subroutine or something?

[evildragon]

im writing a utility, and i need to end a loop after so many seconds..

for example, my loop just counts numbers as fast as it can, and it needs to stop itself.. at the moment, i just have the user stop it with "waitpadup", but that's no good for accurate results... (it's a simple benchmarking utility)

here's my code so far..

10 print "      Sega MD/Genesis Benchmark"
20 print ""
30 print "        Coded by 'evildragon'."
40 print ""
50 input "   Press 'Start' when you are ready!"
60 counter=0
110 print "";counter;""
120 counter=counter+1
125 waitpadup
130 goto 110

so when it's stuck in a loop like that, how can i stop it after 60 seconds? thanks!

(im just learning, and i want this procedure to work exactly this way, cause im stubborn )

[evildragon]

Actually, how about this, is it possible to see how many "VInts" have occured? Perhaps I can stop it after so many vints...

[Tom Maneiro]

Why complex your life with a loop when you have the Sleep instruction?


'Sleep after 60 seconds
sleep 60*60

...or if you still want the loop:
'loopy-de-loop way, using Sleep
for i=1 to 60 do
 sleep 60
 'do something?
next

[evildragon]

if i do it that way, with the loop, will the loop still be able to run as fast as it possibly can? it's a benchmark for the 68000, and it needs to count as fast as it can within 60 seconds...

[evildragon]

ehh, should have tried first (and i may just register here so i can edit)...

the first one don't work, it just haults the whole benchmark and keeps it counting minutes instead of a CPU counter.. the second one just makes it count seconds...

for example, if i could somehow count vints, i wanted the loop to end after 60 vints, and therefore, give me a benchmark number..

for example, with the code i have right now, just a loop that can be stopped by a button, after 60 seconds, my genny counts 4868.. if it's in 50Hz mode, i score an even higher 7000--and something.. thing is, i dont want to have to hault it manually, because that's introducing human error..

[Tom Maneiro]

If you check the BEX manual, you have two Sleep functions:

- Sleep: wait for VBlanks (60 VBlanks = 1 second)
- Sleep2: wait for HBlanks

From v0.12 changelog:

- Added a new command Sleep2 which delays on each horizontal blank instead of verticle blanks

[evildragon]

tomman said:

If you check the BEX manual, you have two Sleep functions:

- Sleep: wait for VBlanks (60 VBlanks = 1 second)
- Sleep2: wait for HBlanks

From v0.12 changelog:

- Added a new command Sleep2 which delays on each horizontal blank instead of verticle blanks

I did check the dev manual, but your forgetting something.. If I sleep the loop, so does the counting! thus the test is no longer valid, and all the CPU counter does, is count H Blanks or V Blanks, which is not what I wanted.

[evildragon]

I don't think your understanding me..

I don't want to stop at VBlanks, I want to COUNT them, then END at a certain time..

for example, make the loop keep running, without interruption.. then, have another part of the program count how many verticals the TV goes through, and when it reaches a certain count, it then ends the loop...

If I just sleep it, that stops the loop, and all we have is a VBlank counter or an HBlank counter, which isn't what i want at all, that's not benchmarking..

[jlf65]

Try

10 print "      Sega MD/Genesis Benchmark"
20 print ""
30 print "        Coded by 'evildragon'."
40 print ""
50 on VBLANK gosub 1000
60 input "   Press 'Start' when you are ready!"
70 counter=0
80 vblanks=0

100 counter=counter+1
110 if vblanks<120 goto 100
120 print "number of increments in 2 seconds is "; counter
130 end

1000 vblanks = vblanks +1
1010 return

I don't know if the on vblank needs restarting every vblank... that might need to be added to the routine at 1000. Basically, you want a vblank routine that increments a time value (called vblanks in this case). Then your code you are benching simply checks for a specific number of vblanks when looping.

[evildragon]

jlf65 said:

Try

10 print "      Sega MD/Genesis Benchmark"
20 print ""
30 print "        Coded by 'evildragon'."
40 print ""
50 on VBLANK gosub 1000
60 input "   Press 'Start' when you are ready!"
70 counter=0
80 vblanks=0

100 counter=counter+1
110 if vblanks<120 goto 100
120 print "number of increments in 2 seconds is "; counter
130 end

1000 vblanks = vblanks +1
1010 return

I don't know if the on vblank needs restarting every vblank... that might need to be added to the routine at 1000. Basically, you want a vblank routine that increments a time value (called vblanks in this case). Then your code you are benching simply checks for a specific number of vblanks when looping.

it didn't work, and i tried by restarting VBlank everytime, and still nothing... also fixed your if statement cause it didn't have a than, and the print statement was missing a ;"" at the end.. still didn't work..

i think im going to have to do this in assembly instead..