Atmega328 to weak can I upgrade it without affecting the code?

I'm currently using an atmega328-mu can I swap it out for a better one and it will just work?

Please explain : "better one". Do you mean more memory, or smaller in size, or uses less power, or has a faster processor with more memory, or has more current at the output pins (use extra hardware), or is more rugged against electrical voltage peaks, or has a different color (use paint), or can withstand very low and high temperatures and dust and water, or ...

The Arduino Mega 2560 with the ATmega2560 has more memory. Not every code for the Arduino Uno will run on it.
The Arduino Leonardo does not need an extra chip for usb-serial. I guess that makes it better, but not every code for the Arduino Uno will run on it.
The Arduino Zero with ARM M0 processor is a lot better, but it is a different family of processors. Most standard Arduino libraries will work.

Can you show your sketch ? so we can see if there are special things with registers that might not work with other microcontrollers.

gdevolopment:
I'm currently using an atmega328-mu can I swap it out for a better one and it will just work?

Yes: MAYBE

"Weak" in the title suggests to me that your are unhappy with some element of performance, perhaps speed of execution? Then moving from a 16-MHz atmega328P to a 16MHz atmega2560 will result in no improvements (both are 8-bit processors at 16-MHz clocking.) Moving to an 84MHz Due, however, will provide a significant improvement, primarily from clock rate. But, the Due is based on the 3.3Volt AT91SAM3X8E, and that along may throw a wrench into your migration if your code is doing anything uC centric or if an included library is doing low-level manipulation on the uC.

As Arduino has grown, compatibility has gotten a bit iffy... non-library basic sketches such as Blink.ino will work (maybe with a very minor edit for the LED pin) but as more complexity is introduced in the Arduino board, more caution must be utilized in the code. Official libraries and those of credible 3rd parties such as Adafruit often work unchanged because the author is using conditional code in the library to select the correct processor.

Kopel's answer was right-on, he needs to see your sketch and understand more about what you mean by the word "weak."

Ray

Id rather not post all this but it is open source so have fun with it everyone.
Here's a summary of how it works.
It's for an led lightshow glove.

I could really use others advice on this before our kickstarter luanches.
If you need gerbers or anything let me know.
Pcb prototyping board
Why don't we just send data over bluetooth directly through the controller that connects to the glove?
Well the long and the short of it legal reasons.That is why we created the protoboard to avoid.
How does it work? The protoboard is basically the same as the controller pcb but you can program it directly through bluetooth or USB where as the controller can only be programmed via sd card because of legal reasons. There are (4) affixed LEDs for live preview when creating glove sets, each affixed led represents a finger.After creating your light patterns on the protoboard you save them to the sd card.After this has been done you take the sd card out and put it into the controller and all your saved sets have been transferred. The protoboard will have many extra gpio pins so customers may add things like led rings,accelerometers ,sound sensors and modify the code to them.After testing the additions ou can add them to your main controller because of the modular design.

More info

Ok, so there is the first board which is called the prototyping board. This board has a USB port, a Bluetooth module and a two SD card slots. It is used to create the modes and patterns either using USB or Bluetooth. It has long has 4-leds that show the patterns that one has created.
The other pcb is the glove controller. It has an SD card slot where SD cards with saved patterns are inserted. It doesn't have a Bluetooth module or USB port.

The LEDs in the fingers will be displaying individual patterns and colors, when moved the accelerometer changes to an alternate selected color and patterns,when still again it reverts back to first problem is it's not reactive enough. We don't have fingers as independantly programable yet when we create something all 4 fingers must be the same colors and patterns.My other concern is we we must add buttons to the fingers to change that individual finger to the next saved color and pattern.

By "weak" you mean "it's not reactive enough".

There are many delays for the leds. If you would exchange the ATmega328P for a faster Arduino, the delays would be exactly the same.
Writing a lot to the EEPROM is also slow, but I don't know how often the EEPROM is written.
In the interrupt routine is so many code, there is even a Serial.print.
The NeoPixel is as it is. It takes a little time, but there is nothing you can do about that.
The SoftwareSerial is a big problem. Perhaps the AltSoftSerial is better.
https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_AltSoftSerial.html
A hardware Serial port is better. The Arduino Leonardo or Micro has a spare hardware serial port. If the code fits into the Leonardo, I would prefer that. Or make the Bluetooth somehow work with the normal serial port.

Everything you do with millis() must be "unsigned long". I noticed a "long".

My conclusion is that not the ATmega328P is weak, but your code has many major issues.

Get rid of the enormous amount of delays. If possible, remove every delay. The sequence for the leds can be in a table, and the table can be executed with a software timer using millis().

Make the interrupt routine very small. Just a few fast lines, and do the rest of the code in the loop(). Don't use any Serial function in the interrupt routine.

Many numbers and actions are connected to each other in code. A large part of the code is used for that. I would prefer tables with data for that.

Most Arduino users avoid the use of the String object in the Arduino Uno and Leonardo. Some would even say it is wrong to use the String object in such microcontrollers. Can you get rid of all the String objects ?

I'm a bit of a novice and I kind of understand what your saying. You led it be possible for you to give me dumbed down explanation what you found wrong in our code and what strings are and why they are bad please?

This is a fixed size array : char buffer[40] ;
This is a String object : String command;

The String object uses a class with dynamic memory allocation for the text. That could require a lot memory, due to fragmentation.

For the use of the delay(), find them all and try to get rid of them.
The function millis() can be used as a software timer. Use that software timer to do the led sequence. The sketch needs to be reorganized for that. Perhaps you can make a small test sketch where a sequence in a table is used with millis() for the leds.

what strings are and why they are bad please?

strings (lower case s) are OK, they are char arrays. Strings (upper case S) are problematic. They are objects. See the Reference.

gdevolopment:
I'm a bit of a novice and I kind of understand what your saying. You led it be possible for you to give me dumbed down explanation what you found wrong in our code

The first one was the "dumbed down explanation"! :grinning:


When someone says "it's not the code" - well, it's the code!

Thank you all very much for your help, I shoulda hired a more experienced designer:/ I'll show this all to my new one and he can hopefully fix all of this.

A little late but this article is a "must read"
Many things at once

Ray