nw.dll weighs ~90mb of my 130 mb game, what is it?

EDIT: Correction, nw.dll weighs ~90 of my 131 mb game.

What is nw.dll could anyone tell me? (in an NW.js export)

I checked to see if my game would become smaller in size by elimination a big backdrop, and the size did not change.

If it was not for this nw.dll file my game would weigh ~40 mb, now it weighs a little over 130.

Are those my events that weigh that much? How can that be that they weigh so many times more than my graphics?

I currently have 495 events, could anyone that has a simillar number of events confirm if this indeed is because of them?

Thanks for the reply.

What the heck? I created an empty game, exported it to NW.js and it weights 129 mb? 0 events, 0 graphics... and 129 mb... crazy.

Does anyone know what is going on?

Nwjs is basically a portable Chrome.

newt

So you mean to tell me that any game will weigh 130 mb from the get go, and on top of that I need to add my graphics/sounds and events?

Yep.

An installer might reduce that.... slightly.

newt

You have got to be joking. This is such a deal breaker.

Ashley

Why is this information not in a FAQ or anywhere that is visible? Why have potiential C2 licence buyers, like myself before purchasing C2 licence, have not been informed about this?

I for one would like to produce games strictly for PC, and as you might imagine adding 130 (!) mb to my game from the beginning is such a huge handicap, its mind blowing to me.

It's not their job to list all the pratfalls of game making.

It is to make it easy to create games, while trying to make it deliverable to as many platforms as possible.

BTW, zipped it's going to about half the size.

Unless you plan on letting users download it one file at a time.

newt

Well I feel cheated that I have not been informed about this, I have a right to feel that way as a customer. I purchased the software with high expectations, and the export feature was not available in the demo/trial so I had no idea that there was this issue. I was not able to test this out, nor was I told about this matter.

That is why I am annoyed. This comes as a big surprise.

You can tell me that zipped its size is going to be halved.

But you can also tell me that using winrar and dividing it into 130 files, 1mb each in size and letting people download it 1 file each day for 130 days, a file will only weigh 1 mb for that day. Whew what a relief. Now that almost solves the problem does it not?

Now I am using retro graphics, to make my game as small as possible (as well as giving it that indie style of course) but I find out that 130mb+ is as a bonus? Now I think I need to make my graphics weigh negative mb..

C2 is mostly great when it comes to working with it, really solid, but I was not expecting this.

This isn't nearly as bad as compared to the weight of Crosswalk, and the actual limits for those platforms.

If your prospects are giddy at anything over 100mb, then they probably aren't interested in being customers.

Honestly the size on desktop isn't a con it's a pro.

You have no limitations on desktop.

Hurdles, perhaps.

There are a few people who are notoriously sensitive about file sizes.

But, luckily, almost none of the relevant reviewers and curators are. They will roast you for all kinds of things, but download size is a non-issue.

I'd be more wary about solid performance and well functioning input.

Hmm, it seams that I have had temporary multiple sclerosis.

I asked about this once in the past:

But I dont think I caught the jist of what R0J0hound had written there, about exporting the NWjs as an empty file and then adding the rest of the content on top. That or I was just too excited about C2, as (mostly) everything was going smoothly for me and I have adopted C2 as synonym for rapid prototyping at that moment.

Well it seems the story with C2 for me (as pollitically uncorrect as this might sound) thus far is analogus to that of a girlfriend with a wooden leg. Everything with her is great, her body (at least the rest of it) her charater, humour, intelligence is up to par but there is just that part which prevents you from totally falling in love with her, probably due to fear of what might others say (the point of this story not being that one should not care what others say), but more importatnly how this will turn out in the future.

The others in C2 example are the potential customers, and me myself I am not sure if to continue my game, as I plan on working on it for the next year, and Im not sure how this 130mb can impact on my work in the end.

Now Im not assuming anything over my in dev game, but my hopes are high which is quite normal especially for a person that is developing a game for the first time (even after reading loads of articles about the traps of indie dev, one being that people have too high expectations).

I want to try and make as little mistakes as I can.

I only wish this size issue was somehow mentioned earlier, especially because its not available in the free version. Where could I have learned this?

Now the fact that I am venting my frustration here and not just leaving C2 proves that C2 is a joy to work with at least for me. And nowhere will I mention any competition (even if I do end up changing programs in the end) which only proves that its not my desire to drive people off.

I have found a thread here on the forums (lost the link now - will relink once I find it again) which states that the NW.js export content on the get go weighed about 50mb in the past (for the year 2012/2013 if I recall correctly).

Now as years went by chrome got more and more bloated, so it seems. And this will be true for the comming years no doubt.

newt

With all due respect but comparing a situation to a worse situation is just comforting oneself and not looking at the picture.

Saying if I had one arm chopped off, that if would have been worse if I had both my arms chopped off is just to comfort oneself. It would be much more harder to compare oneself to a person that has both arms.

I have no knowledge about Crosswalk export at this moment, but I would like to look at this situation how its stands.

There are a few people who are notoriously sensitive about file sizes.

But, luckily, almost none of the relevant reviewers and curators are. They will roast you for all kinds of things, but download size is a non-issue.

I'd be more wary about solid performance and well functioning input.

How can I be sure that the file size will not impact my performance down the road in C2? Thas is my point in this thread. I have read around that games bigger in size cause problems in C2. That is my main worry.

Also it seems that I am sensitive about file size. Im not too keen on having that thought lurking at the back of my mind during development.

If I make a game that weights 5mb, why should I have it weigh 135 mb? How does that make sense?

How can I be sure that the file size will not impact my performance down the road in C2? Thas is my point in this thread. I have read around that games bigger in size cause problems in C2. That is my main worry.

The games in question had problems only on specific platforms (iirc the mac NW.js was the culprit, which has been notoriously broken) and with a way larger size, several hundred of mb. Your main worry should be: performance. And by performance I mean: framerate. Everything else is quite far down the list.

Also, if you make a larger game, you should have a rough idea already about the amount of assets, so you should be able to estimate the final size by now, at least ballpark-wise. How much is it?

[quote:j9f8zwa7]If I make a game that weights 5mb, why should I have it weigh 135 mb? How does that make sense?

Well, you did buy a HTML5 engine There has to be a way to run it, and at the moment, you have to distribute it with the game.

Eisenhans

It really blows my mind that you are still arguing in favour of C2 in light of my arguments:

1) Lack of ability to test NW.js export in free version - lack of information anywhere in plain sight where one could get to know this.

2) 130mb as handicap straight off the bat.

Your argument: - well you bought a html5 engine (...) you have to distribute it with the game. What has that got to do with anything? I got all the information about C2 from the Scirra main page, from the information posted on the forums (all that I could find and thought as relative) and from most importantly from the free version. Nowhere could I foresee this. Where else could I have gone to learn this?

How about having a NW.js export in free version with a big massive Scirra watermark and a 320x240 resolution limit? And a big notice stating: this NW.js export is from the free C2 version, and is not allowed for commercial distribution. And 20 seconds play time the most before the NW.js window closes. Now does that not sound fair?

At the moment my game weighs maybe 5 mb with about ~20 something sprites, 1 backdrop and 495 events - mostly core mechanics. The sprites are on purpose retro as in pixel graphics. I might end up with approximately 250~300 mb in game size from my calculations (as I have not yet decided to stay with retro or go with more complex design). Maybe. Add to that ~130 handicap. And what if I would like to create a bigger game in the future? Remember I am investing my time in learning C2, I wouldnt like to find out in the future that I have to switch engines.

Are you willing to sign a contract with me assuring me that I will have no problems with perfomance once I create a bigger game? Because you sure sound like you are confident. Just out of curiousity what was the largest game size wise you have created in C2? (not talking about content but just size). How many games have you exported using NW.js, and most importantly shipped? Only on that basis can you be so comfortable as to your arguments.

You might say that one can never be sure when creating Mb heavy games in any engine. That might be true but the fact that there is a handicap +130mb that has not been mentioned does not help.

If your gf/wife bought a dress with a hole in the back especially to go to a play at the theathre, would you tell her that its doesnt matter as mostly she will be sitting through the play? What if there is standing ovation? And what about the journey to and from the theathre?

Maybe a better comparison would be if she had bought clothes that had extra 50 kg weight, and you were about to go hiking.

The file size doesn't effect performance, so whether the runtime is 5 Mb or 500 Mb, it won't affect how things perform. As always your events, behaviors used and what is drawn is what affects the performance.

Now presumably nw.dll is the entire browser compiled with everything needed to display any webpage. Construct 2 probably only uses a small percentage of that but that would vary depending on what a project uses. I imagine it's possible to reduce the file size of nw.dll by re-compiling it from it's source code without some features. This is something independent from C2 so presumably someone on the internet has at least tried this before. I couldn't find any specific to nw.js but I have seen topics on other sites about doing this for Chrome.

I know little about it other than it takes hours to compile google chrome. I'm also assuming disabling a feature is a simple thing to do, which it probably isn't since the Chrome developers have no reason to disable most features once it's added. Anyway the short of it is it's probably possible to reduce file size if you go back to chrome's source, though it's probably not worth the time to create and maintain something like that as Chrome constantly gets updates. At least that's my 2c.