Dose AS3 support threads etc

[Jon-86]

A simple question dose it have support for threads or another mechanism allowing you to implement something that's more responsive, by having some calculations taken care of by a separate process so it doesn't cause a perceived block.

And if so, is their any interprocess communication mechanisms to get threads talking to each other?

[Glaiel-Gamer]

using pixel bender to batch process data is the closest you'll get to doing threading in flash.

[dELtaluca]

As far as I'm aware the only way to do multithreading... is with a PixelBender filter :P

Which is a shame, but there you are :/

[dELtaluca]

Unless you felt like writing a program in another language doing the work for you with as many threads as you like, and communicate with it over a BinarySocket :P

[Jon-86]

Ach well, cheers for the info folks, I will look into that and see if it has any use for what I'm trying to make.

[Jon-86]

At 9/25/09 05:09 AM, dELtaluca wrote: Unless you felt like writing a program in another language doing the work for you with as many threads as you like, and communicate with it over a BinarySocket :P

I replied too soon, thats a good idea. I would rather keep the code in one place but that idea might have a use :)

[dELtaluca]

Or as glaiel points out, swf's can communicate with eachother too, so if you could have multiple swf's open you can communicate between them and do it that way lol (Assuming that if in a browser, the browser didn't run each swf in a single thread itself)

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 9/25/09 05:13 AM, dELtaluca wrote: Or as glaiel points out

in a private conversation off thread

[hesselbom]

One simple way to kind of simulate threads is to do smaller chunks of the operatons in a timer. For example, instead of looping 10,000 times at once, loop 100 times in each timer iteration.

Ultimately, it will take longer time to loop through all those 10,000 objects but because it will not try to do it all at once you save some performance.

I have used this technique for large loops in flash and it has worked fine for me so far.

[henke37]

And with some smart logic, you can push the loop length to just as much as flash can take without dropping any frames.

[GustTheASGuy]

Using a tiny timer automatically maxes the execution.

[henke37]

Actually, not only does that waste cpu time with the function call stuff, it does have a max rate. I read that timers only fires up to ten times per rendered frame.

[Jon-86]

It would probaly be a pain in the arse having multiple SWFs on the go at the same time, sounds live a viable solution mind you but not right for what I'm doing.

Cheers anyway for the good suggestions & ideas!

[The-Super-Flash-Bros]

The state machine that alchemy compiles to can simulate basic threading written in C++, but it's pretty much an actionscript implementation, so there isn't a performance benefit. It was added to let you re-write less of you c++ source.

So not too helpful, but it's there

Tom-