Optimize Physics Performance?

Hey,

creating a game completely based on physics, with polygon based landscape, bombs, explosions and such stuff...

could you help me find out how to get the maximum fps of the physics engine?

For any of your objects that don't require the most accurate physics calculations, you can tone down their physics interations which is a big performance boost.

Here's the part of the manual in the physics object

Action

Set stepping iterations

Set the number of velocity iterations and position iterations used in the physics engine. The default is 8 and 3 respectively. Lower values run faster but are less accurate, and higher values can reduce performance but provide a more realistic simulation.

scirra.com/manual/98/physics

Is there a way to disable/enable physics? Like if I only want physics on my character after he has been hit, but not while he is attacking or running or anything?

You could try swapping out the regular character object with a physics version of that character.

When the character gets hit, you lock the controls, make invisible, and create the physics character in it's place.

When the physics character "is sleeping" destroy it and with the regular character; unlock the controls, make visible, and move it's position to match.

Hard to know how ridiculous that would look, haha, but maybe it's worth a try :)

bscarls's question is good, would also like to know about how to disable physics.

thanks for the other good ideas, any suggestions still welcome! <img src="smileys/smiley20.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

I'm getting working with collisions soon for my game.    I'll go about it the way floor advised and let you guys know how it worked!