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.
That's hilarious. They thought that you just wanted to see it first??? Wow. Yea that was a bad move. What people don't seem to realize is that if they have to push an update because of everyone's expectations, then they won't even be getting a real update. Just something that was halfway done. So now, people are technically going to be waiting EVEN LONGER for the "real update" without bugs, etc. I wonder if it was worth it to the (what I like to call) complaining chorus.
So as opposed to maybe seeing version 0.9.8 (hot off the presses) update late this week without bugs, we will probably have to wait even longer for a patch to what we got last week.
Maybe they should make the previous version available until they can get a good build of 0.9.8. I think I can live without the new features for a couple of weeks.
Ok so after some massive amounts of optimization i decided to do a little experement. I played an adhoc build and on the sixth level the fps dropped to an unplayable level. I then quit the game cleared the ram (double pressed the home button) then went into the same level with the fps issues and sure enough it ran perfect. We really need a way to clear the ram even if it's just added to the reset scene, change scene behaviors. There's no way i can release my game till this get's sorted, at least it's good to know it's not an issue on my end.
Any chance you guys can give us a timeframe? got about a week left and i might as well flush my halloween release down the toilet
This is exactly the same as i am experiencing! I haven't tried any new builds yet so can't say but my ongoing 'Project Saber' game hasn't noticed any performance increases and this was started a while a go ...... Time for a yellow post to chip in .....
Imagine a 1968 Camaro. All decked out with a fresh paint job. Pin stripes, chrome rims, racing tires, awesome spoiler on the back, leather seats, convertible, best radio and speakers money can buy, plush carpet, tinted windows, Im talking the works. Sound nice doesnt it? Well thats what GS is. Did i menton the camaro has no engine and a tank of shitty fuel in the lines. How about we get the car running before we focus on paint and stripes and leather and spoilers. House is no good if built on a shitty foundation. Id settle for a Amish buggy about right now. At least i can get down the road with it.
Jeffnichols said: Imagine a 1968 Camaro. All decked out with a fresh paint job. Pin stripes, chrome rims, racing tires, awesome spoiler on the back, leather seats, convertible, best radio and speakers money can buy, plush carpet, tinted windows, Im talking the works. Sound nice doesnt it? Well thats what GS is. Did i menton the camaro has no engine and a tank of shitty fuel in the lines. How about we get the car running before we focus on paint and stripes and leather and spoilers. House is no good if built on a shitty foundation. Id settle for a Amish buggy about right now. At least i can get down the road with it.
Jeff isn't this something they're now doing? A part of doing up your Camaro is aesthetically on the outside, the engine will need tuning too before it goes anywhere. Being in Beta, its not really going anywhere, so a job needs dong whether on the outside or inside! Before its ready to run out down 1.0 it must have the outside looking trim and the engine purring nicely ... Judge the Camaro when its there ... You bought into Beta software, rather than bitch about it, be constructive, yes we all get frustrated with it, but just complaining doesn't help, how about writing down what is happening, things you are noticing? Submit bug reports. This is helpful to the staff and the only way it'll get fixed.
Im refering to employee usage I guess. All time focused on non performance features is time wasted on performance and stability issues. What good is it to test these new features if the performance and stability isnt there to do the testing? You dont pour the concrete after you build the house.
AcceleratedGames said: 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?
Yup, had the same problem. I think it has something to do with actor prototypes using scene-attributes, such as camera zooming.
not gonna compare camaro's to apples here. Apples to Apples - need to test some more user apps next time. The failure of about 10% of logic in converted-from .97 games as opposed to .98 purely-developed games pretty much cements that issue in stone for me.
I won't bitch, though. I'll give them feedback when needed. Until then I'm back on a restored version of 97. Anyone who didn't do that should probably avoid working any corporate gigs. Or at least grow up and stop bitching.
<<<Except about the iCade thing... bluetooth need not be touched. Even wired ipad keyboard is ignored by GS runtime keypress rules. BOOOO! >>
Hey guys, Ive been playing with this for a few days now and thought id share my results.
So far ive only seen a 1 second improvement on one of my scenes loading times (when i unchecked the preload art button), the rest of my scenes are all the same, most are around 4 seconds, which i think is a bit long and gets a bit annoying for the user after a while.
Performance wise i found that unchecking the preload art buttons helped my initial fps however after playing the game for a while it seems to build up until it goes a bit jittery with some levels running as low as 30fps on an iPhone 3gs. When you load this scene straight away without letting things build up it runs at around 45fps.
I sure hope that we'll see some more improvements in the next update. Cheers, Mark
Ok so does the preload art thing not work on games made in older versions?
I have a game that has about 100 images. i did a test and loading the scene takes about 7-8 seconds.
I went and unchecked preload art on every image and it still takes 7-8 seconds to load the scene.
We have seen the same thing in our game, made with the previous version, no change at all, and we have a few heavy background image to load. If it's a bug or not, don't know.
Ok from day one. with each new release and new bug came time focused on new features. Instead of time being focused on bugs.... getting these bugs fixed and increasing stability ad perfromace. Features were released that just added more bugs and problems to be fixed. Disregarding performance and stability. everytime new features are released more man power is added to fixing those and taken away from performance and stability. Now back to Camaro to Apples. Get the engine purring before you start adding stuff. I wanna hear her purr before I go buy a spoiler. What good is all these new features if the device can handle the instability of the systems inner workings. Im not bitching... Im not whining.... logic is logic. Apple weeds out all the BS .... creates something stable..... then adds new things as it goes along constantly making sure performance and stability isn't hendered to much. That train of thought would go a long way here. Again just my opinion. But right now its daydreams of 5 steps forward that winds up being 2 steps forward then 3 steps back. i could hit you with logical metaphors all day that make sense.
Rob2 said: 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.
I think suggesting that GS *doesn't* release to the Sous Chefs (and line cooks!), or that it adds a pointless delay, is rather stupid. It's either that, or nothing right now.
We actually work very differently from each other, from what I can tell, and from the GS test team itself.
Sure, Tend was annoyed we didn't get to test the build. I was actually really angry myself. Because it's broken my game and has delayed me, whereas if I'd tested it I could have caught these bugs *before* release, thus saving me time.
And saving everyone else as well the hassle of going through this.
But I haven't responded to this till now because I wanted to think about it a bit, let the anger go, and come up with a better response.
So here it is:
I do not particularly like testing new builds, especially when I'm this close to releasing a game. However, I do do it because otherwise… well… we get what we have now.
But then I realised that I won't test if we need a new version of the viewer on a device. This just delays me, especially if there are multiple builds coming that need multiple viewers.
I'm a huge fan of the viewer btw - but every time I go to update it, it's a challenge for me. And an annoyance, if I'm honest.
As I mentioned, I'm usually busy with a game. I don't want to faff about taking the old viewer off, installing a new one, taking that off and then having to put the old one back on every time there's a new build.
So I test in the creator. I make a copy of each of my games in progress called 'Test', and try them in the new creator. And believe me, I've found plenty of bugs in that while just testing a game out.
Having said that, there are Sous Chefs that *do* test the new builds *and* the viewer. And I also send the GS team my projects to try out with the viewer when asked.
So I probably wouldn't have caught any 'Viewer' bugs - as in, those that affect performance for .97 or .98. So while I was annoyed that they bypassed the testers for this build, I have no right, personally, to be angry as I wouldn't have tested on the viewer.
Others do install the viewer, and *would* have spotted these bugs though. So to take us all out of the loop was just silly.
Also, to open it up to more people, as you seem to be suggesting, Rob, is fine in theory. But look at the forums. People are complaining about bugs that, in most cases, are user error.
I mean, even *I* was stuck on saving/loading issues on my game and I've been using this software for two years+. I spent ages on it trying to fix it, and eventually I found it *was* my fault.
If I, and more likely others, send in bug reports that are user errors, then time is taken away from the real issues as each 'bug' found is investigated.
Anyway, I've sent the GS team my project as I was having a load of issues with the new build.
*Turns out there's some sound errors. *There are also cases where the flushing memory trick they've implemented sometimes gets stuck in a loop (causing the frame rate to drop significantly, or a crash). *Also, a few errors with the viewer are happening, especially when trying to test and iPhone game on an iPad.
They're looking into these issues, and have been working through the weekend to try and address them. The plan, I *think* is to introduce a hot patch asap.
Fortunately, most of my game was finished and I'm just polishing right now really, so I'm able to carry on with lots of little things while waiting for said patch.
I hope we get it this week, as that's when I'm hoping to submit my game!
On a general note, if we could get memory flushed between scenes back, that would be good. It allowed for greater control and memory management on our part. It might not be possible, but I'm not a fan of building up memory till it flushes it out when it's full.
If we don't get a patch this week it will delay me by two weeks at least (I don't want to release during Halloween, for example).
3-4 friends of mine are planing to purchase pro version but after they read these thread they have changed their mind and waiting. Please GS Team do something for loading and ram usage.
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
Well said QS. For the record. After my first ever pre-release test I did not mess with the viewer for all the hassle you mention I decided I prob should as there where some issues that would have oly been found by using the viewer. So I made a new app ID for the view pre-release and no I have a Pre-release viewer on my phone right next to the main release viewer. much less of a hassle now. I would get annoyed though if there where multiple viewer pre-releases for each new release version.
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
creativeapps said: 3-4 friends of mine are planing to purchase pro version but after they read these thread they have changed their mind and waiting. Please GS Team do something for loading and ram usage.
Really 3-4 Friends? I cannot get one friend to dive into this with me. I think if I had 3-4 friends on board I would call us a "company" and then only need one pro license. Sure you have to split sales but come on you would also save $2000 of your startup costs.
tenrdrmer said: So I made a new app ID for the view pre-release and no I have a Pre-release viewer on my phone right next to the main release viewer. much less of a hassle now.
Oh one other thing. Through project help as well as even picking up a few templates from darren I have seen A LOT of other peoples templates and can assure you we all do things differently so it should be a really good measure when they send out a pre-release based on the different styles each of us use.
"On a general note, if we could get memory flushed between scenes back, that would be good. It allowed for greater control and memory management on our part. It might not be possible, but I'm not a fan of building up memory till it flushes it out when it's full."
That's a great suggestion quantum. I think that'd help a lot with my project in particular!
dudemangames said: Any chance you guys can give us a timeframe? got about a week left and i might as well flush my halloween release down the toilet
+1 - A timeline would be great! We have got several apps to begin testing on, but we can't do that until the bugs in 0.9.8 are fixed. GameSalad, please post on how your progress with this patch is coming along. It all goes back to the "lets improve communication" thing that never seems to really happen.
- Alex
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
dudemangames said: Any chance you guys can give us a timeframe? got about a week left and i might as well flush my halloween release down the toilet
No offense but if this saves you from a halloween release you should be thanking GS. Holidays are generally a horrible time to release an app in my experience. Your only possible chance is if its directly related to the holiday but even then its a bad idea imo. I personally will prob never do another holiday themed app again.
I think dudemangames probably had a halloween themed app ready to go, and it's his decision to do that!
I've often likened the way GS is to how an MMO is (especially after having worked on one).
When an MMO has downtime, or a bug, it means you essentially can't play the game. If GS has downtime, or bugs, it means that people can't get on with their business, in some cases.
Though similar, they should never be treated as the same thing. Especially by GS management!
And in fairness, they've been working over the weekend, including the Columbus day holiday. So I think it's fair to say they take this all seriously.
quantumsheep said: And in fairness, they've been working over the weekend, including the Columbus day holiday. So I think it's fair to say they take this all seriously.
Yet we, the general users don't know this! You as a Sous Chef must of been told but yet again, a major issue appears its ugly head and we're left guessing. Im hoping they're just soo super busy that no-one could take a minute to make a yellow post just to say
'Hi Guys. Thanks for all your feedback, we're investigating all your bugs and are taking this very serious. As soon as we have more info we'll post'.
That alone would calm 90+% of users as we'll all know they are tending and working to eliminate, saying nothing just isn't good ... on any level!
tenrdrmer said: No offense but if this saves you from a halloween release you should be thanking GS. Holidays are generally a horrible time to release an app in my experience. Your only possible chance is if its directly related to the holiday but even then its a bad idea imo. I personally will prob never do another holiday themed app again.
Yeah I learned my lesson here on holiday releases, this is the last holiday release i'm doing. It is kind of a halloween themed game though, was pretty much ready till the update. was hoping to have already had it released, in fact I was about to upload to apple on the thursday the released 0.98. here's the trailer.
Comments
So as opposed to maybe seeing version 0.9.8 (hot off the presses) update late this week without bugs, we will probably have to wait even longer for a patch to what we got last week.
Interesting…
IN SUMMARY:
I think I can live without the new features for a couple of weeks.
Any chance you guys can give us a timeframe? got about a week left and i might as well flush my halloween release down the toilet
I won't bitch, though. I'll give them feedback when needed. Until then I'm back on a restored version of 97. Anyone who didn't do that should probably avoid working any corporate gigs. Or at least grow up and stop bitching.
<<<Except about the iCade thing... bluetooth need not be touched. Even wired ipad keyboard is ignored by GS runtime keypress rules. BOOOO! >>
Ive been playing with this for a few days now and thought id share my results.
So far ive only seen a 1 second improvement on one of my scenes loading times (when i unchecked the preload art button), the rest of my scenes are all the same, most are around 4 seconds, which i think is a bit long and gets a bit annoying for the user after a while.
Performance wise i found that unchecking the preload art buttons helped my initial fps however after playing the game for a while it seems to build up until it goes a bit jittery with some levels running as low as 30fps on an iPhone 3gs. When you load this scene straight away without letting things build up it runs at around 45fps.
I sure hope that we'll see some more improvements in the next update.
Cheers,
Mark
Ok from day one. with each new release and new bug came time focused on new features. Instead of time being focused on bugs.... getting these bugs fixed and increasing stability ad perfromace. Features were released that just added more bugs and problems to be fixed. Disregarding performance and stability. everytime new features are released more man power is added to fixing those and taken away from performance and stability. Now back to Camaro to Apples. Get the engine purring before you start adding stuff. I wanna hear her purr before I go buy a spoiler. What good is all these new features if the device can handle the instability of the systems inner workings. Im not bitching... Im not whining.... logic is logic. Apple weeds out all the BS .... creates something stable..... then adds new things as it goes along constantly making sure performance and stability isn't hendered to much. That train of thought would go a long way here. Again just my opinion. But right now its daydreams of 5 steps forward that winds up being 2 steps forward then 3 steps back. i could hit you with logical metaphors all day that make sense.
-Worse performance
-causing strange bugs
-wrecked my game
but the loading time decreased with 1 sec
-.-
-My whole laptop's performance -800% thanks alot gamesalad
Tried installing, there was an error corrupt installation, now my laptop is almost unusable!
We actually work very differently from each other, from what I can tell, and from the GS test team itself.
Sure, Tend was annoyed we didn't get to test the build. I was actually really angry myself. Because it's broken my game and has delayed me, whereas if I'd tested it I could have caught these bugs *before* release, thus saving me time.
And saving everyone else as well the hassle of going through this.
But I haven't responded to this till now because I wanted to think about it a bit, let the anger go, and come up with a better response.
So here it is:
I do not particularly like testing new builds, especially when I'm this close to releasing a game. However, I do do it because otherwise… well… we get what we have now.
But then I realised that I won't test if we need a new version of the viewer on a device. This just delays me, especially if there are multiple builds coming that need multiple viewers.
I'm a huge fan of the viewer btw - but every time I go to update it, it's a challenge for me. And an annoyance, if I'm honest.
As I mentioned, I'm usually busy with a game. I don't want to faff about taking the old viewer off, installing a new one, taking that off and then having to put the old one back on every time there's a new build.
So I test in the creator. I make a copy of each of my games in progress called 'Test', and try them in the new creator. And believe me, I've found plenty of bugs in that while just testing a game out.
Having said that, there are Sous Chefs that *do* test the new builds *and* the viewer. And I also send the GS team my projects to try out with the viewer when asked.
So I probably wouldn't have caught any 'Viewer' bugs - as in, those that affect performance for .97 or .98. So while I was annoyed that they bypassed the testers for this build, I have no right, personally, to be angry as I wouldn't have tested on the viewer.
Others do install the viewer, and *would* have spotted these bugs though. So to take us all out of the loop was just silly.
Also, to open it up to more people, as you seem to be suggesting, Rob, is fine in theory. But look at the forums. People are complaining about bugs that, in most cases, are user error.
I mean, even *I* was stuck on saving/loading issues on my game and I've been using this software for two years+. I spent ages on it trying to fix it, and eventually I found it *was* my fault.
If I, and more likely others, send in bug reports that are user errors, then time is taken away from the real issues as each 'bug' found is investigated.
Anyway, I've sent the GS team my project as I was having a load of issues with the new build.
*Turns out there's some sound errors.
*There are also cases where the flushing memory trick they've implemented sometimes gets stuck in a loop (causing the frame rate to drop significantly, or a crash).
*Also, a few errors with the viewer are happening, especially when trying to test and iPhone game on an iPad.
They're looking into these issues, and have been working through the weekend to try and address them. The plan, I *think* is to introduce a hot patch asap.
Fortunately, most of my game was finished and I'm just polishing right now really, so I'm able to carry on with lots of little things while waiting for said patch.
I hope we get it this week, as that's when I'm hoping to submit my game!
On a general note, if we could get memory flushed between scenes back, that would be good. It allowed for greater control and memory management on our part. It might not be possible, but I'm not a fan of building up memory till it flushes it out when it's full.
If we don't get a patch this week it will delay me by two weeks at least (I don't want to release during Halloween, for example).
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
Oh one other thing. Through project help as well as even picking up a few templates from darren I have seen A LOT of other peoples templates and can assure you we all do things differently so it should be a really good measure when they send out a pre-release based on the different styles each of us use.
That's a great suggestion quantum. I think that'd help a lot with my project in particular!
- Alex
I've often likened the way GS is to how an MMO is (especially after having worked on one).
When an MMO has downtime, or a bug, it means you essentially can't play the game. If GS has downtime, or bugs, it means that people can't get on with their business, in some cases.
Though similar, they should never be treated as the same thing. Especially by GS management!
And in fairness, they've been working over the weekend, including the Columbus day holiday. So I think it's fair to say they take this all seriously.
I just need them to hurry up!
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
'Hi Guys. Thanks for all your feedback, we're investigating all your bugs and are taking this very serious. As soon as we have more info we'll post'.
That alone would calm 90+% of users as we'll all know they are tending and working to eliminate, saying nothing just isn't good ... on any level!
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io