running slow - quick question

Asobu_Games

Hi guys, I'm currently testing my game 'Ninja Tap' on the iphone and it's going pretty well so far. I sorted out all the blurry images and it looks very nice and crisp now. Only problem is that the game slows down (frame rate) and gets a bit shuddery when things start to get a little hectic on screen. I am testing on an iphone 3G and will also test it on a friends iphone 4 tomorrow.

So my question is, what would be mostly causing the slow down:
1) too many actors/images spawning on screen at once
2) actor images are too big (sprites are png24 at 72dpi - roughly 100-200kb each)
3) too many conditions/rules all happening at once
4) all of the above

Ideally I'd like it to run smoothly at least on 3G model and above.

SlickZero

It could be one of those things, or possibly a little of each. Spawning being the biggest culprit in that list.

Asobu_Games

Thanks, i am using an Ad Hoc build and still running a little slow. It's fine for most of the game, but the sprites spawn more and more frequently as the timer gets closer to 0 (for a scaling difficulty level). Towards the end it's a bit slow. I suppose I'll go through and see where I can cut down.

There really is a lot spawning at the end (maybe 20 actors per second) so I'll cut that down. The idea was to feel overwhelmed at the end, but I think I can scale it back without losing that feeling.

Thanks.

Asobu_Games

Hmm very interesting idea, I never thought of that. I figured that spawning/destroying would actually be less taxing on the game performance rather than keeping them constantly in the scene. Guess I was wrong.

My only problem is I want them to spawn/appear at different (random) locations each time. I suppose I would have them interpolate to a random spot, then become visible (and hittable). I'll try that and see if there is much difference.

Thanks!

SlickZero

Yeah, 20 spawns per second is your culprit. Like Uptimistik said, having them offscreen, or alpha set to 0 is less taxing on the device, but at the same time, doing it like that will also increase your screen loading times, so it's a balance you have to work with to get to an acceptable medium.