v1.36.2.0 - Improvements to multithreading and performance

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.2.0) This update focuses on multithreading improvements, and a few performance improvements. This includes reduced frame hitches, up to 10-25% particle system performance gains from improved memory bandwidth efficiency, and a general 10% performance gain from adding support for SIMD FMA cpu instructions.

Here are the full release notes for v.1.36.2.0:

• Most of the advanced multithreading options can now be applied without restarting the game -This includes the following options: --Game Update Multithreading --Particle Multithreading --Auxiliary Particle Threads -Core elements of multithreading management were updated to make this possible -The "Sound Multithreading" option still requires a game restart at this time

• Improved thread management of the particle system -More of the startup loading process is done asynchronously, slightly improving the game startup time -Reduced frame hitching when many particles are on screen

• Optimized memory bandwidth performance for the particle system -Results in up to a 10-25% particle update performance gain -Greatly cut down on memory fragmentation

• Added support for SIMD FMA CPU instructions -Improves general performance by up to 10% for CPU's that support these instructions -Matrix multiply operations on the CPU side benefit the most from this, being over 100x faster -Uses an SSE2 fallback for older CPUs that don't support these instructions

• Enabled anisotropic filtering for several HUD elements and sprites to improve sharpness of them

• A few small optimizations to render matrix calculations

• Small optimizations to localization text data management

• Fixed a few potential bugs

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.36.2.0” or higher. Enjoy!