State of GameSalad on 5-1-2013...
CodeWizard
Inactive, Chef Emeritus Posts: 1,143
Hello! It's that time again... time for another weekly state of GameSalad post. Are you sensing a trend yet? Let’s get started:
Estimated Stable Build Schedule
0.10.2c: We were hoping to get 0.10.2c out to you this week. But, the folks responsible for finalizing builds and getting them published are out two days this week for training. New ETA is Tuesday or Wednesday of next week!
0.10.2d: This might very well be a tool revision as well, so we might call it 0.10.3. Not sure yet. Anyway, this will get in the pipe to go out to you as soon at 0.10.2c is ready.
Pending Updates
1. We've fixed a spurious crash related to null pointers being referenced in some cases. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
2. We've found and fixed an issue with image loading that caused white actors on occasion. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
3. We've found and fixed an issue with asset loading that negatively affects FPS of your games. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
4. We've fixed a bug that caused out of memory crashes at improper times. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
5. We’ve done an initial optimization pass on some of the Lua code. Especially related to how we compute delta times in the iOS engine. Should help improve general performance. [ETA: 0.10.2d]
6. An optimization pass has been completed for OpenGL 2 rendering. This should help out performance in several cases, especially particles. [ETA: 0.10.2e]
What We're Working On
1. We're continuing to profile the game engine looking for CPU bottlenecks and RAM hogs. We're continuing to identify places that should receive immediate optimization. This effort will continue for the foreseeable future. This is my main engineering focus for now.
2. An engineer is currently reworking how we load images to improve performance. Initial estimates are we should be able to reduce image load times by a minimum of 50%. This may make it into 0.10.2e but I’ll hold off on final prediction until next week.
3. We did some experiments with alternate sound file formats in the engine. The results were startling! When we moved over to using WAV files, sound effect load times were reduced by about 66%. Holy crap, that’s good! Our current thinking is to allow you to choose between ogg / wav when importing sounds. In this way you can make the tradeoff choice between slower load times and smaller size yourself. Once the texture work is completed, we’ll move on to a non-experimental version of this.
4. We're still working on getting the new nightly build process in place for Pro users. We have some creator changes we want to get in place before releasing this to you guys. These changes will help ensure that you won't accidentally corrupt your game projects when working with nightly builds. Once this is complete, we'll roll nightly builds out to line cooks and sous chefs to make sure all is well. Once everything looks good, we'll open it up to all Pro users. I expect the final engineering work for this to be completed this week. [ETA: line cooks & sous chefs next week, with general Pro release soon after]
5. We're putting the finishing code touches on supporting a new publishing platform called “Tizen.” This will be in QA for a while. Look for more news on this any day now.
6. We're wrapping up the major Mac Creator improvement pass. These improvements will greatly enhance the stability and performance of the Mac Creator. We'll be rolling this out to all Pro users for feedback once the nightly build process is ready for use. [ETA: Nightly Build]
7. We have an engineer doing an optimization pass on the HTML5 and Lua engines. This should help improve general performance of both engines. He’ll be continuing with this work for a couple of weeks.
What's Coming Down The Pipe
Our primary focus will remain code cleanup, bug fixing and engine optimization for the next several weeks. Once we're satisfied with where the core engine is at, we'll begin turning our attention to new feature development and additional platform support.
The top things on my list are: creator workflow improvements, custom fonts, automated texture atlas support, improved render batching and async multiplayer support. Some other odds and ends may come up first as necessary, but those are the main points I'll be pressing for. ETA of those features is not available yet, but they're top on my list to tackle as soon as feasible. More news as we make progress on our existing workloads.
Nightly builds are getting really close. We should be able to get these out to line cooks and sous chefs for initial feedback and testing next week. If all goes well, Pros should be seeing this soon after.
Summary
We're continuing to cook away in the kitchen to get some significant improvements ready for you. I’m still really looking forward to the nightly build process. There’s a bunch of stuff just waiting to go out to you once that’s ready. Good times!
Until next week...
Estimated Stable Build Schedule
0.10.2c: We were hoping to get 0.10.2c out to you this week. But, the folks responsible for finalizing builds and getting them published are out two days this week for training. New ETA is Tuesday or Wednesday of next week!
0.10.2d: This might very well be a tool revision as well, so we might call it 0.10.3. Not sure yet. Anyway, this will get in the pipe to go out to you as soon at 0.10.2c is ready.
Pending Updates
1. We've fixed a spurious crash related to null pointers being referenced in some cases. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
2. We've found and fixed an issue with image loading that caused white actors on occasion. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
3. We've found and fixed an issue with asset loading that negatively affects FPS of your games. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
4. We've fixed a bug that caused out of memory crashes at improper times. [ETA: 0.10.2c]
5. We’ve done an initial optimization pass on some of the Lua code. Especially related to how we compute delta times in the iOS engine. Should help improve general performance. [ETA: 0.10.2d]
6. An optimization pass has been completed for OpenGL 2 rendering. This should help out performance in several cases, especially particles. [ETA: 0.10.2e]
What We're Working On
1. We're continuing to profile the game engine looking for CPU bottlenecks and RAM hogs. We're continuing to identify places that should receive immediate optimization. This effort will continue for the foreseeable future. This is my main engineering focus for now.
2. An engineer is currently reworking how we load images to improve performance. Initial estimates are we should be able to reduce image load times by a minimum of 50%. This may make it into 0.10.2e but I’ll hold off on final prediction until next week.
3. We did some experiments with alternate sound file formats in the engine. The results were startling! When we moved over to using WAV files, sound effect load times were reduced by about 66%. Holy crap, that’s good! Our current thinking is to allow you to choose between ogg / wav when importing sounds. In this way you can make the tradeoff choice between slower load times and smaller size yourself. Once the texture work is completed, we’ll move on to a non-experimental version of this.
4. We're still working on getting the new nightly build process in place for Pro users. We have some creator changes we want to get in place before releasing this to you guys. These changes will help ensure that you won't accidentally corrupt your game projects when working with nightly builds. Once this is complete, we'll roll nightly builds out to line cooks and sous chefs to make sure all is well. Once everything looks good, we'll open it up to all Pro users. I expect the final engineering work for this to be completed this week. [ETA: line cooks & sous chefs next week, with general Pro release soon after]
5. We're putting the finishing code touches on supporting a new publishing platform called “Tizen.” This will be in QA for a while. Look for more news on this any day now.
6. We're wrapping up the major Mac Creator improvement pass. These improvements will greatly enhance the stability and performance of the Mac Creator. We'll be rolling this out to all Pro users for feedback once the nightly build process is ready for use. [ETA: Nightly Build]
7. We have an engineer doing an optimization pass on the HTML5 and Lua engines. This should help improve general performance of both engines. He’ll be continuing with this work for a couple of weeks.
What's Coming Down The Pipe
Our primary focus will remain code cleanup, bug fixing and engine optimization for the next several weeks. Once we're satisfied with where the core engine is at, we'll begin turning our attention to new feature development and additional platform support.
The top things on my list are: creator workflow improvements, custom fonts, automated texture atlas support, improved render batching and async multiplayer support. Some other odds and ends may come up first as necessary, but those are the main points I'll be pressing for. ETA of those features is not available yet, but they're top on my list to tackle as soon as feasible. More news as we make progress on our existing workloads.
Nightly builds are getting really close. We should be able to get these out to line cooks and sous chefs for initial feedback and testing next week. If all goes well, Pros should be seeing this soon after.
Summary
We're continuing to cook away in the kitchen to get some significant improvements ready for you. I’m still really looking forward to the nightly build process. There’s a bunch of stuff just waiting to go out to you once that’s ready. Good times!
Until next week...
Comments
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/56415/hey-gamesalad-what-about-opt-out-from-tracking
...obviously that's not counting the concern about tracking.
Shadows Peak is an atmospheric psychological horror that explores the dark side of a player.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
The nightly builds are rough builds based on our current work-in-progress. As such, they're somewhat experimental and a come with a fat "caveat emptor". We'll do what we can to make sure what we put in the nightly builds is working, but in some cases the nightly build may be broken or have partially finished work.
The goal is to get feedback from the users sooner on our work-in-progress and help get more test coverage on our work earlier. This is also where we can rapidly iterate on optimizations and bug fixes without the current minimum week-long delay getting them to you. Once things are deemed stable then we'll roll them out for general release.
While we could roll the nightly builds out to everyone, we're choosing to limit it to Pro only for business reasons. I feel the nightly builds are a good upgrade incentive.
So, yeah, turn-based is a good example of this. For a nice reference point, think of "Words With Friends."
Why Tizen us just tell us.
I think that's very punny of you. lol
Could you clear one thing up for us- as of now, is the native code engine looking to be delivered as a gradual update, with optimizations in each creator update that add up to the same performance enhancement overall, or as a single deliverable in one massive update?
Chakku
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Fantastic work !!!!
Cheers
That's right... we'll be delivering awesome performance more gradually instead of holding it all for one massive chunk.
Iterative development FTW!
"creator workflow improvements"
Does this mean updated mac creator UI?
I can't stress this enough... Creator is front and center to GS developers. It's the tool we use to create the games we so hope become a success, and sadly the current Mac version is in desperate need of an overhaul. There's been some ongoing issues with Creator that greatly hinder development productivity.
Thanks CodeWizard, your weekly updates are a site for sore eyes!
Here's what I mean:
We have an engineer collect the top creator improvements that the community would like to see. Then that engineer starts implementing them, easiest first. We dump them into the nightly builds for feedback. Rinse and repeat.
All these improvements are well and good, but how about fixing the REALLY important stuff like... lowering the volume on those damn fireworks when you publish
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Anyway, great updates! I actually thought the new platform would be OUYA, but Tizen looks cool as well. Any updates on OUYA @CodeWizard?
- Thomas
- Thomas