Why does the behavior Timer need a special attention?

OrvilFox

According to many discussions, I discovered that many people were saying that use the timer as few as you can or just don't use it because it will cause a lack of performance. In the case of curious, may I ask why? And, how far is the difference gap between using it multiple times and not using it at all?

Braydon_SFX

That use to be the case, but GameSalad has done many optimizations since then and the Timer Behavior really doesn't effect frame rate or performance anymore.

Socks

@Braydon_SFX said:
That use to be the case, but GameSalad has done many optimizations since then and the Timer Behavior really doesn't effect frame rate or performance anymore.

. . . . and even when it did it was only really 'every' that you had to watch out for, the other modes ('After', 'For' and 'Tomorrow') were never really an issue.

Although - of course - that doesn't mean you can throw a thousand timers at a project and still keep a steady 60fps, but that's the same for any function, in any SDK.

gyroscope

"Tomorrow" - haha!

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Much of this old info on different things are way outdated. Even when people came up with this stuff it was kinda pointless at best. I never used any of it really. And what you'll notice is most of that info was put forward by the veterans. Take for example building a game on one scene. That might do well for a very small game but is horrible for a large game. Memory is flushed during scene changes. If you never change scenes you will get horrible memory issues.

OrvilFox

@Lost_Oasis_Games said:
Much of this old info on different things are way outdated. Even when people came up with this stuff it was kinda pointless at best. I never used any of it really. And what you'll notice is most of that info was put forward by the veterans. Take for example building a game on one scene. That might do well for a very small game but is horrible for a large game. Memory is flushed during scene changes. If you never change scenes you will get horrible memory issues.

True.
But for change scene and pause/resume game, it usually takes 1-2 s to do that depends on the stuffs in the scene on the mobile device. (I'm using an iPhone6s but it still took 1.5s, for Androids might be even a little bit longer if you deployed from the current version of GS.)
During development it's actually fine, but when it's running on a mobile device, it is somehow...annoying, you need to wait for many 1.5s or more during your gameplay.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

@neo1998x said:

@Lost_Oasis_Games said:
Much of this old info on different things are way outdated. Even when people came up with this stuff it was kinda pointless at best. I never used any of it really. And what you'll notice is most of that info was put forward by the veterans. Take for example building a game on one scene. That might do well for a very small game but is horrible for a large game. Memory is flushed during scene changes. If you never change scenes you will get horrible memory issues.

True.
But for change scene and pause/resume game, it usually takes 1-2 s to do that depends on the stuffs in the scene on the mobile device. (I'm using an iPhone6s but it still took 1.5s, for Androids might be even a little bit longer if you deployed from the current version of GS.)
During development it's actually fine, but when it's running on a mobile device, it is somehow...annoying, you need to wait for many 1.5s or more during your gameplay.

That's all fine but you run the risk of lag and crashes due to ram not being recycled and you won't know this until it's too late. I think people tend to judge this based on a few bad reviews. But never take into account the numbers of people that aren't complaining. If I have 5000 downloads and three complaints, statistically that shouldn't even be a consideration. Most people don't post reviews at all if they are satisfied. Reviewes are always skewed one way or the other. Now if you have 5000 down loads and get 100 complaints then you may have an issue.

OrvilFox

@Lost_Oasis_Games said:

@neo1998x said:

@Lost_Oasis_Games said:
Much of this old info on different things are way outdated. Even when people came up with this stuff it was kinda pointless at best. I never used any of it really. And what you'll notice is most of that info was put forward by the veterans. Take for example building a game on one scene. That might do well for a very small game but is horrible for a large game. Memory is flushed during scene changes. If you never change scenes you will get horrible memory issues.

True.
But for change scene and pause/resume game, it usually takes 1-2 s to do that depends on the stuffs in the scene on the mobile device. (I'm using an iPhone6s but it still took 1.5s, for Androids might be even a little bit longer if you deployed from the current version of GS.)
During development it's actually fine, but when it's running on a mobile device, it is somehow...annoying, you need to wait for many 1.5s or more during your gameplay.

That's all fine but you run the risk of lag and crashes due to ram not being recycled and you won't know this until it's too late. I think people tend to judge this based on a few bad reviews. But never take into account the numbers of people that aren't complaining. If I have 5000 downloads and three complaints, statistically that shouldn't even be a consideration. Most people don't post reviews at all if they are satisfied. Reviewes are always skewed one way or the other. Now if you have 5000 down loads and get 100 complaints then you may have an issue.

Well, I believe many game developers are game players too, and I also believe GS has made many significant improvements throughout the entire process of engine development
I played several games that was listed on the "Featured" or "GOTM" pages.
...For loading level it's actually pretty fast because the players know the level or whatever gonna show up deserve the time to wait, but for pause/resume game, that's way longer than it suppose to be. I think pause game should be a function that just like others, you press the button, flash! the game paused to a scene, not as same as loading to a entirely new level.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I've never had that issue with pause. Remember GS can't compensate for bloated code.