From: James W Sager Iii Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Allegro datfiles was:re: Compiler Optimizations Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 09:51:53 -0500 Organization: Junior, MCS Undeclared, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 32 Message-ID: <0p4xE9q00WB_07il00@andrew.cmu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: po8.andrew.cmu.edu To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk >> B) I am unsure of whether the .dat file loads itself fully into memory. >> Since my game is a slow paced RPG, I have no need for all the BITMAPs >> to be in the memory, and there are ALOT of BITMAPs appx 1000+. I have >> other devious uses for the memory... >Remember about virtual memory. Even if the entire datafile were loaded, >it would be paged out until actually used. The only overhead would be >in loading the file in the first place. As it is, I believe that >Allegro only loads those portions of a datafile that you actually >request. The problem is that I'm kinda confused... My plan was to put all the images into one big file and only pull out a few out at a time to put in memory. Allegro will use the cwsdpmi thing to simulate ALOT of ram, but after a certain point(memory on chips are used, the hard drive is used and a noticable slow down occurs using memory. On my game, I malloc out a bunch of 40kb levels from one to a hundred or more... Malloc is weird in that it will only go up to the extended memory, and not hit the hard drive. My questions are: A: If I load up 8 meg of images in a .dat file, and there is exactly 8 meg of extended memory: Will I be able to malloc out 4 meg of levels? B: If it doesn't crash, will the game be slowed down because it has to access the hard drive at unknown times because its using virtual memory?