Game Engine memory flying up, crashing - all since 0.9.8
Hi all - I appreciate there are many, many posts about memory leaks with usage going up but never down. But I have to post a new one because since the new update, my game no longer runs all the way to the end. It's a platformer with some 30 scenes (including pause, credits etc). Says the file size is 20.1MB, which isn't gigantic. There's a video of it here: 
When I initially installed the new update and new viewer on iPod Touch 4th gen, the game practically froze. It slowed to 1.4 frames per second from what's usually 30-60fps. So I unchecked most of the 'preload art' boxes on my actors and that at least made the game run (you have to press 'right' twice now to start moving the character, but I'm sure I can sort that out). But come the final boss fight, everything slows to a crawl again and it's unplayable.
If you load everything fresh then skip to the final boss fight, engine usage is around 8MB and it runs beautifully (like it always did). But start from the beginning and, by the time you reach it, the Game Engine stat is over 100MB! It just isn't scrubbing ANYTHING. Also, dying and resetting the scene adds on around 1.5MB each time you do it. So where my dad managed to spend some 30 minutes retrying the same section on the old version of the viewer, now I can't play it for more than ten minutes without a full-blown crash.
It's worth noting, I have 332 actors in my game. But many share the same art files - they just behave differently. This was actually intended to REDUCE the amount of stuff the processor is having to keep an eye out for - for instance, I have a separate character actor for bonus levels, because he's always bouncing, so why think about all the 'grounded' rules? Subsequently, because the gems in the main game are triggered by colliding with the standard Player, I needed new gems for the Bonus Player. Why? Because anything more than one collision rule for a gem was giving the game a stutter with every gem picked up. So more actors equals smoother game - but with this memory leak, it's killing it.
What can I do?
I hope you can help. I've looked at ways to reduce the number of actors, but it would just make the ruleset for those left over totally unmanageable.
I love GameSalad dearly and the community is absolutely superb. But I've been working on this game literally all year (and bought an iMac just so I could use GameSalad). It's honestly almost ready to publish, but now broken. I haven't tried ad-hoc yet as I don't know how to do it (haven't got that far). But any advice you can give me would be very much appreciated!
When I initially installed the new update and new viewer on iPod Touch 4th gen, the game practically froze. It slowed to 1.4 frames per second from what's usually 30-60fps. So I unchecked most of the 'preload art' boxes on my actors and that at least made the game run (you have to press 'right' twice now to start moving the character, but I'm sure I can sort that out). But come the final boss fight, everything slows to a crawl again and it's unplayable.
If you load everything fresh then skip to the final boss fight, engine usage is around 8MB and it runs beautifully (like it always did). But start from the beginning and, by the time you reach it, the Game Engine stat is over 100MB! It just isn't scrubbing ANYTHING. Also, dying and resetting the scene adds on around 1.5MB each time you do it. So where my dad managed to spend some 30 minutes retrying the same section on the old version of the viewer, now I can't play it for more than ten minutes without a full-blown crash.
It's worth noting, I have 332 actors in my game. But many share the same art files - they just behave differently. This was actually intended to REDUCE the amount of stuff the processor is having to keep an eye out for - for instance, I have a separate character actor for bonus levels, because he's always bouncing, so why think about all the 'grounded' rules? Subsequently, because the gems in the main game are triggered by colliding with the standard Player, I needed new gems for the Bonus Player. Why? Because anything more than one collision rule for a gem was giving the game a stutter with every gem picked up. So more actors equals smoother game - but with this memory leak, it's killing it.
What can I do?
I hope you can help. I've looked at ways to reduce the number of actors, but it would just make the ruleset for those left over totally unmanageable.
I love GameSalad dearly and the community is absolutely superb. But I've been working on this game literally all year (and bought an iMac just so I could use GameSalad). It's honestly almost ready to publish, but now broken. I haven't tried ad-hoc yet as I don't know how to do it (haven't got that far). But any advice you can give me would be very much appreciated!
Comments
I would assume that it would be the new update - I would send the GameSalad team this description, they would know how to help you more.
Also, I don't think your supposed to un-check all the preload art - read the best practices for that. :P
Hope that helps, and I hope you get your problem fixed.
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On the subject, I did read through the best practices... (didn't try the NULL thing, but they said it was for right at the end anyway). But yeah, with all of teh assets checked, the game just slowed to an absolute crawl.
I'll get onto GS then! Thanks very much for taking the time to read and respond, I really appreciate it.
Keep updating this and let us know if you get your problem fixed.
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Explain the problem and the steps to reproduce it.
I had a longer, nastier response planned but I'll save that for the sticky. I'm not a fan of this 'We wait till the last minute THEN flush the memory' system!
Good luck!
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
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