Mobile Performance

Hey guys. I've been using Construct for numerous months now with the expectation that I could start a career in mobile game development. Construct is an extremely powerful tool for game development, as it requires minimal knowledge in programming and is geared towards mass distribution from a single platform.

After several months of developing my first app, running through tutorials, and sifting through the forums when I just didn't know how to proceed, I began debugging and simulating my app on my phone. I unfortunately found that mobile performance was a stretch from mediocre. FPS was fairly poor, touch support and response was slow, sound effects and music had to be further modified to support exporting to mobile platforms, coding had to be changing in the native software file to fit certain properties, etc.

However, I've never been one to give up in the face of frustrating odds, so I powered through most of these issues. I've searched through threads regarding tips for boosting mobile performance, modified my game's properties and image files to be optimized for mobile performance; pretty much everything I could possibly think of. Nothing worked however, and nothing continues to work. My games run at unplayable FPS and are not, by any means, ready to upload as professional apps. I've recently been debating whether or not going through the stress of learning native kits and languages would be a more effective approach, because at this stage I've lost both a lot of time and money trying to develop apps that are just not functioning properly.

Does anyone know of any possible solutions to boosting mobile performance? Based on the threads I've searched through, there doesn't seem to be much support for mobile performance yet.

Mobile performance is defined by a ton of factors. It's hard to tell what the problem is without seeing your project. You could be doing too much overdraw, you could be using webgl in cocoonjs which is broken on iOS and hits the framerate hard, you don't mention the hardware you're running it on, it could be physics or too many collision checks or any number of other things... We need some more info to help.

One way to find out what's causing the problem for yourself is to try turning every layer invisible - that will reveal if it's the code or the rendering. Then you can disable stuff to find out what's actually causing the performance hit.

Mobile performance is defined by a ton of factors. It's hard to tell what the problem is without seeing your project. You could be doing too much overdraw, you could be using webgl in cocoonjs which is broken on iOS and hits the framerate hard, you don't mention the hardware you're running it on, it could be physics or too many collision checks or any number of other things... We need some more info to help.

One way to find out what's causing the problem for yourself is to try turning every layer invisible - that will reveal if it's the code or the rendering. Then you can disable stuff to find out what's actually causing the performance hit.

I've been trying to develop Windows Phone 8 apps, testing them on my own Lumia 822. I just use the Windows Phone 8 export. My primary issue is FPS lag. In this specific case, objects are supposed to be created when other objects pass a certain boundary. So It's an "endless runner" type of game. The objects ARE created, but it causes noticeable FPS lag when tested on a mobile device. Numerous objects are being generated at one time, so It's understandable that some FPS lag will occur, but it makes the game unplayable. It runs smoothly when tested in Construct 2 however considering that my computer is able to easily process rendering. I've looked at multiple tutorials on how to boost performance and combat fps lag, but nothing seems to be working. I'm also using he personal edition of Construct 2 via Steam if that helps.

Are you testing via mobile browsers, or actually building them for specific mobile devices?

Are you using CocoonJS for Android?

Are you using CocoonJS or Ejecta for iOS?

Are you using visual studio for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8?

Are you testing via mobile browsers, or actually building them for specific mobile devices?

Are you using CocoonJS for Android?

Are you using CocoonJS or Ejecta for iOS?

Are you using visual studio for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8?

Testing via both mobile emulators in Visual Studio and my Windows 8 Phone. Using Visual Studio for the exported project which was exported via the Windows Phone 8 export option in Construct 2. For some reason I'm encountering another error. In the exported file for Windows Phone 8, there is a folder which includes all visual graphics included in the project. When I test my project in Visual Studio the main menu of my project appears just fine, but once I get to the play screen the entire screen gets filled with every graphic and animation in my project. Whenever I test it in Construct 2 it runs just fine. I didn't modify any events or exported files, nor did I change anything in the Visual Studio file.