Call or Spawn locking up game

[infection 1]

Hello I'm currently in the works of optimizing our mission however I can't quite figure out when I should use spawn or call (before you say it, I'm aware several threads has been made regarding the subject). My issue is that I know spawn basiclly runs parallel and call waits for return. Below explained pretty well for me. (Taken from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?101275-Return-Value-From-SQF-File&p=1665038&viewfull=1#post1665038)

call means starts the code which can return a result -> Do this for me and tell me the result I'll wait for it.
spawn means start this code and run it in parallel. I'll continue doing whatever I was going to do.
loadFile reads a file and makes it a string; a piece of text.
preProcessFile reads a file and removes comment, applies preprocessor rules, and then return a string; the resulting text.
compile takes some string and turns it into code.
execVM is the equivalent of "spawn compile preProcessFile"

HOWEVER, I still have a few questions.

Currently I compile all my functions with Funcname = compile preprocessFileLineNumbers "name.sqf", my questions are

• It says execvm is the same as spawn compile preprocessfile, if I use [] spawn function; after I used above code to turn my scripts into function variables is it still the same performance as a execvm? and is call better performance than spawn in general?
  
• I've been testing a lot with call however game locks up on certain scripts, I understand a waituntil and sleep won't work in a call function correct? So what more would generally cause game to hang due to call function. (Where I would need spawn instead of call)
  
• I'm not certain about this but I think I read it somewhere that only spawn can call for other functions and call can't?
  
• Is spawn the only thing you can do within a .hpp file?
  

If Someone would be able to clarify this for me it would be great!

Edited August 8, 2013 by Infection

[fred41 42]

Hello Infection,

i asked me the same questions a few months ago.

Because of that i wrote a little test .fsm to check the timings of the script interpreter.

You can find this .fsm and some results in this thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?156542-optimization-for-script-interpreter-possible

The answer from *deadfast* in this thread is very interesting and helped me to understand some behavoir a bit better.

I think it is very important to understand this basics before start optimizing.

If you have some more detailed questions feel free to contact me via PM.

BTW: my little tool "Arma Server Monitor" is very helpful for optimizing tasks too, but is written for Arma 3.

It should work for Arma 2 OA too, but you have to install the included ASM.fsm manually in your missions init.sqf.

Regards,

Fred41

Hello I'm currently in the works of optimizing our mission however I can't quite figure out when I should use spawn or call (before you say it, I'm aware several threads has been made regarding the subject). My issue is that I know spawn basiclly runs parallel and call waits for return. Below explained pretty well for me. (Taken from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?101275-Return-Value-From-SQF-File&p=1665038&viewfull=1#post1665038)

call means starts the code which can return a result -> Do this for me and tell me the result I'll wait for it.
spawn means start this code and run it in parallel. I'll continue doing whatever I was going to do.
loadFile reads a file and makes it a string; a piece of text.
preProcessFile reads a file and removes comment, applies preprocessor rules, and then return a string; the resulting text.
compile takes some string and turns it into code.
execVM is the equivalent of "spawn compile preProcessFile"

HOWEVER, I still have a few questions.

Currently I compile all my functions with Funcname = compile preprocessFileLineNumbers "name.sqf", my questions are

• It says execvm is the same as spawn compile preprocessfile, if I use [] spawn function; after I used above code to turn my scripts into function variables is it still the same performance as a execvm? and is call better performance than spawn in general?
  
• I've been testing a lot with call however game locks up on certain scripts, I understand a waituntil and sleep won't work in a call function correct? So what more would generally cause game to hang due to call function. (Where I would need spawn instead of call)
  
• I'm not certain about this but I think I read it somewhere that only spawn can call for other functions and call can't?
  
• Is spawn the only thing you can do within a .hpp file?
  

If Someone would be able to clarify this for me it would be great!