How many actors is too many?

DigiChain · June 2011

How many actors is too many for an iphone project?

Currently I have a scene populated with about 50 actors (most are replications of a master), and all the actors are animated (a simple 4 frame loop). All appearing on screen at the same time. They are all non-movable and have very simple behaviours attached to them.

So is that pushing it? How many are others using in their games?

allornothing · June 2011

I've wondered the same - i've got a game going that has around 100 actors on screen at once with some basic collision rules. Some have image animation, and all are moving on a timer constantly, and its an iPad size stage. I get about 55fps which is pretty good IMO considering how busy it all is.

TL;DR I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of 100 moving actors at once on my iPad 1. I've not tried putting on more yet though - not sure how quickly it will degrade.

JohnPapiomitis · June 2011

test on the viewer and see what the numbers look like

Theres no flat out answer about how many actors are too many. Depends on what there doing, if there animating, constrains, timers, moveable, visible, and all that goo stuff

MarkOnTheIron · June 2011

50 animating actors will likely drop your fps.

If the actors have no rules (like walls) you can have a lot of them, in the game I'm building I have some scenes with about 300 actors but 99% of them are walls with no rules and I have 55-60 fps.

It all depends on what the actors do.

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Free GS demo: High score and ; ;

DigiChain · June 2011

I probably should add that all these animating actors are only running at a frame rate of 6fps. I assume since they're running at a low frame frame rate they will have less of an impact.

Unfortunately I don't actually have a iphone to test on, or a apple developer account for that matter. I'm just starting out and working a bit blind!

How many actors is too many?

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