The load times on android are much faster now, a level that would load in 13 seconds now loads in 7. There is a weird "slow" smoothness during gameplay occasionally, but its probably the fault of my game due to how big it is. It performs well nonetheless.
I tested it on a new game I made that uses large sprite assets, no sound, and the load time between scenes are instant. I guess a lot of the load time has either to do with a huge rule list or sound. The entire folder for the actors itself is 97kb, despite the gameplay being done, while my most finished player character in the large game has 200kb of code it uses within itself.
Perhaps really complex games are to blame, since making so many rules will only reduce performance, especially if a lot of rules are being used at the same time.
Although if GS can go even faster than it is now due to still needing to fully restructure itself to it's maximum potential, then that be awesome.
Anyway, @GSstaff are doing a good job with the progress on the engine.
@Toby thanks for the video, this is exactly what I want to show you.
@Toby Thanks for the video! Are you noticing this only on device or on preview as well?
We have changed to a fixed rate for each frame of your game (60hz or 16ms per frame). This helps with a variety of issues from physics stability to managing animations more efficiently. It looks to me that elapsed time on your test case isn't right.
We'll grab a copy of your app to see what we can figure out.
@Codewizard - Issue seems to be only in preview in 1.12.40. Earlier builds with 1.12.39 in preview run really fast so i've reverted back until the speed issue is fixed.
On device the performance is fine, it's just really annoying when previewing stuff (feels a bit like the Hammy caffeine drink scene from the movie Over The Hedge)
I can send you a build if you like. Email address?
So in my project i put self.time and game.time in a display text to see if the ticks actually slowdown. They do. In Preview and on device you can visibly see the text start to slow.
Just to be sure I compared this to my actual device time (MBP) and also to using a stopwatch and it can be up to a second off.
The weird thing is, this only happens after intially loading into a scene, and moving a bit. After the first slowdown I can't seem to cause it once again no matter how I try.
Edit: Also should be noted I can se the frames for the characters "run" animation change more slowly until the slowdown is gone. Corrolates pretty well with the X.time lag.
@BlackCloakGS said:
I just put our update of the viewer to the google plays store. I am still fighting the amazon store. Hope to have it on the amazon store tomorrow.
don't you just love how each store has completely different requirements? Add Win8 / Nook stores and you'll start pulling your hair out
I have some random crashes. Mostly when saving. It saves fine (yes, I do save a new version every time I do something important). It just gives me the beach ball and I have to forced quit the creator.
Further it runs fine.
@onelasttime Thanks for the kind words! We've been kicking our own butts optimizing the engine. It's getting better every day. We've got another round of them coming as well.
I wonder if the slowdown we're seeing is related to some frames taking way too long and the engine isn't skipping that time properly. That could explain what you're seeing. I'll make sure we do some tests along those lines.
@Socks The fixed update rate should work fine with your varied fps settings on animations. Although, your animations will only be updated 60 times a second regardless of your fps settings. The animation behavior should handle that properly and, unless you can discern a 1/60th of a second error in your animation, you'll never notice.
@CodeWizard said: @Socks The fixed update rate should work fine with your varied fps settings on animations. Although, your animations will only be updated 60 times a second regardless of your fps settings. The animation behavior should handle that properly and, unless you can discern a 1/60th of a second error in your animation, you'll never notice.
Cheers for the reply, I suspected that it might not be noticeable, the thing I thought you might pick up would be the regular 'pulse' of (for example) 2 slightly longer held frames every second when at 29fps every second . . . so it would be the 'pulse' rather than being able to discern a 1/60th of a second 'error', but anyway this is all a bit esoteric and like you say no one is ever likely to notice.
P.S I like the idea of the animation frame rate being quantised to the game's frame rate !
@CodeWizard said: @onelasttime Thanks for the kind words! We've been kicking our own butts optimizing the engine. It's getting better every day. We've got another round of them coming as well.
I wonder if the slowdown we're seeing is related to some frames taking way too long and the engine isn't skipping that time properly. That could explain what you're seeing. I'll make sure we do some tests along those lines.
That would certainly make sense looking at the tests I did earlier.
Thanks for all your hard work GS team, Thinking back a few years, the sort of turn around times on features and major bugs is way faster now compared to then. And with a leaner team too!
@BlackCloakGS said:
I just put our update of the viewer to the google plays store. I am still fighting the amazon store. Hope to have it on the amazon store tomorrow.
don't you just love how each store has completely different requirements? Add Win8 / Nook stores and you'll start pulling your hair out
Yeah amazon for example lacks easy to find docs . Googles is weirdly laid out. You could write a book about how to submit to the different stores.
A lot of my collision is broken now using this update on HEIST.
The game runs really slow in the Editor now. Same as the video someone posted earlier.
Builds seem to run at proper speed, but still have the collision problems.
Small thing I thought I'd throw out there - but nothing urgent compared to performance improvements and new features. Any chance the Recently Opened list could be made to be a bit less random in what it shows?
Bugger, I was about to release an Update to Heist.
Is there a place where i can get grab an older build of the Editor? The download page only goes back 3 builds.
@dimsdale said:
Bugger, I was about to release an Update to Heist.
Is there a place where i can get grab an older build of the Editor? The download page only goes back 3 builds.
@CodeWizard said: @Socks The fixed update rate should work fine with your varied fps settings on animations. Although, your animations will only be updated 60 times a second regardless of your fps settings. The animation behavior should handle that properly and, unless you can discern a 1/60th of a second error in your animation, you'll never notice.
So does this mean we are still going to see better performace on devices ?
Getting a lot of really weird behaviour. Particularly things like self.Time, movement speed etc. Things seem to jerk in and out of the correct speed a lot. Enemies not reacting based on screen position when they did do in the last build.
@Armelline said:
Getting a lot of really weird behaviour. Particularly things like self.Time, movement speed etc. Things seem to jerk in and out of the correct speed a lot.
Creator too. If it was one or two things I might figure I didn't test them properly, but it's dozens of actors behaving wrongly even though I checked them just a few nights ago and they were working fine.
Edit: Some seem to have lost conditions which explains those. But my sin/cos based ones using self.Time are being really odd. Will see if I can pin something done specifically.
Creator too. If it was one or two things I might figure I didn't test them properly, but it's dozens of actors behaving wrongly even though I checked them just a few nights ago and they were working fine.
Edit: Some seem to have lost conditions which explains those. But my sin/cos based ones using self.Time are being really odd. Will see if I can pin something done specifically.
weird... I'm glad nothing like that happened to my game!
I have slow animations but only on old devices like Kindle 1st gen. But creator is totally fine.
@Socks said:
Does the self.time jerkiness you are seeing get resolved when you floor self.time to 1 decimal place (so . . . roundTo(self.time,1) . . . . ) ?
I really can't get it to happen consistently enough to answer that question.
Since updating 1.24.40, I can confirm my animations and buttons that interpolate the camera are very slow, like half the speed. This is in Creator. Opened my project on a previous build (1.24.39) and it works fine.
Hi,
Just sharing what happen to my game after I updated game salad creator version.
when update the latest game salad creator, I noticed my game go haywire.
after various hours of scrutinising, realise that there is a contradicting rule in my game. I have thus delete at the rule. My game is back to how its supposed to behave similar to the previous version of creator.
My question is, why this contradiction rule is not an issue with the previous creator version but only the latest update? Does this happen often?
An encourage to people who also experience the same issue (game just work somehow different from the previous creator); Do not give up and scrutinise what your rules over again. It could be something minor and a tweak will cause it to work fine again
@drizzling said:
Hi,
Just sharing what happen to my game after I updated game salad creator version.
when update the latest game salad creator, I noticed my game go haywire.
after various hours of scrutinising, realise that there is a contradicting rule in my game. I have thus delete at the rule. My game is back to how its supposed to behave similar to the previous version of creator.
My question is, why this contradiction rule is not an issue with the previous creator version but only the latest update? Does this happen often?
An encourage to people who also experience the same issue (game just work somehow different from the previous creator); Do not give up and scrutinise what your rules over again. It could be something minor and a tweak will cause it to work fine again
As they refine the engine and make it function more precisely these errors will start to show up. This kind of thing have happened over the years where they fix issues and then logic errors show their ugly head. Logic errors have to do with how accurate the code scan is. Since they have been refining the code scan for physics, animations et.. These logic conflicts will become more apparent. In a perfect system conflicts in logic should crash your game period but GS doesn't, at this point, have a precise scan, thereby some conflicts fall through the cracks.
I am in my second year of developing my game now and I have gone through a lot of updates to the engine in that time frame. Some updates were bad, some pretty good. But this last one is in a completely different atmosphere.
To be clear, I believe my game is pushing the limits of GS. I have multiple actors with more than 200 frames of animation running at 60 FPS. Add to that a bunch of layers of parallax scrolling and a ton of game structure logic. (A lot of it is spaghetti code as well as I am not a programmer...) I am sure you know how tricky it is to force GS to run at 60 when you build a big game. And yes, I know that I am a frame rate whore. I can't help but cringe when I see even a drop to 58 or 59, which was happening all the time.
Until now.
My game never drops a frame with the latest build! It is mind-blowing!!!
@CodeWizard et all I don't know what you guys did in the latest update, but it completely blew me away when I tested my game for the first time and it still makes me smile every time I play without a single drop in frame rate. At first I thought it was only the creator that was running fast, but boy was I ecstatic to see that the game runs rock solid 60 FPS on the device as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I thought my game was too ambitious for GS and until now it probably was, but now I am super-excited about my game and where GS is going. Well done!
Comments
The load times on android are much faster now, a level that would load in 13 seconds now loads in 7. There is a weird "slow" smoothness during gameplay occasionally, but its probably the fault of my game due to how big it is. It performs well nonetheless.
I tested it on a new game I made that uses large sprite assets, no sound, and the load time between scenes are instant. I guess a lot of the load time has either to do with a huge rule list or sound. The entire folder for the actors itself is 97kb, despite the gameplay being done, while my most finished player character in the large game has 200kb of code it uses within itself.
Perhaps really complex games are to blame, since making so many rules will only reduce performance, especially if a lot of rules are being used at the same time.
Although if GS can go even faster than it is now due to still needing to fully restructure itself to it's maximum potential, then that be awesome.
Anyway, @GSstaff are doing a good job with the progress on the engine.
@Codewizard - Issue seems to be only in preview in 1.12.40. Earlier builds with 1.12.39 in preview run really fast so i've reverted back until the speed issue is fixed.
On device the performance is fine, it's just really annoying when previewing stuff (feels a bit like the Hammy caffeine drink scene from the movie Over The Hedge)
I can send you a build if you like. Email address?
So in my project i put self.time and game.time in a display text to see if the ticks actually slowdown. They do. In Preview and on device you can visibly see the text start to slow.
Just to be sure I compared this to my actual device time (MBP) and also to using a stopwatch and it can be up to a second off.
The weird thing is, this only happens after intially loading into a scene, and moving a bit. After the first slowdown I can't seem to cause it once again no matter how I try.
Edit: Also should be noted I can se the frames for the characters "run" animation change more slowly until the slowdown is gone. Corrolates pretty well with the X.time lag.
Follow us: Twitter - Website
I just put our update of the viewer to the google plays store. I am still fighting the amazon store. Hope to have it on the amazon store tomorrow.
don't you just love how each store has completely different requirements? Add Win8 / Nook stores and you'll start pulling your hair out
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I have some random crashes. Mostly when saving. It saves fine (yes, I do save a new version every time I do something important). It just gives me the beach ball and I have to forced quit the creator.
Further it runs fine.
Lump Apps and My Assets
@onelasttime Thanks for the kind words! We've been kicking our own butts optimizing the engine. It's getting better every day. We've got another round of them coming as well.
I wonder if the slowdown we're seeing is related to some frames taking way too long and the engine isn't skipping that time properly. That could explain what you're seeing. I'll make sure we do some tests along those lines.
@Socks The fixed update rate should work fine with your varied fps settings on animations. Although, your animations will only be updated 60 times a second regardless of your fps settings. The animation behavior should handle that properly and, unless you can discern a 1/60th of a second error in your animation, you'll never notice.
Cheers for the reply, I suspected that it might not be noticeable, the thing I thought you might pick up would be the regular 'pulse' of (for example) 2 slightly longer held frames every second when at 29fps every second . . . so it would be the 'pulse' rather than being able to discern a 1/60th of a second 'error', but anyway this is all a bit esoteric and like you say no one is ever likely to notice.
P.S I like the idea of the animation frame rate being quantised to the game's frame rate !
That would certainly make sense looking at the tests I did earlier.
Thanks for all your hard work GS team, Thinking back a few years, the sort of turn around times on features and major bugs is way faster now compared to then. And with a leaner team too!
Follow us: Twitter - Website
The new viewer has been submitted to the amazon store and should be available tomorrow.
Yeah amazon for example lacks easy to find docs . Googles is weirdly laid out. You could write a book about how to submit to the different stores.
A lot of my collision is broken now using this update on HEIST.
The game runs really slow in the Editor now. Same as the video someone posted earlier.
Builds seem to run at proper speed, but still have the collision problems.
Small thing I thought I'd throw out there - but nothing urgent compared to performance improvements and new features. Any chance the Recently Opened list could be made to be a bit less random in what it shows?
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Bugger, I was about to release an Update to Heist.
Is there a place where i can get grab an older build of the Editor? The download page only goes back 3 builds.
Here you go @dimsdale
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/90461/how-to-roll-back-a-project-to-a-last-known-stable-build-of-gamesalad-tutorial#latest
GAMESALAD DEV FOR HIRE! - www.gingagaming.com
@gingagaming Thanks mate
Works like a dream!!!!
So does this mean we are still going to see better performace on devices ?
Getting a lot of really weird behaviour. Particularly things like self.Time, movement speed etc. Things seem to jerk in and out of the correct speed a lot. Enemies not reacting based on screen position when they did do in the last build.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
But only on devices right?
Creator too. If it was one or two things I might figure I didn't test them properly, but it's dozens of actors behaving wrongly even though I checked them just a few nights ago and they were working fine.
Edit: Some seem to have lost conditions which explains those. But my sin/cos based ones using self.Time are being really odd. Will see if I can pin something done specifically.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Does the self.time jerkiness you are seeing get resolved when you floor self.time to 1 decimal place (so . . . roundTo(self.time,1) . . . . ) ?
weird... I'm glad nothing like that happened to my game!
I have slow animations but only on old devices like Kindle 1st gen. But creator is totally fine.
I really can't get it to happen consistently enough to answer that question.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Agree. We are solving the issue about self.Time with @CodeWizard. I have provided tons of info and video. Hope we could find something...
Sounds like things just need to get settled out. They seem to be close to getting creator adjusted. I'm very optimistic with these latest builds.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Since updating 1.24.40, I can confirm my animations and buttons that interpolate the camera are very slow, like half the speed. This is in Creator. Opened my project on a previous build (1.24.39) and it works fine.
Hi,
Just sharing what happen to my game after I updated game salad creator version.
when update the latest game salad creator, I noticed my game go haywire.
after various hours of scrutinising, realise that there is a contradicting rule in my game. I have thus delete at the rule. My game is back to how its supposed to behave similar to the previous version of creator.
My question is, why this contradiction rule is not an issue with the previous creator version but only the latest update? Does this happen often?
An encourage to people who also experience the same issue (game just work somehow different from the previous creator); Do not give up and scrutinise what your rules over again. It could be something minor and a tweak will cause it to work fine again
As they refine the engine and make it function more precisely these errors will start to show up. This kind of thing have happened over the years where they fix issues and then logic errors show their ugly head. Logic errors have to do with how accurate the code scan is. Since they have been refining the code scan for physics, animations et.. These logic conflicts will become more apparent. In a perfect system conflicts in logic should crash your game period but GS doesn't, at this point, have a precise scan, thereby some conflicts fall through the cracks.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
I am in my second year of developing my game now and I have gone through a lot of updates to the engine in that time frame. Some updates were bad, some pretty good. But this last one is in a completely different atmosphere.
To be clear, I believe my game is pushing the limits of GS. I have multiple actors with more than 200 frames of animation running at 60 FPS. Add to that a bunch of layers of parallax scrolling and a ton of game structure logic. (A lot of it is spaghetti code as well as I am not a programmer...) I am sure you know how tricky it is to force GS to run at 60 when you build a big game. And yes, I know that I am a frame rate whore. I can't help but cringe when I see even a drop to 58 or 59, which was happening all the time.
Until now.
My game never drops a frame with the latest build! It is mind-blowing!!!
@CodeWizard et all I don't know what you guys did in the latest update, but it completely blew me away when I tested my game for the first time and it still makes me smile every time I play without a single drop in frame rate. At first I thought it was only the creator that was running fast, but boy was I ecstatic to see that the game runs rock solid 60 FPS on the device as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I thought my game was too ambitious for GS and until now it probably was, but now I am super-excited about my game and where GS is going. Well done!