Stop Mugen 1.0 from "overloading"

[Speedy9199]

Awesome sauce, and it might be the file size, then again there may be other factors. My best guess is like yours with the file size, and since the comp has loaded many chars before hand, the RAM limit the game has may be exceeded and force shuts down to prevent overloading/is overloaded. Not sure how the mugen chars are loaded into the game, but Im sure they would go to the ram for easy access, and when a new char is added, maybe it's added first before another one is removed. The crashes happen only occasionally, and never if they were selected for the first match, so with that it mind the size issue sounds very plausible.

My characters are some of the biggest file sized characters in the mugen world with being around or more than 100+ MB.

It seems because of the file size after I select my character and after going back to the character select screen 7 or 8 times I get an error message saying that Mugen can't load the character and I am forced to shut it down. It seems that my characters are overloading mugen because this doesn't happen when I select anyother character of a smaller file size. Is there a way I can stop this from happening or make this happen less? WITHOUT modifing the character itself.

[Jesuszilla]

Optimize your sh- oh right you don't like to put any effort into anything. In that case, nope. Optimize your shit.

[aokmaniac13]

Things you can do:

Use RLE on your sprites.  If you suspect your image editing program is saving uncompressed PCX files, it's time to find a new one.  (I recommend GIMP if not Paint Shop Pro)
Move 9000,0 and 9000,1 to the beginning of the sff file.
Crop your sprites.  Sprmaker with the -c flag.
Downsample your sounds to 44khz.  Not that the Blazblue voices weren't already in a similar format...

These are cookie cutter suggestions by the way.

[Speedy9199]

Optimize your sh- oh right you don't like to put any effort into anything. In that case, nope. Optimize your shit.

Jesuszilla you seriously have got to STOP shitting on and ruining my threads, reported. What you said is completely unneeded and you don't even tell me how to "optimize it."

[Speedy9199]

Things you can do:

Use RLE on your sprites.  If you suspect your image editing program is saving uncompressed PCX files, it's time to find a new one.  (I recommend GIMP if not Paint Shop Pro)
Move 9000,0 and 9000,1 to the beginning of the sff file.
Crop your sprites.  Sprmaker with the -c flag.
Downsample your sounds to 44khz.  Not that the Blazblue voices weren't already in a similar format...

These are cookie cutter suggestions by the way.

@ Avatar

-The main programs I use are partical illusion and photoshop
-I have all my portraits at the beggining of the .sff file
-Cropping the sprites is a problem because I have to deal with THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of sprites. Cropping each image and aligning it properly would be a NIGHTMARE. Is this "Sprmaker with the -c flag" available  in fighter factory? Please give me more info.
-Please tell me more on how to do this. What programs should I use to do this?

Also as I said before I want to do this without changing the characters and if these are "cookie cutter suggestions(assuming that means they don't really do much) why tell me?

[Jesuszilla]

Fighter Factory has a "cut all sprites" function. Use that. That should cut down a few megs.


Also I say downsample to 32000Hz or 22050Hz. Sony Sound Forge and Sony Goldwave.

[Speedy9199]

Fighter Factory has a "cut all sprites" function. Use that. That should cut down a few megs.


Also I say downsample to 32000Hz or 22050Hz. Sony Sound Forge and Sony Goldwave.

FINALLY something you said that was helpful that wasn't shit about me or whatever. 

Yes, I have tried the "cut all sprites" things before but I don't trust it. Last time I used it it seemed glitchy and didn't cut things properly... Also if it only cuts it down a "FEW" megs then it isn't worth it. After all its 100+ MB characters.

[DNZRX768]

What are the characters described here.

Please tell me the name and author so I can look into it.

[Speedy9199]

What are the characters described here.

Please tell me the name and author so I can look into it.

They are my Blazblue_S Characters. Click the link in my sig.

[rednavi -RETIRED]

Fighter Factory has a "cut all sprites" function. Use that. That should cut down a few megs.


Also I say downsample to 32000Hz or 22050Hz. Sony Sound Forge and Sony Goldwave.

FINALLY something you said that was helpful that wasn't shit about me or whatever. 

Yes, I have tried the "cut all sprites" things before but I don't trust it. Last time I used it it seemed glitchy and didn't cut things properly... Also if it only cuts it down a "FEW" megs then it isn't worth it. After all its 100+ MB characters.

previous FF versions used to glitch the LAST image in a sff. Of course that was fixed nowadays. Don't worry, just load the sff in the latest fighter factory (Was JUST updated so I suggest you to grab it right now) and use the cut all option. Let it do it's job for some minutes (Dont worry, if may look like the program hangs out, that's normal, just let it process) and done!

The amount of mb saved will depend of how are the sprites currently cropped of course.

BTW regarding sound, remember to make them mono, no need for them to be stereo (unless it's a stereo effect which I don't think any of your chars has). This will save lots of mb.

[Speedy9199]

Can I do this with sprites already in the .sff and not having to replace them? Because if I had to replace them I would be replacing THOUSANDS of sprites with a high chance of error and/or messing something up. I don't want to take that chance, can you do it this way without having to replace?

For the stereo sound, I want the sound to be the best of quality. Wouldn't going mono downgrade sound quality?

[rednavi -RETIRED]

about the sprites, no need to replace anything, just load your sff and select crop all. done.

about the sound, :areyoufuckingkiddingmeface: . Stereo and mono sounds the same and have the same quality, you're missing the point. when you convert a sound from mono to stereo it doesn't magically increase its quality. Those sounds were originally in mono inside the game data.

[Speedy9199]

about the sprites, no need to replace anything, just load your sff and select crop all. done.

about the sound, :areyoufuckingkiddingmeface: . Stereo and mono sounds the same and have the same quality, you're missing the point. when you convert a sound from mono to stereo it doesn't magically increase its quality. Those sounds were originally in mono inside the game data.

Alright, I'll take your word for it.

And for the stereo and mono thing, it's just that I heard somewhere if I can remember right that stereo is better than mono... No need to give the "areyoukiddingme" face  Thx for telling me that info. Also if both stereo and mono have the same quality then what exactly is the difference? Why is one used more than the other?

[DNZRX768]

I checked through the sff and cropped all the sprites just now.

It did not do too much to the file size but I think I know why the sff file is so big:

Half of the sff (ie more than 1000 sprites) is dedicated to very large and pretty backgrounds and explods like this one:



That sprite is 320x480 pixels in size.

I have to ask you something: do you really NEED all of those?

Because I do think the character can afford to cut loose much of those backgrounds without any quality loss.

[Speedy9199]

Unless you want to see the animation of the sprites poorly done, I got to have all those sprites.

[rednavi -RETIRED]

about the sprites, no need to replace anything, just load your sff and select crop all. done.

about the sound, :areyoufuckingkiddingmeface: . Stereo and mono sounds the same and have the same quality, you're missing the point. when you convert a sound from mono to stereo it doesn't magically increase its quality. Those sounds were originally in mono inside the game data.

Alright, I'll take your word for it.

And for the stereo and mono thing, it's just that I heard somewhere if I can remember right that stereo is better than mono... No need to give the "areyoukiddingme" face  Thx for telling me that info. Also if both stereo and mono have the same quality then what exactly is the difference? Why is one used more than the other?

Stereo is used for music because music often has stereo effects. Mono is used for sound FX unless the sound is supposed to have a stereo effect (Pretty much never).

The blazblue sounds are mono so why bothering with having them in stereo if it adds nothing? Again, stereo doesn't magically increase the quality of sounds, it's only alright if the sound itself uses the properties of stereo sounds (Like dynamic panning).

Also don't forget that mugen itself has dynamic sound panning by default so no need to have stereo sounds that doesn't use stereo effects, mugen takes care of them just fine.

EDIT: That kind of fx output is the reason why your chars are so HUGE. The way to animate such thing would be to actually have a few snowflake anims and just code them later as explods, that way you save TONS of frames and space, AND you save yourself the bitching of looping such gigantic animation.

[DNZRX768]

I'm not talking about the character sprites, I'm talking about the background effect sprites, with one of them shown in my previous post.

I assume those backgrounds are for supers. That's nice, expect that do you really need them? I seen plenty of supers where they do not need 500+-sprites backgrounds. That is too excessive.

You may disregard this advice, but I say that if you do not want to loose those background sprites, then there is not other possible way to reduce the character size.

[Speedy9199]

about the sprites, no need to replace anything, just load your sff and select crop all. done.

about the sound, :areyoufuckingkiddingmeface: . Stereo and mono sounds the same and have the same quality, you're missing the point. when you convert a sound from mono to stereo it doesn't magically increase its quality. Those sounds were originally in mono inside the game data.

Alright, I'll take your word for it.

And for the stereo and mono thing, it's just that I heard somewhere if I can remember right that stereo is better than mono... No need to give the "areyoukiddingme" face  Thx for telling me that info. Also if both stereo and mono have the same quality then what exactly is the difference? Why is one used more than the other?

Stereo is used for music because music often has stereo effects. Mono is used for sound FX unless the sound is supposed to have a stereo effect (Pretty much never).

The blazblue sounds are mono so why bothering with having them in stereo if it adds nothing? Again, stereo doesn't magically increase the quality of sounds, it's only alright if the sound itself uses the properties of stereo sounds (Like dynamic panning).

Also don't forget that mugen itself has dynamic sound panning by default so no need to have stereo sounds that doesn't use stereo effects, mugen takes care of them just fine.

Thanks for clearing that up 

EDIT: BUT my characters use the astral finish music for their instant KOs and since you said that stereo works better with music...

I'm not talking about the character sprites, I'm talking about the background effect sprites, with one of them shown in my previous post.

I assume those backgrounds are for supers. That's nice, expect that do you really need them? I seen plenty of supers where they do not need 500+-sprites backgrounds. That is too excessive.

You may disregard this advice, but I say that if you do not want to loose those background sprites, then there is not other possible way to reduce the character size.

Of course I knew you were talking about the background sprites. Also exactly how much after cropping the sff did the file shrink to? That sprite comes from my Jin which is like 83-85 MB without cropping.

[2OS]

Fullscreen anims don't need to exceed 320x240. Avoid hi res for those unless the frame count of the anim is VERY small.

50 800x600 frames alone can exceed 30 MB. 640x480 is probably not far off.

[Speedy9199]

Fullscreen anims don't need to exceed 320x240. Avoid hi res for those unless the frame count of the anim is VERY small.

50 800x600 frames alone can exceed 30 MB. 640x480 is probably not far off.

But the thing is that the original source image is that size, 320,240 and resizing it results in pixels and bad quality.