Get the best performance out of your iPhone/iPod using GameSalad

Toby

Hi this is a quick request for everyone who's using the GS engine and GS Viewer.

Please share any tips or discoveries for performance improvements, stuff to avoid when coding etc.

Presently I'm trying to work out the best way to design my levels, eg one big image or take a tiled approach. Suggestions or tips appreciated. have varying success with each method.

Framerates for my game Elerium sit around 15 > 30 fps, hoping to get and keep it over 30.

quantumsheep

Some tips from my experience. They're all anecdotal really, and may carry zero weight with reality, but hey, that's my life

1. Make collisions rectangular, not circular where you can.

2. If you have static objects on screen, remember to uncheck the moveable box in an actor's properties.

3. Spawning - this takes up a lot of memory - try the following:
*Limit the number of enemies on-screen.
*Limit the number of projectiles on-screen.
*Destroy any enemies that go off screen.
*Pre-load actors by having them in the scene.

4. Use Power of 2 images at all times.

5. Background images. I usually make mine 512x512 to cover the entire screen while staying within power of 2 rules. However, if the background is static, you can make it 256x256 then stretch it to any size in a scene to make it cover what you need it to. How good it looks is debatable, but it works in certain situations.

6. Limit the amount of scenes you have. I noticed that when I put in scenes that were to serve as 'cut scenes', it drained the memory faster - I had to take them out in the end.

7. Animations - not sure about this one, but anecdotally, putting in an option to not play animations helps the game play slightly better.

8. The GS Viewer - I've noticed that when connected to GS, the viewer crashes more often. Once you've played the game, you can access it via the 'recent games' tab in the viewer which crashes less often.

9. Try not to overburden your actors with lots and lots of rules. Hard, I know, but if you can move some rules off an actor onto a new one, it helps (I think!).

10. Watch how the memory goes up in the GS Viewer. See where there are spikes. Also watch for where slowdown happens for clues as to where your game is struggling.

Hope that helps for now,

QS