Is 10 Seconds to Load a Scene an acceptable time?

butterbean

I have a game ready to publish, but because it's very actor heavy (has about 50 different actors in one scene), it takes an average of 10 seconds to load.

I personally feel it's too long, but do others feel this is acceptable? I was thinking of shelving it and releasing it when iOS4 comes out, I hear load times are much better

BarkBarkCo

I would say, put yourself in the shoes of the user/player ... would you continue using an app that routinely took 10 secs to switch screens?

I would, IF the game were exceptional!

Rob2

You can start submitting iOS 4 games now ready for the 21st!

Chaser

That's nothing! I think my first game loads in 16 seconds on 2g iPhone

butterbean

It doesn't even take that long to load the game itself, maybe under 10 seconds, BUT to load these specific scenes with all these actors takes roughly 10 seconds... and that's on the viewer.... so maybe it will be better once it's submitted right?

BarkBark: You're right, but I wouldn't consider the game "Exceptional" like an MMORPG or anything like that, it's a casual game but very fun... I think it might frustrate users, but I could always prepare it with the new iOS4

Rob2, good point! I think I'll download the new Xcode SDK and iOS4

Chaser

Rob GS has not changed to ios 4 yet unless I missed something. Which means we still have to submit ver 3

chosenonestudios

butterbean said:
I was thinking of shelving it and releasing it when iOS4 comes out, I hear load times are much better

Unless I missed something, how are load times going to be much better when iOS4 is out? Apples not going to do anything to make loading times faster (unless you meant with the newer devices, but you'd still have to support the 2nd gens, unless you went 3gs and up)

Unless you meant a GS performance update.... if thats what you meant, who knows how long that will take....

Anyway, I say just go for it! With any impending GS performance updates, you can just update it with the new build and you'll be good to go!

Good Luck!

-Will

butterbean

Chosenonestudios: I thought I had seen a thread on here where someone used the beta version of iOS4, and the load times were better, along with the new GS 0.8.7, not sure since I haven't tried beta iOS4, but this is what I thought I saw on a thread the other day

Could be wrong, at any rate I might just submit it and see how it does... just worried and I know how impatient some peeps can be with load times beyond 8 or 9 seconds and it can be detrimental when you get bad reviews

Rob2

Load times are very much increased with iOS 4 on your device regardless of GS version. I compiled the 0.8.7 viewer to my 3GS iOS 4 using xcode 3.2.3 iphone sdk 4 GM with no problems.....I'll wack a quick GS game on as well to test (the beauty of wildcard app ids ) but can't see why it would be a problem.

BeyondtheTech

I just resubmitted the current version of my iPad game with the new GameSalad 0.8.7 because the load time dropped DRAMATICALLY from over 10 seconds to 3 seconds flat. We're still on 3.2 on the iPad, so it's not the OS, it's the engine. Thanks, Gendai!

Rob2

http://gamesalad.com/forums/topic.php?id=7420 so 0.8.7 was not in the equation for my speed increases...its all very wierddfgdhef

Chunkypixels

I found the same as BeyondtheTech.... my apps loaded dramatically quicker after the GS 0.8.7 update, and i havent looked at updating to iOS4, so it had to be from the recent GS update.

I timed my apps at around 3 second load times too.... so it sounds to be consistent with what Beyond has said.

chosenonestudios

I tested load times on beta 1 and I noticed everything was sluggish... when doing direct comparisons with 3.1.2 to beta 1... everything loaded slower... this might have been differant though with beta 2,3 and 4... (and I assumed it took 10sec to load the scene on GS 0.8.7)

But yeah, go for it!