C2 and Opera performance

Hi everybody,

I am a new french earlier adopter of Construct 2. I would like first to apologize if my english is not very good (may be you will see some mistakes), and present me quickly.

I am Crystal Noir, 34 years old, and I follow Construct since his start. I use a lot of products to make what I like : games and multimedia programs :)

I am a user of C2, GM HTML 5, Monkey and AGK. I love test programs and languages so...

Now I would like to talk with you about a problem I have with Construct 2 and Opera, that I don't have with others html 5 like software (like GM HTML 5 or Monkey).

When I test a game made with Construct 2, in preview or "compiled game" with Opera, it runs very sloooow and has glitches. Don't have this problem with FF or chrome ou IE.

I ask a friend to test too, and he has the same things.

When I test a html 5 games made with GM HTML 5, I don't have this problem with Opera.

We all know that html 5 games won't be windows game (smooth etc..with sync) but, performances are bad when I run a game made with C2 on Opera.

Is there an issue or something about this between Opera and C2 ?

In general, Opera run html 5 correctly at the same as it's not the best to play with but here, it's very bad.

Thank's for help :)

Happy C2 !

I tried running the Space Blaster demo in Opera 11.51 on Windows 7 and it runs OK. It's a little choppy in places, but perfectly playable.

Perhaps you could upload some demos side-by-side for us to try ourselves?

A fair bit of performance work has been done on the games, so they should not be unnecessarily slow. I'm tempted to say Opera just need to make their browser faster, but if you say other HTML5 games run just fine then I'm curious to see them running side by side for myself.

ok I could try to upload something : but the two projects are not the same, I don't have the same on the two sides.

But here's an example :

EDIT : for samples, please see more posts under this one

that just concern opera, with other browser it's ok.

The pb is that it runs correctly on Opera but we can see the ball is very slow in his movement, very louuuud, but if you try on FF or Google Chrome that's ok ! (for me)

Are you using the Additive effect on those neon bricks? It looks nice but I think Opera isn't very good with effects, so tends to slow down.

I think Opera just needs to be faster. As you say, other browsers are fine. If you can make the same thing in both GM HTML5 and C2, and C2 is noticably slower, I'd be more worried... but as it is it just looks like Opera being slow with effects.

As fa as I'm concerned, I can't seem to run your GM HTML5 example in my FireFox 7.0.1.

It load (I have the loading scrolling bar) but from there the canvas stays all black, nothing is displayed.

I've tried GM's demos from their official website, their examples work (even if I find they have some heavyness to them, abit like C2 used to have before the improvement to the runtime during FF6 and the release of FF7).

I know the point of your topic is about Opera, I just thought I'd let you know there might be an issue with your GM's demo.

I don't know I try to understand why espacially on Opera it's very very loud.

To answer I didn't use any effect. Neon bricks are just sprite I made before.

For the GM HTML 5 demo, it's a good test because this program display 250 sprites at the same time and forever :)

How I did mention on the GM html 5 forum, C2 is better and more smooth than him in general (I find it at the same as they says the invert), but espacially on Opera I can get it to be smooth like other browser.

Ashley, you did see it, other browsers are fine but with Opera it's very loud.

I'm going to try to make the same thing in GM HTML 5 and C2 to compare and I will post the result here.

Hello all :)

Here's my two examples. This sample is the same on GM HTML 5 and Construct 2 with the same calculation (for moves). We can compare.

This is a moving ball test with 20 sprites at the same times. Each balls have his own speed.

Launch each sample with Opera (and only Opera because it's this browser that cause pb for me) and let it run a minute and look at the ball.

You should see that with the C2 version, ball (and espacially ball with small speed, with them, we can look at it better), movements are very loud, with some glitches, or I don't know how to say that, but with the GM HTML 5 version, and Opera, the movement is more "smooth".

But as you can see (and test it) if you launch the C2 sample with other browsers like Firefox 7 or Google Chrome or IE that's perfect !

Now here's the samples (open it first with Opera) :

The Construct 2 version : Click here to see the C2 TestBall version

The Game Maker HTML 5 version : Click here to see the GM HTML 5 TestBall version

Thank you for help :)

That's odd - you're right, Opera seems choppier with the Construct 2 version.

However, in all other browsers, the C2 one runs a lot smoother than the GM one for me.

I'm not sure why either happens - both javascript engines appear to use the same mechanism to draw the screen. So I'm not even sure if it's a problem with Opera - even if we changed it we might end up with the other browsers not displaying so smoothly. Opera have about a 2% market share so I'm tempted to leave it - the big three (IE, Firefox and Chrome) seem to run it just fine...

However, in all other browsers, the C2 one runs a lot smoother than the GM one for me.

Confirmed with FF 7.0

Yes, that's what I say up earlier. I made a reflexion on the GM HTML 5 forum because it's not an evidence to have something smooth with GM HTML 5 in general, as the same as they told me otherwise. I told them that C2 runs games very smooth on browser like FF or Google chrome, it 's not the same with GM HTML 5. It's not bad but...could be better.

I made this reflexion because I use both of them. But in the GM HTML 5 forum I just had answer like "your pc is outdated" or "it's not true"...

But, we have to confess that the C2 version has heavy slowdown on Opera.

pera have about a 2% market share so I'm tempted to leave it - the big three (IE, Firefox and Chrome) seem to run it just fine...

Ho please :) Could you try to see what happens ? you are right but I know that some people use Opera, it will be cool that C2 runs smoothly on all browser and a "plus" for C2 I think.

But I am happy that you have confirmed it.

When I tested C2, that works just fine but when I saw the result in Opera I said myself "oh no...." ^^ GM works just fine but we don't have something smooth like C2 except on Opera browser in fact.

And...congratulation for your beta, I think C2 is promising :)

Happy C2 !

Opera have about a 2% market share so I'm tempted to leave it - the big three (IE, Firefox and Chrome) seem to run it just fine...

A far as i've read, the 2% claim is American slant. Opera is the only non-American browser in your list. I heard that it has about %15 in some European countries, and as much as 20% in Russia.

For myself, having enjoyed supporting Opera for many years, i have finally switched to FF nightly build. Main reason is Opera doesn't yet support things like Drag & Drop, and have also fallen well behind on other HTML5/CSS3 support. Also C2 content was hard to test because Opera uses the arrow keys for scrolling the browser. But the final last straw was actually speed comparison.

Btw, here's an interesting quote:

"IE supports DnD from IE5 but it doesn't support File API even in IE9.

Opera supports File API from 11.1 but doesn't support DnD."

I was going by StatCounter Global Stats: over the past 3 months Opera's share stands at about

1.7% worldwide

3.8% in europe

25% in Russia

I have to say, the Russian share surprised me! The thing is I'm not sure of any particular thing I can do to improve it in Opera - it works fine in other browsers, and I don't know why Opera doesn't work so well. Still, I'll have a play with it and see if I can learn something.

I'm not suggesting it's your problem. More that Opera have mysteriously fallen behind on HTML5 and such. It's odd because it seems not long ago (err, 2 years) that they completely rewrote their JS engine (Carakan) yet Chrome and FF have jumped past them with their own JS developments. However, it could just be canvas rendering speed, or something not JS related at all.

Anyway, the browser competition will remain hot if end users are quite flexible with the browsers we choose.

If you find something that's cool. I don't know why opera has pb with C2 it's strange.

I would prefer that Opera is a problem for all HTML 5 canvas type (like GM or Monkey).

I have a small idea. I've played with Opera and Construct 2 and GM HTML 5 but I didn't try with Monkey to compile something in HTML 5 and test it in Opera.

I'm going to write the same thing with Monkey, and I am going to transcode it in HTML 5 and test it in Opera. I will post the result here, with the link to the app.

It's simple if we have the same problem, it could be it simply....Opera that works with what he wants to lol but if not, there is something somewhere between C2 and Opera.

Let's have a try to compare and see what happens :)

Just want to help, because I believe on C2 ;) C Classic is fine and I think C2 has a great potential, mainly if later we can make .exe too (I know I read the FAQ ;) ). And if it works on all browser it's even better :)

PS : once again, sorry for my approximative english and mistakes, it's not easy for me ;)

Happy Construct !

I tried this as I've been testing all my games in Opera and not had an issue. Both looked the same! I even opened both in Chrome and did a 4 way comparison and if anything the movement on both the Construct versions looked a little smoother.

I'm running Opera 11.51 on Windows 7 so not sure why its fine for me but not others, would the Java version affect this? I'm running the latest versions of Java.