Help! Efficiency freak *meets his match! :(

[Agamemnus]

I need advice with this.. I'm doing a genetic program program for a competition. (www.gridwars.com) It will spit out genetic programs eventually, once I'm done. Right now I have a random player, but I would like to make this faster with bits... It might not make it faster, just use less space. I don't know. (see comments)

I need it to be as fast as possible because I'll be calling this routine A LOT, since genetic programming (creating random programs and then evolving them) takes a long time. (if you want something good)

If I can't get the vars to work how I want them, I know I can do what I want in C/C++, but I want to use QB's string manipulation and I/O functions (for later).. and I don't know much about that in C/C++.

Suggestions?

Code:

'by Agamemnus
'competition "GRID WARS": www.gridwars.com

DECLARE SUB think.routine (n%)
DIM SHARED a.max%(2): a.max%(1) = 50: a.max%(2) = 50

DIM SHARED board(a.max%(1), a.max%(2)) AS INTEGER
DIM SHARED start.loc(8, 2) AS INTEGER

'bullets. stores the bullets
'maximum value: 8 for each board position.
'can represent as: 8x3bits + 3 bits to determine last read position.
'27 bits PREFERRABLE, but impossible:
'last index should function as the nth bullet, and value as cell-number:
'DIM SHARED bullets(a.max%(1),a.max%(2), 8) AS BITS * 3
'DIM SHARED bullets.lastread(a.max%(1),a.max%(2)) AS BITS * 3

'currently, last index functions as cell-number and value is how many bullets.
'also requires 13 less bits to achieve!!
DIM SHARED bullets(a.max%(1), a.max%(2), 8) AS INTEGER
DIM SHARED bullet.loc(2) AS INTEGER, bullet.loc.a(2, 2) AS INTEGER
DIM SHARED x%, y%
DIM SHARED b.amount%(8)

SCREEN 7
RANDOMIZE 1233
'create random start locations.

FOR I% = 1 TO 8
redo1:
start.loc(I%, 1) = INT(RND * a.max%(1))
start.loc(I%, 2) = INT(RND * a.max%(2))
IF board(start.loc(I%, 1), start.loc(I%, 2)) <> 0 THEN GOTO redo1
board(start.loc(I%, 1), start.loc(I%, 2)) = I%
NEXT I%

time1$ = TIME$
LOCATE 12, 1: PRINT time1$
'DO:LOCATE 12, 1: PRINT TIME$:LOOP UNTIL MID$(TIME$, 7, 2) = "00"


DO
n1 = n1 + 1

'draw.cells:
FOR x% = 1 TO a.max%(1)
FOR y% = 1 TO a.max%(2)
PSET (x%, y%), board(x%, y%)
NEXT y%, x%

'add.bullets:      
REDIM SHARED bullets(a.max%(1), a.max%(2), 8) AS INTEGER
REDIM SHARED bullets.tot(a.max%(1), a.max%(2)) AS INTEGER
FOR x% = 1 TO a.max%(1)
FOR y% = 1 TO a.max%(2)
IF board(x%, y%) <> 0 THEN
b2% = board(x%, y%)
think.routine 0 'random
FOR I% = 0 TO 1
xtemp% = x% + bullet.loc.a%(I%, 1)
ytemp% = y% + bullet.loc.a%(I%, 2)
IF xtemp% < 1 THEN xtemp% = a.max%(1)
IF xtemp% > a.max%(1) THEN xtemp% = 1
IF ytemp% < 1 THEN ytemp% = a.max%(2)
IF ytemp% > a.max%(2) THEN ytemp% = 1
bullets(xtemp%, ytemp%, b2%) = bullets(xtemp%, ytemp%, b2%) + 1
NEXT I%
END IF
NEXT y%, x%

'update.cells:

FOR x% = 1 TO a.max%(1)
FOR y% = 1 TO a.max%(2)
IF bullets(x%, y%, 1) + bullets(x%, y%, 2) + bullets(x%, y%, 3) + bullets(x%, y%, 4) + bullets(x%, y%, 5) + bullets(x%, y%, 6) + bullets(x%, y%, 7) + bullets%(x%, y%, 8) <> 0 THEN

b.amount%(0) = bullets(x%, y%, 0)
best.amount% = b.amount%(0)
k% = 1

FOR I% = 2 TO 8
b.amount%(I%) = bullets(x%, y%, I%)
IF b.amount%(I%) > best.amount% THEN best.amount% = b.amount%(I%): k% = I%
NEXT I%

IF b.amount%(board(x%, y%)) <> best.amount% THEN
IF best.amount% <> 0 THEN
board(x%, y%) = k%
END IF
END IF

END IF
NEXT y%, x%

IF n1 = 100 THEN EXIT DO
LOOP UNTIL INKEY$ <> ""
LOCATE 13, 1: PRINT TIME$
time2$ = TIME$
SYSTEM

DEFINT A-Z
SUB think.routine (n%)
IF n% = 0 THEN
bullet.loc%(0) = INT(RND * 8) + 1
bullet.loc%(1) = INT(RND * 8) + 1
ELSE
END IF

'convert bullet loc to coordinates.
'xxx 345
'x x 2 6
'xxx 187

FOR I% = 0 TO 1
IF bullet.loc%(I%) = 8 THEN
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 1) = 0
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 2) = -1
ELSE
IF bullet.loc%(I%) = 4 THEN
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 1) = 0
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 2) = 1
ELSE
IF bullet.loc%(I%) < 4 THEN
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 1) = -1
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 2) = bullet.loc%(I%) - 2
ELSE
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 1) = 1
bullet.loc.a%(I%, 2) = -bullet.loc%(I%) + 6
END IF
END IF
END IF
NEXT I%
END SUB

[Agamemnus]

Um, never mind, I guess. I'll be done in a few days and post results in Projects..