best optimizations you know of

jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
edited November -1 in Working with GS (Mac)
this is a general question on optimizations, but part of it is directed toward tshirtbooth. I adapted the multiscreen youtube tutorial to a menu system, and in the view he changed the friction/density/restitution all to 0, this is to cut down on processing power right? I assumed as such since none of those had any baring on the functionality.

another question I had was in regards to transparency. Which is more efficient, importing a transparent PNG or using the alpha control in GS?

I'm very happy that in my new game I only have 42 total actors, and I know I can reduce that by another 4 easily. I have absolutely no spawns or destroys, and everything hidden is not visible, and everything not moveable has that unchecked as well.

It also has a coverflow level selection screen that runs like butter on my iPad. I'm still only working with the main menu system and level 1 to get everything as optimized and bug free as possible before I start work on the 100 levels for the game.

Comments

  • AjBlueAjBlue Member Posts: 215
    im pretty sure it would be better to have a transparent png than giving the game more code work
  • HoneyTribeStudiosHoneyTribeStudios Member Posts: 1,792
    I'm sure I read a post where Joe from FireMaple said he used even less actors - 3 or something? I just started optimising my first game, it was getting 20fps on a 2nd gen ipod and now gets 40fps. Hopefully I can do some more tinkering and get it higher.

    So far I used more instances and less actors (prob around 10 now) and got rid of most of my timers and constrains. I also play the sounds silently once at the start of the scenes. It seems that GS loads the sounds in on he first time they are used in a scene, so on a few sounds it was slowing down a lot when they first played.

    I don't use spawn or destroy either.

    Next I'll be using a png reducer to get the file size of the images down.

    Hopefully when i test on a 3rd and 4th gen device the fps will be higher?
  • cbtcbt Member Posts: 644
    All I can say is it is not that easy. I've been experimenting on recycling actors and spawning-destroying.

    And recycling is not always the best option. It depends on how much rules there is on the recycling actor. But I still don't know at what point, recycling is better. (If the rules are too complicated and too much of them, spawn-destroy is better.)

    Well, at least that is what I concluded in the last 4days of experimenting. I will let you know if I find something interesting though..
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