Frame lifecycle

Games written using agb typically follow the 'update-render loop'. The way your components update will vary depending on the game you are writing, but each frame you would normally do the following:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
let mut gfx = gba.graphics.get();

loop {
    my_game.update();

    let mut frame = gfx.frame();
    my_game.show(&mut frame);
    frame.commit();
}
}

Here we will discuss the idiomatic way of using the GraphicsFrame during the lifecycle of a frame.

.show(frame: &mut GraphicsFrame)

The most common pattern involving GraphicsFrame you'll see in the agb library is a .show() method which typically accepts a mutable reference to a GraphicsFrame.

Due to this naming convention, it is also conventional in games written using agb to name the render method show() and have the same method signature. You should not be doing any mutation of state during the show() method, and as much loading and other CPU intensive work as possible should be done prior to the call to show().

See the frame lifecycle example for a simple walkthrough for how to manage a frame with a single player character.

.commit()

Once everything you want to be visible on the frame is ready, you should follow this up with a call to .commit() on the frame. This will wait for the current frame to finish rendering before quickly setting everything up for the next frame.

This method takes ownership of the current frame instance, so you won't be able to use it for any further calls once this is done. You will need to create a new frame object from the gfx instance.

See also

These are the various aspects of agb that interact with the GraphicsFrame system.