Performance issues

Hi there,

     First off I want to say that I love Construct. But I'm having an issue with performance. It seems like my games run amazing on the computer that I'm working on (iMac running windows 8). But when ever I try to play it on any other computer, I get awful performance. On my Macbook air, the games seem to freeze every 5 seconds.. And the Node web kit app crashes immediately after launching it. Both games Ive tested are fairly simple. I cant figure it out. When I play them on my weakest computer (Acer Revo) I get about 5-10 frames per second. Any ideas what could be causing this? I've looked through the optimization threads and have tried that as well.

Hey Melting,

I havent experimented much with the Node webkit but make sure you have the latest graphics drivers and an up to date browser like chrome.

Are you using Webgl on your work computer? If they are simple games maybe you can post the cap.x and we can take a look to help.

Without a capx it is difficult to say - post a demo if you like. that may help.

Yes, I have it up and running on all of the computers. Like, if I upload the games to google drive, they play fine in every browser I have ( minus webgl on the browser that dont support) But the same files on my other computers freeze and get awful lag. Now I know my iMac is pretty powerful, but they are just simple games. And all of the browsers are up to date, ive installed directx etc etc. Just as a test, tell me if it happens to you. Ill share the capx if I cant get any answers.. Ive had problems with people taking my games before. (not this platform or forum) But with the old one i used.. so Im always iffy sharing haha.

Here is one of them.. googledrive.com/host/0B55taHnDxy93eXFCTXFja0lQZEE/index.html

Which I simplified to googledrive.com/host/0B55taHnDxy93ZkFFZHFtNjd4QUU/index.html

Let me know what kind of performance you get on that if you would. Maybe its just my system?

My cousin has a decently fast computer and is getting only 20 fps. Even on the optimized one..

I tried the first one. Perfectly smooth here, never dropped below 60.

Has your cousin not updated his video card drivers in a long time? It really can make a huge difference.

Worked fine for me, including the first one. Now you have me worried lol, my projects run well on my system but i've only tested on one other computer.   :P

I wouldnt worry Veniv,

If you are making a simple game and your focus is "I want everyone to be able to play this" then absolutely you should start testing on all browsers and multiple computers (frequently) to make sure your not overdoing it.

If you want to push the graphics (and you should imo) and make your game really stand out then just focus on high end browsers like Chrome. The others will catch up and be able to play your game eventually.

Wow, hmmm thanks guys. Maybe its because the one computer is super low end(acer revo) and the Air is a mac? I dont know.. haha. Ill ask him. Thanks for checking for me guys. Good to know that the first one runs well too. It was checking for a lot more collisions than the optimized one. Ill have to check it out some more. Not sure what it could be on my systems.

Thanks a ton!

No worries mate.

The main cause of poor performance and crashes is graphics card drivers. Make sure the whole system is up to date and check directly from the graphics card vendor for updates.

The main cause of poor performance and crashes is graphics card drivers. Make sure the whole system is up to date and check directly from the graphics card vendor for updates.

Alright, Im looking into that. Does that also apply to the app from node webkit not working?

Yeah. Some technical info:

Node webkit uses chromium (basically chrome). When chrome detects that OpenGL isn't installed, it falls back to something called ANGLE which translates OpenGL calls to directx ones, which causes a bit of a performance hit.

It also has a graphics card blacklist, which if the computer has one of the blacklisted cards, it uses software rendering via swiftshader instead. There's a good chance that's what it's doing on that computer.

You can also try this page on the other computers:

http://www.doesmybrowsersupportwebgl.com/

If using Chrome, and it's still slow, just type "chrome://flags/" into the Chrome address bar and make sure WebGL is not disabled (just search for "webgl"). If grayed out, then WebGL enabled (odd, I know ;) ). I remember this option being off by default a year or two back, so older versions may not have it on by default.

Tried it on my, horrible laptop, worked fine.