VB Forum / General / July 2009

However, I later, test-wise, removed VBHlp32.dll from \windows\system
and the app still found it in the application folder.

I suppose my reluctance to do high-speed routines in B.A.S.I.C.
instead of assembler can be traced back to when I started on slow 8088
PCs and VB1/2/3. For years I used Crescent Software's QuickPak Pro for
these kinds of routines. However, PCs *have* got a lot faster, so
maybe nowadays there is minimal difference in execution speed between
ASM and Basic. But there is one other consideration that always
bothers me and that is that VB integers are signed. Doesn't this cause
a problem when doing "shifting" the Basic way through multiplication?
To avoid all these issues I just always thought, nah, it's not worth
the hassle, let's just whack an ASM routine in there!

However, I take your point and will do some speed tests, and test the
effects of "signed-ness" using extreme values that are unlikely to
crop up in practice.

Doing the preload is the most interesting point you raise here,
because this is something I have never contemplated before.

By the way, since you're here, I have noticed some ~slight~
degradation in the screen performance only on Vista and Windows 7.

I summarise this as follows:

1. Windows 98 SE: App continues to play when the form is moved or the
grid (or listbox) is scrolled. The virtual keyboard, however, stops
(see below for comment)..

2. XP: App continues to play when the form is moved or the grid (or
listbox) is scrolled. The virtual keyboard ALSO continues! (This is
the best performing platform of all four O/S's.)

3. Vista and Windows 7:  App continues to play and the virtual
keyboard also continues, but there is ~some~ degradation when the form
is moved. The visual effect is that one sees traces of the form
shadowing the form as it is dragged around the desktop while the music
output slows down a little momentarily. The slight degradation is only
momentary, in that the music slows down slightly for a second or two,
then stabilises again. The slower I drag the form, the less noticeable
is the degradation. The shadow/trace effect happens when I drag *any*
window around the desktop (see comment below).

NB: I'm not worried about the virtual keyboard stopping on 98SE. The
fact that the music continues to play is the most important.

On Vista/Windows 7 I could put the degradation down to lack of any
decent graphics card in the test PC. Namely, there is none! Only the
onboard (mobo) graphics are used. And both Vista and Windows 7 strike
me as being particularly heavy on the use of graphics resources. I did
try experimenting with Compatibilty options, but no combination I
tried appeared to make much difference. Nevertheless, as far as I'm
concerned the app with its revised playback engine is a success on all
O/S's, and from Larry we know that it works on W2K as well!

MM