Need help from advanced users - Load Time Analysis of My Game

AppFueledAppFueled Member Posts: 308
edited November -1 in Working with GS (Mac)
I am in the final production of my game and have a pretty good feeling that I need to go back and optimize my game for better loading times. I would like to know if any of the veterans out there can look at the following information I gathered while previewing my game on the iPhone and give me an analysis of how much optimization I need to do.

When I load the game to preview it on the iPhone, it takes:

55 seconds - to compress the game assets

15 seconds - to load game from computer to iPhone

44 seconds - to load game on the iPhone in order to play it

NOTE: Once the game is loaded and ready to play, the loading time between levels is at least satisfactory - only a second or two at the most.

The following info is based on memory usage:

Images - 25 mb

Sound - .9 mb

Game Engine - 11.7 mb

Other - 11.5 mb

Total - 49.7 mb

I have a feeling I have a lot to work to do in order to optimize this game and in hindsight, probably should of paid close attention to this from the beginning. Regardless, I am motivated and very interested in getting this done the right way. Please advise and than you in advance!

Comments

  • old_kipperold_kipper Member Posts: 1,420
    The 55 seconds seems heavy but is dependant on which mac you have, the load across via wifi is not outrageous but also not terribly useful to gauge very much, but the 44 secs... Is this also the time it take to launch the app from the 'recently played' list in the viewer? If it is then it is time to get serious about optimisation. And I think 49 meg will fall if you start to manage your graphics better. Rules of 2, cut frames out of animations, clean up rules... usual stuff.

    good luck and do post if it is 44 seconds to load from the recent list. this seems really heavy.

    cheers kipper
  • AppFueledAppFueled Member Posts: 308
    @old_kipper I really appreciate you responding to my post.

    I wasn't sure if the preview was a good gauge or not when testing loading times for a Gamesalad game. I didn't think twice about it until I decided to test a sample game that has a few files, sounds or rules. When that game was compressed and loaded right away, I became a little worried.

    It seems, according to you, loading a recent game on the GS viewer is a more accurate indication of loading time. If this is the case, I may be in really good shape because it only takes a second for my game to load.

    Can anyone else verify: is loading a recent gamesalad game onto the GS viewer an accurate indication of loading times?
  • GamersRejoiceGamersRejoice Member Posts: 817
    Is your game really big? That's probably why it's taking forever to load up on the viewer. Loading up a game into GameSalad Viewer is much different than starting your app up. Try an Ad-hoc version to see what I mean.
  • AppFueledAppFueled Member Posts: 308
    @GamersRejoice

    Thanks for your reply. I don't know if my game is really big. If I had to guess, I would say no, but the stats I included in my initial post may shed light on it?

    Thanks for the idea of trying an Ad-hoc version. I guess I could, but first I want to know if "is loading a recent gamesalad game onto the GS viewer an accurate indication of loading times?" If that is the case, then I won't have to waste any more time with it. If not, ad-hoc it is : )
  • GamersRejoiceGamersRejoice Member Posts: 817
    You can see your file size in the lower right hand side of your GameSalad project. From what I can see I think you don't need to worry. Those "Initial Load times" are not related to your app at all, except maybe file size. That is simply GameSalad setting your app up in GameSalad Viewer. Published apps don't have to go through the same process. Does that make more sense?
  • AppFueledAppFueled Member Posts: 308
    Yeah, it does make sense. My file size is 8 mb. So, I probably shouldn't worry? :)

    Thanks again.
  • GamersRejoiceGamersRejoice Member Posts: 817
    No probably not, if your load times during the game are fine and your framerate is good. The best way to see how your game will perform is an Ad-Hoc version.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    old_kipper said:
    The 55 seconds seems heavy

    Wow, with BOT, the time to get the preview going was far longer than that. Here's what I discovered, and it's a big flaw with GameSalad...

    If you use PNG compression software, like ImageOptim, it reduces the file size. (I think this is probably lossless compression.) I think that's what GameSalad is doing when you preview or build your game. It's compressing the PNG files.

    That's a good thing... right?

    Not exactly, the problem is that GameSalad does it EVERY TIME that you want to test your game. It compresses the images and sends it to the testing devices. Instead of just compressing the image once and saving the file, it's compressed every time.

    To speed things up, I sometimes turn off Resolution Independence while testing.

    If you want to speed up your loading times, you might want to look into Indexed PNG files. If your image looks OK with 256 colors, then the file size will be much smaller... like 1/4 of the original size. So while the same amount of RAM will still be used, at least the loading time might be improved.

    These tricked helped big-time with BOT. I was unable to publish the game because the file sizes were so large... and it would take like 30 minutes to find out something was broken with my game.
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