Lagging is usually caused by un-optimized code, graphics, and audio. Now GS could certainly be fine-tuned to run faster, but nothing will help poorly written code.
I don't know... this is 2D stuff. It should be a lot easier. I'm trying really hard to keep my game fast and optimized, but there are just so many issues.
I wanted to split up the title screen into a separate scene. But if I do that, I add 20 seconds of loading time. That would make it almost a full minute before the player gets to play. It was really odd, I split up the content to make it easier to process but the loading time increased.
Also, maybe the Photics: Toolbox gets 60 frames per second, but with my other games it is a huge struggle to stay above 30. I rarely had to worry about this with Flash.
I don't know how the audio could be optimized further. I have 30 second loops and I drag them in to the game using GameSalad's music format. I'd use .caf but then I lose stereo sound. I paid too much money for my game's audio to simply downgrade my files to mono.
I don't understand why the loading times are so long. It's less than a 10 Meg game... that gets downloaded to the device... it should start instantly!
@Photics you have to remember you're running on an iPhone not a PC. Its not going to perform like flash on PC. Creating games with GameSalad is all about compromise and creative work arounds. Unless your game is a music game, for an audio nerd fan base, then mono will be fine. Scenes have a whole host of info it has to load, not just what you put on them, so there's always going to be a lag between one scene and another. I know it's frustrating coming across these problems for the first time, but it's get easier to avoid the traps, i promise.
And if your game is good, folks won't mind waiting a few extra seconds for your game. Most of them understand that gaming on an iphone is not the same as a PC/Xbox/PS3 (all of which still have loading times). Make sure there is a loading graphic to at least make it clear to the gamer something is happening. Good luck.
If a laptop from a decade ago could run Flash, a modern phone should be able to handle 2D games without long loading times and poor frame rates. As for the loading graphic, I can't put one in there. I don't have pro. It's just going to be the GameSalad screen for about 32 seconds.
If a 3D game has shorter loading times than a 2D game, I don't think players are going to be so tolerant.
I have to do something about performance, but shouldn't Gendai Games be doing more? I've used lots of different programs. It seems pretty obvious to me that GameSalad itself is the cause of the slowdown.
@Photics blimey, you love to hear yourself argue don't you. Make your first scene a minimal scene as possible. This scene should have a start button, that changes to 'loading'. It's not perfect, but it's the best you can do. 32 seconds, does sound way too long, sounds like there's plenty of optimising to be done.
As for your other points, i really can't help you. Good luck.
mrfunkleberry said: @Photics blimey, you love to hear yourself argue don't you.
No, I think I'd rather relax in the shade... feeling the warm breeze drift in from the ocean... as my App Store apps collect thousands of dollars.
...but I can't do that because I'm hitting so many problems with GameSalad. It's been an uphill struggle with the Apple side of mobile development.
mrfunkleberry said: Make your first scene a minimal scene as possible. This scene should have a start button, that changes to 'loading'. It's not perfect, but it's the best you can do. 32 seconds, does sound way too long, sounds like there's plenty of optimising to be done.
I've been obsessive about optimization... as evident from the dialogue in this thread... and that's my point. If I'm working really hard to fix my game, and it's still not performing right, then the problem is with GameSalad. My game runs at a pretty good 40+ FPS... and that's with over 90 actors on the scene. The last 10 are causing the problem. It's all user interface stuff and the title screen.
I think there's something screwy with loading. If I split the game into two frames, the total loading time should not be greater than if I kept them separate. Yes / no? ...but that's what seems to be happening.
Rob2 said: whats the spec of your audio files?...bitrate etc
It's not the audio. I deleted the actor that plays the music and the game still crashed my iPod on start up. It's those last few actors. I'm trying to make my game look pretty and that's what's frustrating. If I cut corners I could get it done... but why should I have to do that?
If someone asks me, "Hey Mike... I heard you use GameSalad. Should I use it too?"
What should my response be? "Oh sure, if you don't mind poor performance and long loading times."
Okay. It's friendly to say thanks, or nice tip, and may be not put all the blame on GameSalad. Sure it has it's limitations, but if you can see a similar game out there made with gamesalad, at least be hopeful. Remember none of us are paid to help you, so a little sugar goes a long way
A quick question, might seem a bit silly, are you counting your 32 seconds from the moment you hit 'preview on iphone'? I know you're very sensitive over your game, but you are more than welcome to send me your project file.
Otherwise continue your process of striping out actors until the load times become 'acceptable', once you have identified the culprits you can provide us with the details of these actors for possible solutions.
"I think there's something screwy with loading. If I split the game into two frames, the total loading time should not be greater than if I kept them separate."
Let me repeat my answer, yes the sum loading times will always be greater. But i wouldn't consider this to be your problem. Good Luck.
mrfunkleberry said: Okay. It's friendly to say thanks, or nice tip, and may be not put all the blame on GameSalad. Sure it has it's limitations, but if you can see a similar game out there made with gamesalad, at least be hopeful. Remember none of us are paid to help you, so a little sugar goes a long way
This really isn't directed at you or other developers. It's more directed at Gendai Games. What are they doing? Does this software have a future? The last update was not so great. I thought that a fix would be available soon after. That's the main point of this thread... "what's up" while we wait. It seems like it's been a long time without a good update.
A quick question, might seem a bit silly, are you counting your 32 seconds from the moment you hit 'preview on iphone'?
I wait from when the blue bar disappears. The first part of preview is just downloading to the device. I don't count that part. I count from when the circular icon appears until I hear/see the title screen.
Otherwise continue your process of striping out actors until the load times become 'acceptable', once you have identified the culprits you can provide us with the details of these actors for possible solutions.
I've already figured out ways to trim down the game, but it makes my game less polished and less professional looking. I might try alternatives, and figure out ways for further optimization, but I'm thinking I should take a break. Maybe I should just mothball the iPod Touch version of my game until Gendai Games makes the software more responsive. I'm not the only one around here to notice this issue.
@ Photics, I've decided to use the least amount of scenes as possible.
And for my new game, theres going to only be one... I figured only make them wait once right?
If they only have to wait once they might be a little more tolerant.. Not to mention When there was 5 scenes in my game and I dropped it to 2 the load time was the same! Even though there was ALOT more stuff loaded into it at the beginning.
I rotated the loading scenes around in my game and would make one scene start first and then another. It didn't matter which scene was loaded it always took 17s except for one time it took 32 wth?
Anyway I think theres some sort of timer in the beginning that there using, because my new game I'm working on right now comes right in at 17s too 1scene
The loading between scenes is acceptable, just not the initial loading unfortunately hopefully they'll fix the initial loading shortly...
Which is probably more on the top of our list then "whatever the hell stability is not doing"
Not to be insulting, but your post didn't help. Heh... again... this is more directed at Gendai Games. But unfortunately, they seem to be in a bit of a waiting game too. They are having trouble reproducing the bugs with 0.8.6.
...which means 0.8.7. is still waiting.
chosenonestudios said: @ Photics, I've decided to use the least amount of scenes as possible.
I think that's a good decision.
For now, I too have decided to keep the game one scene... and I'm going to start trimming.
Fancy energy display... gone Level indicator... bah, you can count. Multilingual support... I'm not even sure I'm going to have words.
It's a good thing that "start" means the same in English, Polish and German. HA HA!
I don't like it, but it lets the game actually load and it keeps the frame rates around 40.
I know you said that you paid a lot for your audio, but the iPhone and iPod Touch are not really amazing sound systems. Unless you are playing with really good headphones in a quiet space, the nuances kind of get lost.
Most of the people that I talked to that played my games even turn off the audio altogether. They are usually in public places and don't want to disturb anybody.
Good audio is absolutely important, but a lot of people play our games on their commute to work on a train, or waiting in line, or whatever.
Stereo sounds are essentially just two mono sounds, so you are loading twice as much data.
Mono sounds still play out of both speakers, so things like positional sound still work.
I have found that loading all of the audio and sound fx are what takes a lot of the loading time.
In addition, I have noticed that stereo sounds negatively affect performance.
Unless you are making the most subtle of audio games, I would seriously consider optimizing the hell out of the music and all the sound effects.
If you have the room, I would also suggest using the .caf file format as they load really quickly.
I already checked for audio issues. I was careful when I placed the audio files in my game. I did some testing and the differences were negligible.
I doubt it's an audio problem. I deleted the actor playing the audio... and just before posting this, I even tried deleted the audio files from the project... it didn't seem to change anything. Plus, the music sounds great with headphones. I don't want to change it.
The game engine is the largest part of the memory use. If the Gameboy can have stereo sound, my game should have it too. I'm not doing anything that crazy with audio. The total project size for iPod version of my game is 7.4 Megs. That's tiny. That's like a Nintendo 64 cart.
I'm still waiting for the iPad version to be approved. It's been three days in review and still nothing.
I'm in a great mood today, as I discovered something interesting. You might already know this information, but it was new to me. When my iPod was connected via USB, it performed slowly. After I disconnected the cable, the iPod ran as I expected. Not understanding this difference threw off my performance testing.
Regardless, I decided to trim down the iPod version of my game. The more memory available, the less problems I would have with crashing and performance. The smaller version does not have foreign language support, as much of the text was eliminated. Options were eliminated too. But overall, it's still a pretty good game. I kept combos, stereo sound, particles, all of my music and end game stats.
Both versions of my game have been submitted to the App Store. The iPad version of my game is still in review. This is troubling to me, as I was preparing for the international launch of the iPad... and I think that's tomorrow.
I really like the game. I really REALLY REALLY like the game. During testing, I just curled up on my love-seat and I was having a good time playing my game. It's fun... far better than my other GameSalad projects.
Now I wait to see what happens. I'm pretty excited about making a video about this game, but I'm waiting for my app to be approved first.
"a modern phone should be able to handle 2D games without long loading times and poor frame rates."
then learn GL and Objective-C.
GameSalad is an inexpensive, easy to use solution for small developers. We all know it's limitations. If your game doesn't work then you're trying to make the wrong kind of game with it.
jmp909 said: GameSalad is an inexpensive, easy to use solution for small developers. We all know it's limitations. If your game doesn't work then you're trying to make the wrong kind of game with it.
And it's in Beta still anyway
I don't think that's the right attitude. "It's in Beta" or it's "easy to use" won't defend the developers here if Apple decides to ban all GameSalad apps from the iTunes store. For a while there, I was wondering if Apple was going to accept it. I can't control the loading times and it seems that Gendai Games is working on fixing that.
So hey, you can blame this one me... or you could read the whole thread and see where I learned how to maximize the performance of my game. There are over 50 actors in the scene and it still works well!
I even pointed out the main reason of my frustration. My iPod Touch would run slower when connected via a USB cable.
Frustration with GameSalad is a common occurrence here. The response shouldn't be... well go learn something more complex... as that's what people will do. However, if someone actually reviews this thread, lots of tricks and tips are revealed to get better performance.
If you were wondering, my secret project was Commove. Did it live up to the hype? Well, it was a featured game and it was my best selling GameSalad game. I'm glad I kept with the project. There was lots of frustration, but I finally found some success on the iTunes store. While GameSalad is not being updated as fast as I like, and many times it doesn't do all of the things I think it should do, I do think that it's great software overall.
With the "big picture" post, the community has gotten discouraged. I too am not pleased with the development speed of new features... such as iAds and Game Center. However, my business is becoming more successful. I consider Commove a success and it was built with GameSalad.
So, just a reminder to everyone. Don't let the small stuff bother you. While iAds and Game Center is not here today, these new features are scheduled. So while Gendai Games is busy developing their software, I'm making more games with GameSalad.
My next project is pretty cool too, but I decided to do more work and less hype for that one. ;-)
Comments
I wanted to split up the title screen into a separate scene. But if I do that, I add 20 seconds of loading time. That would make it almost a full minute before the player gets to play. It was really odd, I split up the content to make it easier to process but the loading time increased.
Also, maybe the Photics: Toolbox gets 60 frames per second, but with my other games it is a huge struggle to stay above 30. I rarely had to worry about this with Flash.
I don't know how the audio could be optimized further. I have 30 second loops and I drag them in to the game using GameSalad's music format. I'd use .caf but then I lose stereo sound. I paid too much money for my game's audio to simply downgrade my files to mono.
I don't understand why the loading times are so long. It's less than a 10 Meg game... that gets downloaded to the device... it should start instantly!
And if your game is good, folks won't mind waiting a few extra seconds for your game. Most of them understand that gaming on an iphone is not the same as a PC/Xbox/PS3 (all of which still have loading times). Make sure there is a loading graphic to at least make it clear to the gamer something is happening. Good luck.
If a 3D game has shorter loading times than a 2D game, I don't think players are going to be so tolerant.
I have to do something about performance, but shouldn't Gendai Games be doing more? I've used lots of different programs. It seems pretty obvious to me that GameSalad itself is the cause of the slowdown.
As for your other points, i really can't help you. Good luck.
...but I can't do that because I'm hitting so many problems with GameSalad. It's been an uphill struggle with the Apple side of mobile development. I've been obsessive about optimization... as evident from the dialogue in this thread... and that's my point. If I'm working really hard to fix my game, and it's still not performing right, then the problem is with GameSalad. My game runs at a pretty good 40+ FPS... and that's with over 90 actors on the scene. The last 10 are causing the problem. It's all user interface stuff and the title screen.
I think there's something screwy with loading. If I split the game into two frames, the total loading time should not be greater than if I kept them separate. Yes / no? ...but that's what seems to be happening. It's not the audio. I deleted the actor that plays the music and the game still crashed my iPod on start up. It's those last few actors. I'm trying to make my game look pretty and that's what's frustrating. If I cut corners I could get it done... but why should I have to do that?
If someone asks me, "Hey Mike... I heard you use GameSalad. Should I use it too?"
What should my response be? "Oh sure, if you don't mind poor performance and long loading times."
A quick question, might seem a bit silly, are you counting your 32 seconds from the moment you hit 'preview on iphone'? I know you're very sensitive over your game, but you are more than welcome to send me your project file.
Otherwise continue your process of striping out actors until the load times become 'acceptable', once you have identified the culprits you can provide us with the details of these actors for possible solutions.
"I think there's something screwy with loading. If I split the game into two frames, the total loading time should not be greater than if I kept them separate."
Let me repeat my answer, yes the sum loading times will always be greater. But i wouldn't consider this to be your problem. Good Luck.
And for my new game, theres going to only be one... I figured only make them wait once right?
If they only have to wait once they might be a little more tolerant.. Not to mention When there was 5 scenes in my game and I dropped it to 2 the load time was the same! Even though there was ALOT more stuff loaded into it at the beginning.
I rotated the loading scenes around in my game and would make one scene start first and then another. It didn't matter which scene was loaded it always took 17s except for one time it took 32 wth?
Anyway I think theres some sort of timer in the beginning that there using, because my new game I'm working on right now comes right in at 17s too 1scene
The loading between scenes is acceptable, just not the initial loading unfortunately
Which is probably more on the top of our list then "whatever the hell stability is not doing"
Looking forward to playing your game!
Good Luck!
...which means 0.8.7. is still waiting. I think that's a good decision.
For now, I too have decided to keep the game one scene... and I'm going to start trimming.
Fancy energy display... gone
Level indicator... bah, you can count.
Multilingual support... I'm not even sure I'm going to have words.
It's a good thing that "start" means the same in English, Polish and German. HA HA!
I don't like it, but it lets the game actually load and it keeps the frame rates around 40.
I know you said that you paid a lot for your audio, but the iPhone and iPod Touch are not really amazing sound systems. Unless you are playing with really good headphones in a quiet space, the nuances kind of get lost.
Most of the people that I talked to that played my games even turn off the audio altogether. They are usually in public places and don't want to disturb anybody.
Good audio is absolutely important, but a lot of people play our games on their commute to work on a train, or waiting in line, or whatever.
Stereo sounds are essentially just two mono sounds, so you are loading twice as much data.
Mono sounds still play out of both speakers, so things like positional sound still work.
I have found that loading all of the audio and sound fx are what takes a lot of the loading time.
In addition, I have noticed that stereo sounds negatively affect performance.
Unless you are making the most subtle of audio games, I would seriously consider optimizing the hell out of the music and all the sound effects.
If you have the room, I would also suggest using the .caf file format as they load really quickly.
Just my .02
I doubt it's an audio problem. I deleted the actor playing the audio... and just before posting this, I even tried deleted the audio files from the project... it didn't seem to change anything. Plus, the music sounds great with headphones. I don't want to change it.
The game engine is the largest part of the memory use. If the Gameboy can have stereo sound, my game should have it too. I'm not doing anything that crazy with audio. The total project size for iPod version of my game is 7.4 Megs. That's tiny. That's like a Nintendo 64 cart.
I'm still waiting for the iPad version to be approved. It's been three days in review and still nothing.
I'm in a great mood today, as I discovered something interesting. You might already know this information, but it was new to me. When my iPod was connected via USB, it performed slowly. After I disconnected the cable, the iPod ran as I expected. Not understanding this difference threw off my performance testing.
Regardless, I decided to trim down the iPod version of my game. The more memory available, the less problems I would have with crashing and performance. The smaller version does not have foreign language support, as much of the text was eliminated. Options were eliminated too. But overall, it's still a pretty good game. I kept combos, stereo sound, particles, all of my music and end game stats.
Both versions of my game have been submitted to the App Store. The iPad version of my game is still in review. This is troubling to me, as I was preparing for the international launch of the iPad... and I think that's tomorrow.
I really like the game. I really REALLY REALLY like the game. During testing, I just curled up on my love-seat and I was having a good time playing my game. It's fun... far better than my other GameSalad projects.
Now I wait to see what happens. I'm pretty excited about making a video about this game, but I'm waiting for my app to be approved first.
Apple approved it on Memorial Day. That was surprising to me, as that's a national holiday.
Now I have to work on promoting my game. It's set to launch on Friday. I've already started work on another game too.
...and still no GameSalad update. It makes me wonder what 0.8.7 is going to be like.
then learn GL and Objective-C.
GameSalad is an inexpensive, easy to use solution for small developers. We all know it's limitations. If your game doesn't work then you're trying to make the wrong kind of game with it.
And it's in Beta still anyway
So hey, you can blame this one me... or you could read the whole thread and see where I learned how to maximize the performance of my game. There are over 50 actors in the scene and it still works well!
I even pointed out the main reason of my frustration.
My iPod Touch would run slower when connected via a USB cable.
Frustration with GameSalad is a common occurrence here. The response shouldn't be... well go learn something more complex... as that's what people will do. However, if someone actually reviews this thread, lots of tricks and tips are revealed to get better performance.
With the "big picture" post, the community has gotten discouraged. I too am not pleased with the development speed of new features... such as iAds and Game Center. However, my business is becoming more successful. I consider Commove a success and it was built with GameSalad.
So, just a reminder to everyone. Don't let the small stuff bother you. While iAds and Game Center is not here today, these new features are scheduled. So while Gendai Games is busy developing their software, I'm making more games with GameSalad.
My next project is pretty cool too, but I decided to do more work and less hype for that one. ;-)