Emulator

[+Kapitein Haak]

I just published a cityguide for my hometown arnhem in the netherlands. Every hotspot was designed in the same way and yet when i use it in the emulator some of the spots don't give the messagebox that gives info on the spot. I checked it in the programm and they were really configured in the same way. It seems that with a few more spots, in this case 28, the emulator gets problems.

 

Grtz Ronald.

[Firemeboy]

I just published a cityguide for my hometown arnhem in the netherlands. Every hotspot was designed in the same way and yet when i use it in the emulator some of the spots don't give the messagebox that gives info on the spot. I checked it in the programm and they were really configured in the same way. It seems that with a few more spots, in this case 28, the emulator gets problems.

 

Grtz Ronald.

 

I have the exact same problem. I have 17 zones, but only 8 show on the emulator. Is that a limitation on the emulator, or will users have the same problem when they download it on the device?

[+davidloew]

I just published a cityguide for my hometown arnhem in the netherlands. Every hotspot was designed in the same way and yet when i use it in the emulator some of the spots don't give the messagebox that gives info on the spot. I checked it in the programm and they were really configured in the same way. It seems that with a few more spots, in this case 28, the emulator gets problems.

 

Grtz Ronald.

 

I have the exact same problem. I have 17 zones, but only 8 show on the emulator. Is that a limitation on the emulator, or will users have the same problem when they download it on the device?

There is no hard limit on the emulator or the device. In the emulator though, only active/visible zones will show unless you are the author of the cartridge. This is new as of yesterday. So, if you are the author of the cartridge, all zones will show on the map. I'll do some testing of large amounts of zones in the emulator to analyze performance.

 

David.

[+GeoGern]

There is no hard limit on the emulator or the device.

 

And to follow-up on what David said:

The question as asked about the Emulator, but it is worth mentioning the "limits" for the actual device.

 

While there is no "hard" (arbitrarily imposed) limit* on the number of zones (or items, characters, etc), there is a practical limit to the total number that can exist in a single cartridge. Since all objects (zones, characters, items, etc) are loaded into memory at once, and each object is composed of a number of elements (points for zones, inventory, description, etc), you will find that memory will quickly become exhausted if you include too many in your cartridge. We have not done any "scientific" tests of what those limits are, but on the Colorado, our current recommendation is that you have no more than 10 zones in a cartridge. You can probably get away with more (depending on the complexity of the zones and what other objects exist in the cartridge), but really don't recommend it. Please keep in mind that the Garmin Colorado and even the PPC devices are NOT desktop computers with gigabytes of hard drive and memory space available.

 

-peter

 

* Well, technically, there *is* an arbitrary limit, since (due to the technical nature of the Wherigo Engine architecture), all objects need to fit within a 16-bit addressing space. However, this particular limit might easily change in future versions of the Engine and even if it doesn't, it is way beyond the memory limits described above.

[Firemeboy]

Hmmmm. I the cartridge I made with 17 zones was only 57 kb. Is that too much? I would have thought it could hold more. This cartridge has no audio, pictures, etc. It's just text and points. Can the devices really not hold that many points in them at once? Or is it an issue of processor speed?

[Firemeboy]

Ok, for some reason most of my zones were not 'active'. It may have been because I created some hard coding the coordinates, and others using the 'edit online' button. But once I select them as active, they all appear.

 

However, I'm still concerned that the limit may be 10 zones. That seems small for walking tours.

[Jeremy]

Ok, for some reason most of my zones were not 'active'. It may have been because I created some hard coding the coordinates, and others using the 'edit online' button. But once I select them as active, they all appear.

 

However, I'm still concerned that the limit may be 10 zones. That seems small for walking tours.

 

We're being conservative. I created test cartridges with 20 locations on the Colorado and it seemed to be ok, but I didn't have a lot of other characters and items. A good thing to note is that images and sounds are not stored in memory.

 

If your experience gets too large you can also break out your cartridge into episodes to help keep the memory use down. So if you were giving a walking tour of Seattle you could have one for Pike Place Market and another one for Pioneer Square.

[+trenkle]

Is it just a function of number of zones, or do points per zone play into the performance as well? It seems that as part of processing zones, you would need to process each point that defines a zone...so the more points, the more processing, correct?

[Jeremy]

Is it just a function of number of zones, or do points per zone play into the performance as well? It seems that as part of processing zones, you would need to process each point that defines a zone...so the more points, the more processing, correct?

 

GeoGern can get more into this, but there's both the processing and the memory requirement for zone management. As long as you make a zone inactive it won't process the distance to the zone and is simply ignored which can help CPU. But it is true that if the zone is active the engine needs to process each active zone to make sure you didn't get in vicinity of the zone, or enter it, etc.

[+GeoGern]

Is it just a function of number of zones, or do points per zone play into the performance as well?

 

Yes, the number of points in a zone makes a difference. This is part of what I meant when I stated earlier that the complexity of a zone is factor in how many zones a cartridge can support.

 

It seems that as part of processing zones, you would need to process each point that defines a zone...so the more points, the more processing, correct?

 

It is important not to confuse "processing" with "memory usage." While both are factors in determining whether or not a cartridge will successfully run on a particular device, they are certainly not the same thing. Yes, more points in a zone means that more processing needs to be done on each location update to determine the state (and other attributes) of the zone. Completely separate from the processing ramifications of a "complex" zone are the memory requirements. In the current Engine architecture, each point in a zone is a full-blown object, so more points in a zone means more objects in memory.

 

I'm not prepared to get into further details in this forum. And, as I have stated previously, we don't have hard numbers about actual limits. However, I think the general principles described by myself and other lackeys on this thread about being judicious with the number (and complexity) of zones, items, characters, etc, are valid. And the key point that the current generation of Wherigo-capable devices are limited in memory (and CPU capacity) as compared to laptops and desktops is worth remembering.

 

Feel free to contact me privately if you (or anyone reading this thread) have further specific questions that you think I might be able to answer.

 

-peter

[+Kapitein Haak]

Yet again it is a pity it would be a great tool, i made the cartridge to be as a touristic guide including trainstation the busstation points of interest, musea and so on. So like not walking with a map in a strange town but with you colorado or PPC. But maybe later if the limits are known. I must say this programm has so many possibilities its overwhelming its opening up a whole range of things. I even might look into a cartridge for walking through the zoo here and you can go on and on. So i hope maybe when there is some time it would be great to really look into the limits so that the builders really get the chance to make out of it as good as they can. Anyway thx for the answers ant the developing.

 

Grtz Ronald.

[+TravelBen]

Where can this emulator be found ? Is it in the Wherigo Builder ?

 

Thanks.

[Jeremy]

Where can this emulator be found ? Is it in the Wherigo Builder ?

 

Thanks.

 

Yes. It is in the Wherigo Builder under Tools.