So on the Canabalt example you could have constantly evolving background images and sounds depending on your progress in the game. The illusion of an 'endless' mode would be much more complete. The recent GS game Spooky Hoofs does that a bit but Thomas would have been limited to how many backgrounds he could use in one scene before the RAM exceeded the device limit.
First off, I LOVE Spooky Hoofs. GamesMold pulled off some really impressive stuff even without our new features.
Technically speaking though, new art could continue to get introduced at regular intervals endlessly (I would mask loading by doing it in the in-between sections like the town scenes in Spooky Hoofs). The way I understand it, the new art could load in endlessly because any time your game begins to reach the RAM limit warnings on your device it will automatically dump textures that have been collected and unused.
Think of your RAM as a defined box that can only hold so many pictures. As soon as the box gets full we automatically shuffle out old ones to make room for new ones. The box itself cannot get bigger so it is still important to try and use as few images as possible so you aren't reshuffling too often.
For anyone experiencing problems with previewing via GS viewer where it seems to freeze/crash when transferring to device I have found that creating a network ( Airport/Create Network... ) seems to work fine.
Since it works fine via a created network it looks like the problem is caused because of GS Creator/Viewer calling home and not receiving the correct response.
I've also reported GS team about performance issues. But I don't even sure that they read all of those reports, cause I reported GS Viewer problem, and a solution to it (turn off Bluetooth), like 6 month ago, and they still didn't fix it.
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
imGua said: I've also reported GS team about performance issues. But I don't even sure that they read all of those reports, cause I reported GS Viewer problem, and a solution to it (turn off Bluetooth), like 6 month ago, and they still didn't fix it.
they read them all. The problem is they cannot always reproduce the issues. If they cannot reproduce it they have no where to begin with providing a solution. I have never had any GS viewer issues involving bluetooth so its completely possible the issue is specific to your device.
I would love to know how the patch (or solution) for 0.9.8 is coming along. Just something I can tell my guys so we are not completely in the dark. GS has now had several days to gather bug information, so I would like to know how the solution to these bugs is coming along so we can begin the QA process of our latest apps. Thanks!
Why couldn't it manage the images continuously ,like soon as an image is not being used it gets rid of it.
GameTeamOne said: First off, I LOVE Spooky Hoofs. GamesMold pulled off some really impressive stuff even without our new features.
Technically speaking though, new art could continue to get introduced at regular intervals endlessly (I would mask loading by doing it in the in-between sections like the town scenes in Spooky Hoofs). The way I understand it, the new art could load in endlessly because any time your game begins to reach the RAM limit warnings on your device it will automatically dump textures that have been collected and unused.
Think of your RAM as a defined box that can only hold so many pictures. As soon as the box gets full we automatically shuffle out old ones to make room for new ones. The box itself cannot get bigger so it is still important to try and use as few images as possible so you aren't reshuffling too often.
gamedivisionuk said: Why couldn't it manage the images continuously ,like soon as an image is not being used it gets rid of it.
I think there is already a little bit of this happening. The asset manager will get rid of images that are not being used, though it only does it when the RAM passes a threshold. If the game was constantly dumping and loading on a case by case basis or on Actor destruction then there would potentially be a lot more visible hitches in the game play.
So if i understand this correctly, leaving preload art checked on all actors should make your game behave the same as it did in 0.97? Except for it does'nt. My game takes twice as long to load and now there's ram issues(momentary freezes) is this due to the back end memory dumps? Is the memory cap smaller than it was before?
If so that's fine except it seems like it's dumping it from the worst place possible (the ball) wish we could set what actors to pull memory from once the threshold is met.
I love the direction GS is moving, but this update really jacked my game up
"Based heavily on valuable feedback from our community, we moved to dedicate more resources to improving the performance and power of the GameSalad engine."
I'm leaving my 'valuable' feedback.
In-App-Purchases is what i want over all else.
pretty please do not push it back another release!
dudemangames said: So if i understand this correctly, leaving preload art checked on all actors should make your game behave the same as it did in 0.97? Except for it does'nt. My game takes twice as long to load and now there's ram issues(momentary freezes) is this due to the back end memory dumps? Is the memory cap smaller than it was before?
If so that's fine except it seems like it's dumping it from the worst place possible (the ball) wish we could set what actors to pull memory from once the threshold is met.
I love the direction GS is moving, but this update really jacked my game up
Exactly the same thing that happens in our game somehow glad to see we are not the only one experience this
DsAngel said: before this version i used 0.96 and it run smoothly but now, i run out of idea already... anyway to release the Ram that been cram up in the Game engine?
Edit: i notice that the Game Engine Ram keep on increase by just switch between 2 scene(like Status scene to Shop scene and repeat that) which is not happen in the previous build..
Can we have a behaviour to "Clear Ram" that we can execute when our game is at Title or Menu screens? As DsAngel, my games ram now increases 5mb each scene change until it final crashes with a level 2 memory warning.
Something is terribly wrong with memory usage, im starting test scene with main character and 3 enemy that are restricted to move, an memory usage keep increasing.
p.s. Dont know why, but it looks like fps is back to normal
imGua said: Something is terribly wrong with memory usage, im starting test scene with main character and 3 enemy that are restricted to move, an memory usage keep increasing.
p.s. Dont know why, but it looks like fps is back to normal
Ha, it looks like the GS Dev team is going to have a long week ahead! Good luck GS!
BlackbirdStudios said: Ha, it looks like the GS Dev team is going to have a long week ahead! Good luck GS!
I'll say! I think next time they will be sure to give the sous chefs a build BEFORE releasing it to the masses. Any word on how things are coming GameSalad?
osucowboy18 said: I'll say! I think next time they will be sure to give the sous chefs a build BEFORE releasing it to the masses. Any word on how things are coming GameSalad?
Just out of curiosity, do they test it at all themselves? I think that anyone who used it for an hour would notice some of the problems. And if the sous are who usually report bugs in builds, then yes, they need to be sure to get a build to them next time. This release was rushed by people in the GS community and now we are all paying for it. Kinda sad that the people who were complaining about it not being released are now complaining again. They got what they asked for: 0.9.8!
ive been hesitant to update, all these memory issues dont help.
Il keep building in 0.9.7 for now, i have enough to do still without getting side tracked again.
a behaviour to "Clear Ram" would be most excellent.. can add it to reset scene etc
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
BlackbirdStudios said: Just out of curiosity, do they test it at all themselves? I think that anyone who used it for an hour would notice some of the problems. And if the sous are who usually report bugs in builds, then yes, they need to be sure to get a build to them next time. This release was rushed by people in the GS community and now we are all paying for it. Kinda sad that the people who were complaining about it not being released are now complaining again. They got what they asked for: 0.9.8!
They have a QA team that tests but i'm not sure they do real world tests. meaning real projects that are slated for the app store. They have an internal game dev team that prob does this but one set of eyes is never enough. Every sous chef finds different issues. So it was very foolish to send this out without us taking a look. The funniest thing I think is when I told them that was a bad move they took it as I was upset I didn't get to set it before everyone else. I was like. I couldn't care less about seeing it first if its solid. Im saying it was stupid because… there are still big issues we would have found before releasing it.
But as you say. People piss and moan and want to hold them these stupid deadlines so yeah this is what you get for bitching. They rushed it by skipping a major step and you got exactly what you asked for.
tenrdrmer said: They have a QA team that tests but i'm not sure they do real world tests. meaning real projects that are slated for the app store. They have an internal game dev team that prob does this but one set of eyes is never enough. Every sous chef finds different issues. So it was very foolish to send this out without us taking a look. The funniest thing I think is when I told them that was a bad move they took it as I was upset I didn't get to set it before everyone else. I was like. I couldn't care less about seeing it first if its solid. Im saying it was stupid because… there are still big issues we would have found before releasing it.
But as you say. People piss and moan and want to hold them these stupid deadlines so yeah this is what you get for bitching. They rushed it by skipping a major step and you got exactly what you asked for.
I completely agree! We have had to postpone testing and submitting one of our apps because of this. I specifically said several weeks ago that I hope they don't rush things because this is exactly what happens when they do. They try to satisfy the select group of people who will go crazy if they miss a release date, but now by meeting the release date they've got everyone complaining about all the bugs. GS is gonna have to come up with a proper fix soon to avoid losing customers.
tenrdrmer said: They have a QA team that tests but i'm not sure they do real world tests. meaning real projects that are slated for the app store. They have an internal game dev team that prob does this but one set of eyes is never enough. Every sous chef finds different issues. So it was very foolish to send this out without us taking a look. The funniest thing I think is when I told them that was a bad move they took it as I was upset I didn't get to set it before everyone else. I was like. I couldn't care less about seeing it first if its solid. Im saying it was stupid because… there are still big issues we would have found before releasing it.
But as you say. People piss and moan and want to hold them these stupid deadlines so yeah this is what you get for bitching. They rushed it by skipping a major step and you got exactly what you asked for.
So the impressive testing of 97 was the 'major step' they missed with this build ?....please. You guys missed the most obvious things with the last release. Beta testing is about getting software into the hands of people that don't necessarily use it in ways you would expect, not a small tight knit group who probably use similar methods.
Ultimately the more hands using = the quicker bugs are found and cleared....fact.
I'm sure GS have realised that releasing to the Sous Chefs was just another pointless delay in the whole process.
Yea I'm also having the problems where the total ram memory increases by like 10 with every scene change, even if I just go back to the main menu...not good. This problem did not occur prior to the update.
I have a strange bug in the creator where I can open up my the actor's editor from the scene and edit that actor's instance, but I can't edit the actor's prototype and it is only the case for one actor. And if I try to click back the GameSalad freezes. Any solutions?
I've had overall worse performance than prior versions of gamesalad. I've had my games crash on the ipad with .98, they've actually never crashed before. The Ipad leaderboard is in portrait when your game is in landscape. Of course they didn't fix the ipad splash screen problem. And several of us are having problems publishing to the mac app store that were able to before .98.
I know they said they will now focus on performance issues before extra features and I thought well as much as I like extra features its great to have the performance get better first, but then they released .98 and we got no (or very few) new features and seemingly worse performance for the vast majority.
I have a game that has remained unchanged since I released it over a year ago. At first it played great on the 3gs, and mediocre on the 3g. After .98, it plays ok on Iphone 4, very choppy on 3gs, and completely unplayable on 3g.
I've never seen a company release so many updates that actually decrease performance or introduce new bugs. I say, if you find a stable version that works for your types of games, publish a copy of each of your games with the current version, even if you don't submit it to apple. If you wait for the new version because of the improvements or bug fixes, you usually end up with even worse performance or new worse bugs.
I've been with gamesalad for over a year and a half and I don't know how many times I've waited for a release to fix a bug. Most of the time I've found that even when it fixes the bug you've been waiting for it will introduce new bugs that are often worse.
Even with all this I still do love gamesalad, because if it wasnt for them I wouldn't of been able to do this for a living. And I love them for not going through with gamesalad direct, that would of been the end of many independent developers.
I understand this is beta and bugs are to be expected, but at this rate will we ever see a solid 1.0?
Comments
Technically speaking though, new art could continue to get introduced at regular intervals endlessly (I would mask loading by doing it in the in-between sections like the town scenes in Spooky Hoofs). The way I understand it, the new art could load in endlessly because any time your game begins to reach the RAM limit warnings on your device it will automatically dump textures that have been collected and unused.
Think of your RAM as a defined box that can only hold so many pictures. As soon as the box gets full we automatically shuffle out old ones to make room for new ones. The box itself cannot get bigger so it is still important to try and use as few images as possible so you aren't reshuffling too often.
Since it works fine via a created network it looks like the problem is caused because of GS Creator/Viewer calling home and not receiving the correct response.
unchecked all the pre load art, still crashing
Before the update we could play 100's of scenes no problems
disappointing to say the least
Our game is getting broken when emptying the memory during gameplay.
It stops for a second (not looking good) and after that spawning new actors is misplaced, making the game unplayable
Before the update it was running flawless and smooth.
The "bug" is reportet to the GS team.
Shadows Peak is an atmospheric psychological horror that explores the dark side of a player.
- Alex
If so that's fine except it seems like it's dumping it from the worst place possible (the ball) wish we could set what actors to pull memory from once the threshold is met.
I love the direction GS is moving, but this update really jacked my game up
I'm leaving my 'valuable' feedback.
In-App-Purchases is what i want over all else.
pretty please do not push it back another release!
As DsAngel, my games ram now increases 5mb each scene change until it final crashes with a level 2 memory warning.
p.s. Dont know why, but it looks like fps is back to normal
Shadows Peak is an atmospheric psychological horror that explores the dark side of a player.
- Alex
Il keep building in 0.9.7 for now, i have enough to do still without getting side tracked again.
a behaviour to "Clear Ram" would be most excellent.. can add it to reset scene etc
So it was very foolish to send this out without us taking a look. The funniest thing I think is when I told them that was a bad move they took it as I was upset I didn't get to set it before everyone else. I was like. I couldn't care less about seeing it first if its solid. Im saying it was stupid because… there are still big issues we would have found before releasing it.
But as you say. People piss and moan and want to hold them these stupid deadlines so yeah this is what you get for bitching. They rushed it by skipping a major step and you got exactly what you asked for.
- Alex
Ultimately the more hands using = the quicker bugs are found and cleared....fact.
I'm sure GS have realised that releasing to the Sous Chefs was just another pointless delay in the whole process.
Website ∞ Twitter ∞ My apps are available on: Apple iOS App Store ∞ Google Play App Store ∞ Amazon App Store
I know they said they will now focus on performance issues before extra features and I thought well as much as I like extra features its great to have the performance get better first, but then they released .98 and we got no (or very few) new features and seemingly worse performance for the vast majority.
I have a game that has remained unchanged since I released it over a year ago. At first it played great on the 3gs, and mediocre on the 3g. After .98, it plays ok on Iphone 4, very choppy on 3gs, and completely unplayable on 3g.
I've never seen a company release so many updates that actually decrease performance or introduce new bugs. I say, if you find a stable version that works for your types of games, publish a copy of each of your games with the current version, even if you don't submit it to apple. If you wait for the new version because of the improvements or bug fixes, you usually end up with even worse performance or new worse bugs.
I've been with gamesalad for over a year and a half and I don't know how many times I've waited for a release to fix a bug. Most of the time I've found that even when it fixes the bug you've been waiting for it will introduce new bugs that are often worse.
Even with all this I still do love gamesalad, because if it wasnt for them I wouldn't of been able to do this for a living. And I love them for not going through with gamesalad direct, that would of been the end of many independent developers.
I understand this is beta and bugs are to be expected, but at this rate will we ever see a solid 1.0?
Just my humble opinion.