Greetings, Hard Chip players!

This update is about simulation but not only! Let's dig in:

1. Simulation improvements: The last update started to add major improvements of the simulation engine. Like a 10x faster! but... it just allowed to have a large simulation from 0.2 updates per second (ups) to 1.8 ups. That was a step in the right direction but not enough. This update try to add another 10x on top of another 10x. Moar 10xss. Here are the results of 0.0.2.9 compared to 0.0.2.8:

So, for the inspirational size of the biggest puzzle of 384x384, the game can now render and simulate it at an "okay" pace. Remember that those results are my reference machine, a Ryzen 5825U with a Radeon Graphics (chipset) laptop! If you have a desktop, you might have far better results.

To give an idea of the size, here's the 384x384 simulation:
 
But! at the moment, the reconstruction of the voxels doesn't follow the pace and can only do so at 10fps ish. You can have a game running at 60fps with a simulation at 60ups, but the animation will still be at 10fps. It will be the very next optim I'll focus on.

2. Break at the next clock cycle: allows to stop the simulation as soon as the clock changes its sign (from Up to Down or reverse). This allows to step into your circuit before "it settles" in its final state for the clock cycle. It is tremendously helpful for finding errors. Just click here then Play to use it:

3.QOL, Bug and Crash fixes: Challenge FullBitAdder has its validators order changed to avoid false positives; Tooltips for the Bottom build bar; The challenge instructions modal is now resizable; Raymarched rendering is now the default renderer; Crash fix on "too long" traces;

What's next? Now that the render and simulation have been almost sorted out (updating the voxels is still slow).  The next move would be to add a component library feature and try to build a 4-bit ALU like from a 4004 CPU. A lot can go wrong, but it seems in reach now! This will add far more content and challenges.

Thank you for playing Hard Chip, and stay tuned for more updates and new features!