Huge .exe performance issue.

Hey all,

I've just come across a rather demoralizing issue with performance when exporting to an .exe using Node Webkit. It seems to affect all capx files, so I know it's not due to the coding of events.

If I run a preview using Node Webkit all is well, with a rock solid 60FPS and low CPU usage, with WebGL rendering in full effect.

When I run it as an exported .exe I get horrible performance across the board, with a notice saying WebGL is not supported. How can this be, seeing as how it runs (with WebGL) in the preview browser?

I should also mention I get horrible performance in Chrome on both preview and export. Firefox is decent although not as smooth as the Webkit preview.

All graphics drivers and DirectX drivers are up to date so I'm really not sure what the issue is. Any help/explanation as to the cause would be greatly appreciated, it has me somewhat worried for the future of my project.

Have you got - or can you quickly knock up - a small example .capx that you can attach to your post, so that we can test on our systems?

If we can verify your findings then it would then be a good candidate for posting in the 'Bugs' section for Ashley to check.

Are you running XP or vista?

Have you got - or can you quickly knock up - a small example .capx that you can attach to your post, so that we can test on our systems?

If we can verify your findings then it would then be a good candidate for posting in the 'Bugs' section for Ashley to check.

Well as it seems to be affecting any and all capx files, I suppose one of the basic example files will do as they seem small enough.

Here is what I get:

60 FPS 0% CPU in Node Webkit preview

50 FPS 40% CPU when exported to .exe

Are you running XP or vista?

Vista.

I can recall exporting to .exe in the past with perfect performance, this would have been many many revisions ago though, over a year at least. I'm assuming something must have changed in the interim? Although I'm not sure how I can be getting fine performance in preview but not on export.

Thanks for the help guys.

Vista.

That's the cause.

A while ago Google decided to disable all hardware acceleration for chrome on XP and vista. Since node webkit basically is chrome, it eventually was incorporated into node webkit.

The reason it works in preview is because there's a workaround where you start from a shortcut of the exe with the target having --ignore-gpu-blacklist added to it, which is what c2 does. Theoretically that flag should be able to be added to the node webkit manifest so you wouldn't have to start from a modified shortcut, but for some odd reason it doesn't work that way. So currently, your only option is to make sure the players start the game from a shortcut with that flag added to it.

> Vista.

>

That's the cause.

A while ago Google decided to disable all hardware acceleration for chrome on XP and vista. Since node webkit basically is chrome, it eventually was incorporated into node webkit.

The reason it works in preview is because there's a workaround where you start from a shortcut of the exe with the target having --ignore-gpu-blacklist added to it, which is what c2 does. Theoretically that flag should be able to be added to the node webkit manifest so you wouldn't have to start from a modified shortcut, but for some odd reason it doesn't work that way. So currently, your only option is to make sure the players start the game from a shortcut with that flag added to it.

Oh wow... that's not good. Way to throttle a whole bunch of your users Google.

The shortcut trick did indeed fix the performance problems, but yeah, that's not an ideal solution. I guess it will allow me to continue development though, and I'll just have to update OS at some point.

Although just hoping players are not using XP or Vista seems like a bad situation to be in. Has this been properly documented on here at all? It seems like kind of a big deal.

Anyway, huge thanks for the temporary fix, I can now press on with coding.