My game keeps on crashing on older devices...WHY??

expired_012

Ok my game works perfectly fine with the 3rd generation devices, however it always crashes on ipod touch 2nd gen and older and Iphone 3G and older. I know they have slower processors, but my game is only 7MB. What could be the problem? I have sometimes around 7-8 moving actors in a scene, my first scene which only has two moving actors works fine, but when moving to the next level where theres about 5 moving actors, the actors jump extremely slowly, im talking like 1mm ever 10 seconds, and I cant even move my main actor in that scene. After that I cannot longer play anymore and have to quit and go back to the home menu. I tried it on the Ipad yesterday and it worked perfectly fine as well..If anyone has went through this before, please comment and let me know what I have to do to fix this..THANKS

firemaplegames

It doesn't matter how large the file size is, it is how much RAM the game uses...

When you test it with GS Viewer, what does the RAM usage say?

Up near 40MB will crash an older device.

expired_012

Is the RAM the total memory usage? The total memory usage is 56MB at the home menu, 39.2MB on the 1st level, 42.5MB on the 2nd level, 45MB on the third level, then keeps on increasing...

firemaplegames

Yes, the memory usage.

I have found that around 40-45MB or so, it will crash on a iPhone 3G.
You have much less memory to play with on the older devices.

Make sure all of your audio is compressed as small as possible. Make sure your sound effects are saved as mono. If they are stereo, you are essentially loading twice the amount of audio files.

Make sure your background music is as small as possible. Use a free program called Audacity to convert your background music into .mp4 format, and make sure it is as tiny as you can get it. Mono as well.

Make sure all of your graphics are as optimized as possible. If they need transparency, make sure they are saved as 72dpi 24-bit .png files.

If they don't need transparency, make sure they are saved as 72dpi 8-bit .png files.

I would think that those are the main culprits, especially if you are hitting 56MB on your main menu screen.

expired_012

Thanks, that really helped. I really need to make fast adjustments because I've already gotten a complaint... :O

expired_012

Ok now all of my RAM levels in each scene is about 21-23MB, will my game work fine with the older devices now?

chosenonestudios

yea it should!

Good Luck!

Just wondering, what did you do to get it down to 21-23 from 56?

expired_012

Ok my Original images were huge but I made the actors in that scene much smaller, however the original size of the actors still took into account the amount of RAM. I Made those images as small as possible, and it reduced the RAM a ton!

chosenonestudios

it took it down 30mgb!? holy cow, nice!

I'm thinking I'm going to check my image sizes haha I knew it mattered just didn't realize it mattered so much unless your images were like 1920x1200 haha

Anyway, gratz and goodluck!

expired_012

Thanks, and also when previewing your game on your iPhone/iPod touch look at what takes up the most space (images, sounds, other) and then whatever takes up the most (for me it was images lol) try to reduce it. I really need to make a quick update because I already got two horrible reviews saying my game crashed, lever loaded, etc lol. Well Best of luck to you too!

chosenonestudios

This is the GS / xcode, preview? I never even bothered getting that thing to work...

Maybe I should haha....

It gives you stats, where all your stuff is going? Sounds handy

firemaplegames

You should definitely use the GS Viewer. You can instantly, wirelessly test your games on a device(s).

Plus it gives you stats on the computer screen as you play so you can check RAM usage and other things.

Also, it saves all of the games that you play on it so you can easily show your friends when you are not using your computer.

expired_012

Ok my first scene that had 56MB of RAM now has.....(drumroll).........13MB!!!!! all of my other scenes that were around 45MB before are now around 14MB! WOW, I cannot believe I had so many unneeded things in my game...thanks a ton for helping me out, wouldn't have figured it out without you!

firemaplegames

Glad I could help!