SOLVED(ish): How do I speed up preview times?

Hi guys

I'm trying to debug my layout to see why it's taking ages to load the preview from Construct 2 (R152 x64).

I've narrowed it down to the cache file creations. I have a single completely blank/new layout with no event sheet.

I do have about 40 sprites, each with a total of 72 different frames of animations.

None of these sprites are in use on any layout or event sheet, they just exist within the Construct 2 project.

When previewing the blank layout via Node-Webkit, it takes around 10-15 seconds before the loading percent reaches 100% and creates approx 8,500 files in the cache folder (C:\Users\Zacros\AppData\Local\TestProject\Cache).

This is only one level's worth of graphics and I'm planning on having plenty more, with even more characters/sprites.

When I export the project as a standlone Nodekit application, it takes less than a second to load up so I'm fairly relieved that the users won't experience this delay - however it's becoming very painful to debug/create further levels.

I'm resorting to having to create new project files for each new level/screen and then copying/pasting objects/events to the master project when I'm ready to release/test the final versions.

Does anyone have any suggestions to improve the preview speed at all? My AppData folder resides on an SSD, so little to no improvements are available from better hardware.

Thanks!

Zacros

8,500 files is your problem.

Cheers - the thing is that I don't know how I would get around this. I've tried importing a sprite sheet with all the different animation frames on it instead of each individual PNG, however Construct splits it up during the import process into individual PNGs anyway.

There is a way to continue from where you were last previewing -not on PC now so I can't check. Instead of previewing with f5 I think it is shift f5. hopefully this will help.

There is a way to continue from where you were last previewing -not on PC now so I can't check. Instead of previewing with f5 I think it is shift f5. hopefully this will help.

Yes, if you hold Shift and click the Play button. Your updates will be added without reloading the entire project again.

Thanks for your help, I hadn't realised that was an option (I should probably reacquaint myself with the manual :)).

That unfortunately didn't help however thanks for the suggestion anyhow.

After some investigation I noticed that AVG processes was taking up 30% CPU usage when the preview was generating. It seems the AVG Link Scanner was scanning each and every one of these files being generated, resulting in extremely slow performance. After disabling AVG, preview times went right down. Unfortunately, adding the various cache folders to the exception lists in AVG didn't do anything, so disabling is the only way.

Cheers

One good solution to your problem would be to use spriter. It uses only one time your pings, and it tweens them real time during runtime.you could have literaly hundreds of animations with one set of pngs.you would have to learn of course many new things on how all this works but i guess it is worth the effort in the long run.