mouseClicked() becomes laggy and slow

Vanthex

Hi guys, So I know in processing there is a function called mouseClicked() that will execute the code inside it when the mouse is clicked. However the more objects I have in my program, the laggier and slower the mouse click detection becomes. Sometimes nothing happens when I click. How do i fix this? (I'm using eclipse IDE) Here is my code:

public void mouseClicked() {
        if (room.equals("game")) {
            for (Group group : discoveredGroups) {
                group.groupClicked();
            }
            for (Group groupSelected : groupSelectedList) {
                if (groupSelected != null) {
                    groupSelected.groupClicked();
                }
            }
            for (Button button : buttons) {
                button.buttonClicked();
            }
            for (Arrow arrow : arrows) {
                arrow.arrowClicked();
            }
            for (Pane pane : panes) {
                pane.paneClicked();
            }
            // avoid concurrent modification error
            if (elementClickPause == false) {
                for (Element element : elementListA) {
                    if (element != null) {
                        element.elementClicked();
                    }
                }
                for (Element element : elementListB) {
                    if (element != null) {
                        element.elementClicked();
                    }
                }
            }
        } else if (room.equals("menu")) {
            for (Button button : buttons) {
                button.buttonClicked();
            }
            if (drawPackList == true) {
                for (Pack pack : packObjects) {
                    pack.packClicked();
                }
            }
            for (Arrow arrow : arrows) {
                arrow.draw();
            }
            for (Pane pane : panes) {
                pane.paneClicked();
            }
        } else {
            for (Button button : buttons) {
                button.buttonClicked();
            }
        }

kfrajer

Is your mouse event laggish or more like your program struggling to keep up with your computations? If the frameRate drops, I will guess that mouse events will not be processed orderly and maybe even some of those events missed...

I would be interested to know if you notice any lagging in your actual code. Can you tell?

If you do this in draw(): if(frameCount%60==0) {println("Current FR: "+frameRate());} what values do you get on average?

Kf

Vanthex

@kfrajer around 60

Current FR: 60.21824
Current FR: 60.047455
Current FR: 60.115383
Current FR: 59.958485
Current FR: 60.01103
Current FR: 60.063602
Current FR: 60.268288
Current FR: 60.11428
Current FR: 60.341026
Current FR: 60.16651
Current FR: 60.204857
Current FR: 59.88088

GoToLoop

mouseClicked(), like all the other user input callbacks, are synchronous in Processing.

The screen is uploaded only when draw() + all trigger functions are fully processed! :-<

GoToLoop

Processing offers thread() so you can delegate a separate Thread to do a job: :-bd
https://Processing.org/reference/thread_.html

However, you're gonna need to protect that whole threaded job, given your iterating over lotsa diff. containers. :-SS

Any other place which changes the size() of any of those containers gotta be protected by synchronized () {} blocks as well, under the same monitor Object reference. =;

kfrajer

@GoToLoop The OP is reporting 60 fps... then what could be causing the lagging behavior? Not sure if a separate thread would help here, or would it?

Kf

jeremydouglass

It sounds like OP is calling an arbitrarily complex collision detection function for a growing list of (dozens, hundreds, thousands?) of objects each time mouseClicked fires...?

If so, clicks are trying to run a LOT of code -- optimization might also be necessary here. For example, if your objects are small and collision detection is expensive you could keep objects in region bins (e.g. 9 bins, 16 bins) to speed lookup. Or approximate the collision detection. Or do two-pass or multi-pass collision detection to find candidates cheaply, then only test those candidates.