though, is because S10's talking about second-long hangups and shit. That's not a jittering problem due to a missed frame here and there. That's an incompetence problem if the server is hanging and not responding for a second at a time every few seconds.

TL;DR: OF COURSE it's not going to play like a game that processes player control on the client side, and actually gives you a client that knows what is outside of its viewport.

It'd be great if BYOND did that, but doing that isn't "fixing" BYOND, it's completely changing how the core engine works from the ground up and will never happen.

If you actually understood how the software works, your expectations wouldn't be so out of lockstep with what the software is, and you'd actually know how to deal with the fact that there are going to be tradeoffs for the system that you are choosing to use.

I never said BYOND runs perfectly smooth with a movement loop and the right software, I said it much of the jank and hangups can be eliminated if you know what you are doing, so don't come at me like I'm saying "PERFECTLY SMOOTH". I called y'all out because neither of you can pinpoint that you are the source of your own problems with the software and couldn't be bothered to find, quantify, and address your problems without throwing your hands up in the air and whining at everyone else about how a tiny 2px jitter every 39 frames makes your game literally unplayable.
In response to Ter13
You've pretty much summed up why I originally said BYOND simply isn't fit for purpose. It's suppose to be used to make multiplayer games but isn't particularly suited to make them. You're basically telling me and others that we need to learn to work around BYONDs problems, which is basically don't make anything but single player games (and maybe something like board games).

It's like driving a 3 wheeled car. I mean, sure it can drive, but you're constantly trying to avoid sharp turns in case you tip it over. Why not just get a 4 wheeled car?

Which is what I've done. BYOND wasn't really suited to my needs, so I moved to an engine that is better suited to it. And if I'm being honest, my needs weren't exactly demanding. I'm not trying to do something massive or ground breaking, I just wanted to make a small multiplayer RPG.

It'd be nice if it could be fixed. But you're telling me it's part of BYONDs design and it's not a bug or issue... Only thing I can say to that is there is a reason we're not all driving 3 wheeled cars.
It's suppose to be used to make multiplayer games but isn't particularly suited to make them.

I mainly disagree with this statement. I think it's not the best choice, but it's definitely not unsuited to multiplayer games.

we need to learn to work around BYONDs problems

You are going to have to do this in any engine. If you think that switching to Unity or Unreal is going to make your life easier in this respect, it won't. You are still going to run into the same problems in those environments if you hamhandedly refuse to do the work to understand how the environment works and how to best leverage it to your purpose.

I moved to an engine that is better suited to it.

*But have you?*

I just wanted to make a small multiplayer RPG.

Which can easily be done in this environment, and has been done in this environment in the past.

It'd be nice if it could be fixed. But you're telling me it's part of BYONDs design and it's not a bug or issue

It's a drawback to a server-directed network infrastructure for sure. Meaning simply, if you were designing your game in such a way that a little hiccup here or there is a dealbreaker, you ignorantly chose the wrong environment in the first place. What you are missing though, are the tradeoffs. It's not just a con, but there are pros to the design choice.
In response to Ter13
I've switched to Unity, and it's a much nicer environment to work in. I'm sure it has limitations and there are things I'll have to work around, but I have yet to run into them.
The only two things I don't like about it is the map editor sucks (seems to be a universal thing with game engines) and getting references to things can get very silly. Especially when you're typing in lines like "gameObject.transform.GetChild(0).gameObject.GetComponent< >.component".

I honestly expected the transition to be much harder, but it wasn't. There is a whole lot of things Unity can do I still haven't played around with, it has menus inside of menus and systems buried so deep in it I think people forgot they even exist, but it's all pretty straight forwards once you actually use them. C# isn't difficult to learn either, I mean it's obviously capable of doing many things but most of the code I'm writing in it isn't much different from the code I'd write in BYOND.
I thought I'd have problems with networking and making the game multiplayer, but even that wasn't too difficult. I mean, I am using an asset someone else made to handle the complex stuff, but it's still very powerful and gives me full control over how the game handles multiplayer. I've already done things in it that I think are simply not possible to do in BYOND.

Infact, other than generally working with 3D which is slightly harder and more time consuming than working with 2D, the only thing I've had any trouble with is shaders. Writing shaders is basically the closest humanity will ever come to real magic. But even that isn't much of an issue anymore because Unity already has a tool that makes it much easier to create shaders.

After using Unity for a good 6-7 months, I'm just not seeing any reasons to use BYOND outside of nostalgia. It feels like I went from being a caveman smashing rocks together in the hopes of creating something to being some highly advanced robot who can shoot lasers out of his ears. The jump in technology is just that massive.

It's not that I hate BYOND, it's just that I've outgrown it and it can no longer do what I require or demand of it.

As for the original question as to why BYOND doesn't have many developers anymore. If you google "how to make a game" you'll find recommendations for Unity, Unreal, Gamemaker and even RPG Maker on the first page. I don't even know what page you'll see the first mention of BYOND.
The real irony is apparently you've outgrown byond but you're still hanging around posting

so which is it?

There's no point in arguing with those who are still here, they're either blind to the engine's problems or stuck with large legacy projects that aren't going anywhere else any time soon
What's with everyone acting like you can only use one engine?

You can use Unity and BYOND. I don't get this, lol.
Jokes on you if all u care about is multiplayer. Unet is notoriously buggy compared to using an engine better suited for multiplayer (unreal)

Does that make unity shit?
In response to Zagros5000
Unet isn't great, but most of it's problems are people not understanding how to make a game multiplayer. When so much as a single packet is lost in these games, they break down because the person developing it simply didn't consider the fact that packets can be lost.

That being said, Unity can use external libraries and frame works including several that are used by AAA developers on large scale multiplayer games. I mean, if it's good enough for a company that makes billions of dollars a year, it's probably good enough for anyone.
Spires of Agartha is the last remaining tie I have to BYOND. Once that's run its course, unlikely I'll be seen here ever again.
I've personally started using Gamemaker Stuido 2, and the results stemming from the use of the engine are nothing short of amazing. Byond isn't necessarily a bad engine, but it's definitely not for everyone.

For what it takes a veteran in Byond to do, other engines can do in half as much code and half as much tinkering, in my opinion. I'm a novice in Gamemaker and I've managed to get 250 people on the screen, simultaneously searching through a list of trees that need cutting, then using A* to find a path towards a tree.

If you tried doing this in Byond without understanding the intricacies of all the editing and tweaking needed, it just wouldn't work so well, as some people have pointed out so far in this thread. Which I feel is why more people are leaving the engine and using something easier, which is understandable and not unreasonable.
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