Level Troubleshooting

When making levels for NSMBW, it is always possible to do something wrong and make the level crash in-game. This article will look at simple ways to troubleshoot your levels crashing or behaving wrong.

= Basic Troubleshooting = For basic troubleshooting, there is a tool built into Reggie Next. To open it, you can go to  (or press  ). It will diagnose the level and report any common issues it finds. The image shows and example of an error found in the level. If you fix the problems reported (if any), and you are still having crashes, or you are using a version of Reggie Updated, you can move on to Advanced Troubleshooting below.



= Advanced Troubleshooting =

1. Does your level surpass the limitations of Areas and/or Zones?
This is an issue that can result in your level crashing or causing potential slowdown. Let's look at some of the limitations Areas and Zones have.

1.1 Does your level have a high amount of zones in an area?
NSMBW can handle around 6-9~ish unique zones in an area. It can handle more if it uses the same settings as another zone, seeing as the game only needs to take those settings and put it in two zones, instead of loading two different chunks of data.

1.2 Does your level have a large amount of sprites in one area?
According to documentation on another wiki article, anywhere up to maybe 1000 sprites can be handled, but certain sprites will use more memory and resources so there isn't a definite number, since Bowser, for example, would obviously use more resources than a sprite ? Block.

1.3 Does your level have a large amount of tiles/extremely large tiles?
NSMBW cannot handle large amounts of tiles in an area. The game also doesn't particularly like large individual tiles, anything above 127x127 is way too large, though I fail to see how anyone could use a single tile that big. Avoid unnecessary tiling, such as walls that extend out far beyond what the camera would ever see, and areas in the terrain that won't be seen, such as a dark level where the inner tiles would be mostly unseen. Here's a good tip for deciding if you have too many tiles and whatnot: if you have a PC that's not absolute garbage from the XP-era, and Reggie is lagging from your level file, you have TOO MANY tiles. It's as simple as that.

1.4 Does your level use too much of the area size?
This is really simple, areas are a size 1024x512 blocks. Don't use anything close to being that large. You shouldn't even need a level that large.

2. Is your level using custom assets?
Custom assets are fine, but you need to make sure they are set up properly.

2.1 Does your level use custom tilesets?
If yes, make sure they are correctly set up, and are in the game's  folder (possibly   if you're using a Newer-based mod).

2.2 Does your level use custom objects?
Messing up an object in-game can cause all sorts of bugs and crashes. Be sure your  folder is using the functional, properly working files, and not any broken ones that may have been edited. When editing files from the objects folder (this goes for other files in the game's filesystem as well), make sure you create a backup of the file you plan to edit, in case anything goes wrong during the editing process.

2.3 Does your level use custom code?
While I can't say much on this, as I'm not familiar with NSMBW's coding language, you should make sure any code edits you've made are done correctly. If a code edit you've made is from a page on the wiki, try reading over the article and seeing if you messed up a step. You can find all code editing related articles here.