I am having some issues with Allegro that I simply can't figure out how to solve myself, after spending some time searching for an answer I still haven't found anything that I could use.
I am new to Allegro, so there's much I don't know yet, so please don't hate me for this question. 
I have, however, spent some time with C++ so I know how to do some things, but I'm far, far from an expert.
I'm trying to make a program that I will eventually expand to a game, but for now I'm working on a level editor, and I've managed to set up a decent interface and the GUI is working as I want it to. Everything works just as I expected - just tens if not hundreds of times slower... I have noticed that my simple GUI renders at about 20-30 FPS, which is just ridiculously slow. However, as soon as I take out the drawing part from my main loop, the program runs much faster, I'd estimate much more than 1000 FPS. Just a very rough guess as the program seems to run 960 frames in less than a second.
I have no idea what I can do to fix this...
I'm using Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 and Allegro 5.0.4, and this is some parts of the code I use to draw everything:
Setting up Allegro:
#SelectExpand
1bool gfx_init
(void)
2{
3 // Error-checking
4 bool noerror
= true;
5
6 // Starting Allegro
7 if (!al_init())
8 {
9 al_show_native_message_box(NULL,
"",
"",
"Failed to initialize Allegro!", NULL, NULL
);
10 noerror
= false;
11 }
12
13 if (noerror
) // Setting up the screen
14 window_set_size
(640,
480);
15
16 if (!al_init_image_addon())
17 {
18 al_show_native_message_box(NULL,
"",
"",
"Failed to initialize Allegro image!", NULL, NULL
);
19 noerror
= false;
20 }
21
22 al_init_font_addon();
23 if (!al_init_ttf_addon())
24 {
25 al_show_native_message_box(NULL,
"",
"",
"Failed to initialize Allegro TTF!", NULL, NULL
);
26 noerror
= false;
27 }
28
29 if (!al_install_keyboard())
30 {
31 al_show_native_message_box(NULL,
"",
"",
"Failed to initialize Allegro keyboard!", NULL, NULL
);
32 noerror
= false;
33 }
34 if (!al_install_mouse())
35 {
36 al_show_native_message_box(NULL,
"",
"",
"Failed to initialize Allegro mouse!", NULL, NULL
);
37 noerror
= false;
38 }
39 if (!al_install_joystick())
40 {
41 al_show_native_message_box(NULL,
"",
"",
"Failed to initialize Allegro joystick!", NULL, NULL
);
42 noerror
= false;
43 }
44
45 // Handle other things related to Allegro
46 if (noerror
)
47 {
48 // Set the bitmaps to video memory
49 al_set_new_bitmap_flags(ALLEGRO_VIDEO_BITMAP
);
50 }
51
52 // Return
53 return noerror
;
54}
Setting up a display
#SelectExpand
1void window_set_size
(int width,
int height
)
2{
3 // Set the new width/height
4 screen_width
= width
;
5 screen_height
= height
;
6
7 // Reset the screen
8 if (screen != NULL
)
9 al_destroy_display(screen); // Todo: Move the window to center of screen after resizing it. This line will be removed later...
10 //al_resize_display(screen, window_get_width(), window_get_height());
11 //else
12 screen = al_create_display(window_get_width
(), window_get_height
());
13
14 if (!screen)
15 al_show_native_message_box(NULL,
"",
"",
"Failed to set up a screen!", NULL, NULL
);
16
17 if (buffer
!= NULL
)
18 al_destroy_bitmap(buffer
);
19 buffer
= al_create_bitmap(window_get_width
(), window_get_height
());
20}
Main loop drawing
#SelectExpand
1// Process draw event
2 surface_reset_target
(); // Make sure that the surface gets reset, may cause unwanted problems if it isn't
3 for (i
=0; i
<viewport_count
; i
++)
4 {
5 // Get viewport
6 viewport_current
= (s_viewport
*)list_find_value
(viewport_list, i
);
7 current
= viewport_get_surface
(viewport_current
);
8 al_set_target_bitmap(current
);
9
10 // Clear viewport to black
11 al_clear_to_color(viewport_current->color
);
12
13 // Draw objects to viewport
14 node
= object_list->start
;
15 while (node
!= NULL
)
16 {
17 object
= (c_base
*)node->data
;
18 node
= node->next
;
19 object->event_draw
();
20 }
21 }
22
23
24 // Draw buffer to screen and update screen
25 surface_reset_target
();
26
27 for (i
=0; i
<viewport_count
; i
++)
28 {
29 // Obtain viewport bitmap
30 viewport_current
= (s_viewport
*)list_find_value
(viewport_list, i
);
31 current
= viewport_get_surface
(viewport_current
);
32
33 // Draw viewports to screen
34 draw_bitmap
(current, viewport_current->port->x, viewport_current->port->y,
0,
0,
35 viewport_current->port->w
/viewport_current->view->w, viewport_current->port->h
/viewport_current->view->h,
36 0);
37 }
38 al_flip_display(); // Update screen
Drawing bitmaps:
#SelectExpand
1void draw_bitmap
(ALLEGRO_BITMAP *bitmap,
float x,
float y,
float offx,
float offy,
float scalex,
float scaley,
float angle
)
2{
3 if (bitmap
== NULL
) // Can't draw an invalid bitmap
4 return;
5
6 // Actual drawing
7 if (angle
== 0)
8 {
9 if (scalex
== 1 && scaley
== 1)
10 al_draw_bitmap(bitmap, x-offx, y-offy, NULL
);
11 else
12 {
13 float w
= al_get_bitmap_width(bitmap
);
14 float h
= al_get_bitmap_height(bitmap
);
15 al_draw_scaled_bitmap(bitmap,
0,
0, w, h, x-offx, y-offy, w
*scalex, h
*scaley, NULL
);
16 }
17 }
18 else
19 {
20 if (scalex
== 1 && scaley
== 1)
21 al_draw_rotated_bitmap(bitmap, offx, offy, x, y, angle
*ANGLE_TO_RAD, NULL
);
22 else
23 al_draw_scaled_rotated_bitmap(bitmap, offx, offy, x, y, scalex, scaley, angle
*ANGLE_TO_RAD, NULL
);
24 }
25}
Other details:
The surfaces aren't anything else than allegro bitmaps with a different name, so surface_reset_target() simply means al_set_target_backbuffer(screen). surface_set_target is just the same as al_set_target_bitmap, just with a little bit more code related to my engine.
I really hope that anyone can help me out with this. I really do want to make a game with C++, which is something I've never been able to do before. But I can't because my program is running so slow that it hurts...
This is what I'm drawing thus far:
http://i43.tinypic.com/2mwf8xz.png
There's no reason it should draw as slow as it's doing...
EDIT:
After running some tests, I notice that most of the slowdown seems to come from the al_flip_display() call. Running 960 cycles with everything but that lines seems to take just around 5 seconds which I might be able to live with, but with that line... Oh boy, soooo slow.
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