Talk:Robocode/Graphical Debugging

Anybody else running into these two issues?

• FontMetrics StackOverflowError
• Graphics2D.setFont() has no effect

RobertWalker 04:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

No, but I'm running into a different one. I just haven't taken the time to troubleshoot it and file a report yet.

java.nio.BufferOverflowException
	at java.nio.Buffer.nextPutIndex(Buffer.java:501)
	at java.nio.HeapByteBuffer.putInt(HeapByteBuffer.java:347)
	at net.sf.robocode.robotpaint.Graphics2DSerialized.put(Graphics2DSerialized.java:1760)
	at net.sf.robocode.robotpaint.Graphics2DSerialized.setColor(Graphics2DSerialized.java:204)
	at voidious.utils.RoboGraphic$Dot.render(RoboGraphic.java:45)
	at voidious.move.<CENSORED>.onPaint(<CENSORED>.java:390)
	at voidious.<CENSORED>.onPaint(<CENSORED>.java:103)
	at robocode.PaintEvent.dispatch(PaintEvent.java:61)
	at robocode.Event$HiddenEventHelper.dispatch(Event.java:249)
	at net.sf.robocode.security.HiddenAccess.dispatch(HiddenAccess.java:195)
	at net.sf.robocode.host.events.EventManager.dispatch(EventManager.java:486)
	at net.sf.robocode.host.events.EventManager.processEvents(EventManager.java:459)
	at net.sf.robocode.host.proxies.BasicRobotProxy.executeImpl(BasicRobotProxy.java:403)
	at net.sf.robocode.host.proxies.BasicRobotProxy.execute(BasicRobotProxy.java:119)
	at robocode.AdvancedRobot.execute(AdvancedRobot.java:565)
	at voidious.<CENSORED>.run(<CENSORED>.java:48)
	at net.sf.robocode.host.proxies.HostingRobotProxy.run(HostingRobotProxy.java:250)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
SYSTEM: Exception occurred on robocode.PaintEvent

I get this when I enable paint, but then if I restart the match, everything works and paints fine. --Voidious 05:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I bet this is your new robot, isn't it? Or you need not to <CENSORED> =D I myself sometimes get BufferOverflowException, but I got it when DrawingBot overflow its renderables ArrayLisy. » Nat | Talk » 05:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes open other robots' debug graphics just to see how they work, if I have some wrong calculations or just for fun but robots such as Knight, SleepSiphon and DrussGT have really really slow graphics on my computer even if it doesn't seem like they draw too much. Is it a problem with my robocode settings(I both tried with DEFAULT and SPEED) or is it just the bots which draw really slow.

I’m working on a robocode version that uses hardware acceleration for graphics. Otherwise painting is calculated by CPU and is expected to be slow. Anyway, both DrussGT and Knight runs smoothly on my machine. I just can’t turn on anti-smooth which takes forever to render one tick.

Mine is setup for speed version and I tried single, double and triple buffering and I am pretty sure that my machine is not the slowest one(3.1 Ghz CPU but yours is probably a lot faster). It is probably because of the text they are rendering.

I have a really poor machine and they still run smoothly here. Things get laggy only when in melee.

Thanks for the response, I generally have NetBeans running when I am testing my robots but I just tried it without NetBeans and it is still running with about 5 FPS.

One thing I have noticed is that low FPS only happens when a bot is rendering text. In any case, can you send me your rendering options?

Maybe just our understanding of "running smoothly" is different.=)

By smooth I mean it's at least 30 fps (or 60 fps at best). Actually those bot gets 22 fps, but still smooth enough comparing to 5 fps.

I used to notice FPS drop when text are drawn, but recently that's no longer noticeable.

note that I run robocode with these JVM parameters:

    -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true -Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true -Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true -Dcom.apple.mrj.application.apple.menu.about.name="My Robocode"

That's really cool actually. Please keep sharing your progress on this, and you if give up on it share what you got with us, maybe we can get our hands dirty too. :)

Thanks! I'm very excited that more people is getting interested in this project. Anyway, I merely have full time during internship so the development may be slow ;) But I would like to post everything on Github asap where everyone could participant in.

Your openGL might be disabled by default. Have a look at the end of Thread:Talk:EvBot/Did any one noticed the FPS drop in robocode 1.7.3.0? discussion.

This is what I have to do on my Linux machines to get decent FPS.

Beaming thanks for your help and I tried everything with it but because of my lacking computer knowledge I didn't even know what to write or where to put it. The thing I tried was copying the OpenGL=true part and pasting it somewhere that seemed appropriate. The program worked perfectly but nothing changed about the FPS.

Btw, what JVM version are you using? It seems that some version of JVM handles text drawing poorly on mac. But I couldn't remember any details.

I'm using Oracle JDK 8

I am using JDK 8 which I got with NetBeans.

I sometimes open other robots' debug graphics just to see how they work, if I have some wrong calculations or just for fun but robots such as Knight, SleepSiphon and DrussGT have really really slow graphics on my computer even if it doesn't seem like they draw too much. Is it a problem with my robocode settings(I both tried with DEFAULT and SPEED) or is it just the bots which draw really slow.

Sorry for double post but I don't even know how did I duplicate it. Can somebody please remove it?

Hello! Sorry for digging this out, but the article mentions that the coordinate system is mirrored to fit the Robocode way of coordinates. But for me, this doesn't work at all. Did recent versions of Robocode revert this setting? For me, x is okay, but y is behaving the other, 'wrong', way again.

Nevermind, I just found out that the check box changes this behaviour... silly me! You could delete this section of the discussion page, I don't really know how to do so :)

No need, maybe someone else with this problem will find it. =) Glad you figured it out! I thought there was a checkbox to toggle that behavior, but I didn't want to comment until I had a chance to check.

As I recall, the reason for this is that before Robocode itself had graphical debugging, someone made something called "Robocode SG" to enable it, and the API adopted by Robocode is the same except for fixing the Y coordinate orientation.

I've had a problem vexing me for some time....

From what I know by reading this amazing wiki, bots fire bullets the tick after fire()/setFire() are called. (assuming one never calls them until the gun is cool) However, if I make a wave (a wave that I'm firing for targeting purposes, not a wave fired at me) with a launchTime = getTime()+1 and then draw it, my wave reliably gets drawn one tick behind the bullet on the robocode screen.. doesn't begin to break (my waves change color when they begin the breaking process) till a tick after the bullet visually hits the opposing bot.

Everything lines up perfectly on screen if I just have launchTime be this tick.. but that's supposed to be off. I don't think I'm off in my wave radius calculation:

radius = velocity*(getTime()-launchTime)

Does a Bullet move its first step on the same tick it is created?

Are you doing your calculating in run() or in onScannedRobot()? IIRC they happen on different sides of the getTime() update.

It's happening in onScannedRobot()

Generally speaking, can I use onPaint() as a guide to having my picture of the battlefield properly placed? I guess that question boils down to "Do Robocode's own graphics and onPaint() happen at substantially the same time relative to the bots/bullets progressing from tick to tick?" If so, then proper alignment of my debug graphics with the screen means I'm getting things created/updated at the right times.

When my onPaint() draws my waves, breaking waves display their current min/max precise intersection angles. It was a beautiful moment when I saw that happening, and it looked accurate right down to the pixel (or as close as the naked eye gets) on the bot's bounding box. I'm just hoping that moment of "huzzah!!" wasn't in vain. ;)

Two important things here:

• The bullet's fire time is the tick you call fire/setFire/setFireBullet. The following tick the bullet appears and has traveled forward by its speed once from the location you were when you fired it. The tick after you call fire is the first tick the enemy can see that you've fired a bullet. And the tick before you called fire is the last info you could use to aim, since on the firing tick, the bullet is fired before the gun is turned.
• The order of operations is: (all other events), onScannedRobot, onPaint, run(), time increments. So if you fire from onScannedRobot, your graphics will line up. But if you fire from run(), things might look a tick behind, because they won't be painted until next tick's onPaint.

Re: "But if you fire from run(), things might look a tick behind"

Unless of course your bot is using a trick like making your "run()" code happen at the start of onPaint when onPaint is called, effectively re-ordering the "run()" code to be before "onPaint()" :-)

If you fire from run(), graphics can still line up if you also paint from that same run().

The way I do:

(all events), put all event data in a custom queue, execute() returns, cache battle state to avoid 1000 calls, process event queue and everything else in the order I want: radar, retrieve data from teammates, movement, fire gun, energy management, turn gun, send data to teammates, graphical debugging.

I assume you're referring to if you use the "getGraphics()" call instead of implementing "onPaint()" right?

At least personally I don't care for that approach because then either your bot will spend CPU time on the painting when painting is disabled, or you have to check if onPaint is called anyway.

Using getGraphics() also works. But I am implementing onPaint and storing an object in a member variable (that object contains the Graphics object), which is then consumed in the run() method. That variable is cleared before calling execute() (in case debug is disabled in the middle of a battle). It is bulky, but it is fast.

If painting is disabled, onPaint is not called and nothing is setted in that variable. Yep, there is one check to see if the variable was set. The onPaint event is treated a bit differently (separated queue) from other events to make it easier to process it at the end.

Well keep in mind that the difference between onPaint and getGraphics are twofold.

First if I recall, the painting done by getGraphics is synced better with your current activity. Also you don't have to store any of your painting data for later to paint (which if I recall is part of the sync issue).

Which makes getGraphics much more useful for debugging then onPaint in my humble opinion. Where as onPaint is better for fancy graphics for everyone else after it is released.

The approach I told above is based in gathering all event data first, then process everything, only then do some output. Shift from an event driven architecture to a simpler request driven (input/process/output) architecture.

The main advantage is not being constrained with event ordering. Event ordering in Robocode doesn´t give any extra information. The main drawbacks are increased codesize (not an option for nanobots), and necessity of member variables (not an option for perceptual bots).

Hi, I'm new to this but I'd like to use eclipse. As I look through the tutorial on how to set it up for robocode, I noticed that it was for windows. When I go to find the lib files for robocode on my laptop, their not in the same place. Does anyone know where to find them? I'm using a debian distro and installed through the included software center.

I've never installed Robocode via the distro before, but looking at this it appears that robocode.jar and such are located in /usr/share/java/ if you install that way. That help?