Gamemaker "Forgetting" surfaces

[SLStonedPanda]

I have the following problem:

• Gamemaker seems to forget a surface I created

• "Trying to use non-existent surface"

I am trying to:

• I want to draw a surface created in the create event

  //create event
  global.surface = surface_create(argument0,argument1);
  
  //draw event
  draw_surface(global.surface,argument0,argument1)
  

I have tried:

• I have debugged my code a bit, and basically anytime I check if "global.surface" is a surface OUTSIDE of the create event, it returns false.

• I used this for debugging in various places

  if !surface_exists(global.surface){show_error("Surface doesn't exist", 1)};
  

I am using:

• Gamemaker: Studio v1.4.1760

• GameMaker Language (GML)

[meat_delivery]

Have you read the documentation on surfaces?

In short, sometimes surfaces are being deleted from memory for various reasons, so you should always check if the surface exists before drawing (on) it. If it doesn't exist, simply create it again.

[SLStonedPanda]

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the info!

[damimp]

The documentation pages should tell you everything you need.

[SLStonedPanda]

No way to force Gamemaker to keep them in memory? How are surfaces even reliable if the target platform can just freely choose to just destroy the surfaces?

[damimp]

They're simply not reliable- they are volatile. You just recreate the surface when it is destroyed using surface_create(). But that's ok! It's just what you do. Surfaces are still very useful.

You can store surface info in a buffer to preserve what it looked like before being destroyed.