Game Performance on Android sucks

Just my two cents, but my games have been running slower on android since C3 updated about a month ago.

A game that worked fine, now has framerate drop after C3 updated...

Yeah, using the webview for games is a big handicap. Even the simplest of games can lag, especially since worker mode isn't supported in the webivew.

We have like 3 issues:

1. Browsers are extremely slow on mobile.

2. Event sheet's overhead.

3. Stutters, I'm guessing from no worker mode.

Since #3 might get supported in the future, that's probably not a hopeless issue. #2 can be ignored if #1 hopefully gets better.

Although, in my opinion, it's not Construct 3's fault, I'm surprised how efficient the runtime is, given the handicap.

But yeah, we're stuck with browser limits. Even Cocoon.io gave up. 😅

I think the Webview is more suited for simple games that doesn't do anything much.

Perhaps we overestimated the engine's performance? Might be more practical to target simpler games?

Although, I would appreciate if the Construct Team did something to finally solve this issue. 🙂

Yeah, using the webview for games is a big handicap. Even the simplest of games can lag, especially since worker mode isn't supported in the webivew.

We have like 3 issues:

1. Browsers are extremely slow on mobile.

2. Event sheet's overhead.

3. Stutters, I'm guessing from no worker mode.

Since #3 might get supported in the future, that's probably not a hopeless issue. #2 can be ignored if #1 hopefully gets better.

Although, in my opinion, it's not Construct 3's fault, I'm surprised how efficient the runtime is, given the handicap.

But yeah, we're stuck with browser limits. Even Cocoon.io gave up. 😅

I think the Webview is more suited for simple games that doesn't do anything much.

Perhaps we overestimated the engine's performance? Might be more practical to target simpler games?

Although, I would appreciate if the Construct Team did something to finally solve this issue. 🙂

Don't take me wrong but according to my experience, construct 3 is quite powerful. I have used it for extreme tasks and it always stood up to the task, whether it is size of code or number of sprites. And yes I am talking about mobile (there was a issue where my game was taking 40 seconds to open but Ashley even fixed that too and now it takes 2 seconds)

My issue is only related to the compatibility (like the reason for which this thread was created) and future of Cordova (for how long it will be supported in future).

Looks like there's good activity at Chromium on this issue. Part of the problem is these issues get reported here, Phaser forums etc., but people don't follow up by reporting it to Chromium, sending their APK etc. and walk away blaming webview, Construct, Cordova etc. So I commend indy2005 for following through on this.

To me this is looking more and more like a GPU driver specific issue, which might be anti-climatic, and Ashley might sigh a told you so.

I just tested on the apk on my phone, a low-mid end Nokia 3.2, and no performance issues, 60fps with 25% CPU utilization, GPU metrics not available on my phone. Together with Cascade Games testing that tells us there is no performance issue on the following GPUs:

- Mali-T830

- Adreno 505

- Adreno 504

But there is a problem with Mali-G71 MP2 (the GPU in the Doogee N20). Mali uses a different renderer (driver) for T series and G series. So the problem is probably specific to Mali G series, if not only G71 MP2 itself. G71 MP2 was released in June 2016, some analytics from Q1 2019 across 36 countries, shows G71 MP2 is 1.51% of the market, and I suspect it would be less again if you were looking at the 'gamer' market. The issue might even be further limited to a specific driver version.

So if people want to help get to the bottom of this, let's crowdsource it, download and test the APK from the Chromium issue:

bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail

Report back here with your phone model, GPU model, and if you see the same performance issue or not. Then we can compile that information and add it to the Chromium ticket. I would especially be interested for people to test on phones with Mali G-series GPUs, including more common phones like Samsung Galaxy S8 and S9, Huawei P10, P20, Honour 10, which are all G-series but a different GPU. And people to test on phones with the exact same GPU (G71 MP2) which include:

Blackview P10000 Pro

Cubot King Kong 3

Doogee BL9000

Gigaset GS290

Gigaset GX290

Oukitel K10

Oukitel U23

Oukitel WP1

Poptel P60

Samsung Galaxy A10

Samsung Galaxy A20e

Samsung Galaxy A30s

Samsung Galaxy A40

Samsung Galaxy A7 2018

Samsung Galaxy A8 2018

Samsung Galaxy M20

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019

Samsung Galaxy XCover 4s

Ulefone Armor 3T

Ulefone Armor 5

Ulefone Power 3

Ulefone Power 5

Umidigi One Max

Umidigi Z2

Alcatel 3X 2019

Alcatel 7

Blackview BV9500 Pro

Blackview Max 1

Blackview P10000 Pro

BQ RU BQ 6424L Magic O

Cubot King Kong 3

Cubot P30

Cubot Power

Cubot X19

Doogee BL12000 Pro

Doogee BL9000

Doogee N100

Doogee N20

Doogee S50

Doogee S70

Doogee S80

Elephone A4 Pro

Elephone PX

Elephone U

Gigaset GS290

Gigaset GX290

Oppo A1

Oppo A73

Oppo A83

Oppo F5

Oppo F5 Youth

Oukitel C17 Pro

Oukitel K10

Oukitel K6

Oukitel U23

Oukitel WP1

Poptel P10

Poptel P60

Samsung Galaxy A10

Samsung Galaxy A10e

Samsung Galaxy A20e

Samsung Galaxy A30

Samsung Galaxy A30s

Samsung Galaxy A40

Samsung Galaxy A7 2018

Samsung Galaxy A8 2018

Samsung Galaxy A8 Plus 2018

Samsung Galaxy J7 Duo 2018

Samsung Galaxy M10s

Samsung Galaxy M20

Samsung Galaxy M30

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 (2019)

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.4 (2020)

Samsung Galaxy Tab A Plus 8

Samsung Galaxy XCover 4s

Ulefone Armor 3

Ulefone Armor 3T

Ulefone Armor 5

Ulefone Armor X5

Ulefone Power 3

Ulefone Power 3S

Ulefone Power 5

Ulefone X

UMI Z2

Umidigi A5 Pro

Umidigi A7 Pro

Umidigi One Max

Umidigi One Pro

Umidigi Z2

Umidigi Z2 Special Edition

Vernee V2 Pro

Vernee X

Vernee X1

Ribis would you mind testing his APK on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10? That has a Mali G-series GPU too...

Ribis would you mind testing his APK on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10? That has a Mali G-series GPU too...

I just tested it. CPU usage between 17/24.

The game runs at 60fps, however every time you start a new game there is a significant drop for like a second.

Thanks Ribis - could you please do one more thing on your Note 10 - in Chrome type chrome://gpu in the address bar, scroll down to Driver Information - what is your driver version and GL_RENDERER? Appreciate your help!

Ok, All this posts are making me worrying about my game.

So, I'm testing my current game on 3 different phones:

• Iphone 5s (the phone came out 7 years ago)
• One avarage android phone that is 3 years old (2GB of ram / medium cpu).
• Galaxy note 10.

On the iphone, the game run with an average of 45/60fps depending on how much chaotic is the scene. The game is playable and the lag is still tolerant. I would be super happy if when I finish the game the performance are the same.

On the "old" android phone it runs good, 55/60fps, still some lag sometime.

On the Galaxy note 10, the phone runs 60fps solid, if there is some drops it is because there is something wrong with my logic code.

The project now has 2000 events, 140 objects and 15 families and I'm using effects on 6 layers. I think that when I'm done finalizing the game, I will end up with probably 2700 events, maybe 200 objects and hopefully 20 families.

I have tested the game only on the browser, and only once I exported it (APK). I noticed that the game would run a little bit slower compared to the preview mode (I opened a topic about it some months ago).

So, is there anyone who have published a game on the Playstore and the App store that is not a small game? The big problem is not about the lagging or the crashes on the old phones. The problem are the bad reviews that the user would leave on the game.

When you publish a game, is there a way to tell the store that the app support only specific specs?

Why there is this difference between the APK and the browser? It seems to don't make sense. If chrome can run the game fast, why the exported project get chopped in somehow? Shouldn't run faster than the one on the browser since the game shouldn't load the browser stuff into memory?

I think that it would be good to have 2 sub-forums about performance and about publishing a game. The general Discussion forum is too broad and the discussions get lost here.

I didn't got the meaning of 2000 events. Are they on the same event sheet,or are you talking about "total" events in the game itself?

My game had lots and lots of events and objects (if you want to try then thapli.netlify.app . And I am quite satisfied with the performance.(the game is still in construction)

> Ok, All this posts are making me worrying about my game.

>

> So, I'm testing my current game on 3 different phones:

>

>
• Iphone 5s (the phone came out 7 years ago)
>
• One avarage android phone that is 3 years old (2GB of ram / medium cpu).
>
• Galaxy note 10.
>

>

> On the iphone, the game run with an average of 45/60fps depending on how much chaotic is the scene. The game is playable and the lag is still tolerant. I would be super happy if when I finish the game the performance are the same.

>

> On the "old" android phone it runs good, 55/60fps, still some lag sometime.

>

> On the Galaxy note 10, the phone runs 60fps solid, if there is some drops it is because there is something wrong with my logic code.

>

> The project now has 2000 events, 140 objects and 15 families and I'm using effects on 6 layers. I think that when I'm done finalizing the game, I will end up with probably 2700 events, maybe 200 objects and hopefully 20 families.

>

> I have tested the game only on the browser, and only once I exported it (APK). I noticed that the game would run a little bit slower compared to the preview mode (I opened a topic about it some months ago).

>

> So, is there anyone who have published a game on the Playstore and the App store that is not a small game? The big problem is not about the lagging or the crashes on the old phones. The problem are the bad reviews that the user would leave on the game.

>

> When you publish a game, is there a way to tell the store that the app support only specific specs?

>

> Why there is this difference between the APK and the browser? It seems to don't make sense. If chrome can run the game fast, why the exported project get chopped in somehow? Shouldn't run faster than the one on the browser since the game shouldn't load the browser stuff into memory?

>

> I think that it would be good to have 2 sub-forums about performance and about publishing a game. The general Discussion forum is too broad and the discussions get lost here.

I didn't got the meaning of 2000 events. Are they on the same event sheet,or are you talking about "total" events in the game itself?

My game had lots and lots of events and objects (if you want to try then thapli.netlify.app . And I am quite satisfied with the performance.(the game is still in construction)

I also had published it to play store but had to remove it due to untidy work. And performance was exatly same as the Web one (sometimes even better). But I will surely later on upgrade it and will upload again to play store.

Thanks Ribis - could you please do one more thing on your Note 10 - in Chrome type chrome://gpu in the address bar, scroll down to Driver Information - what is your driver version and GL_RENDERER? Appreciate your help!

It is Adreno (TM) 640.

No problem

Ah sorry didn't realize there's two versions of the Note 10 - yours isn't a Mali GPU - but at least it's further evidence that it's a Mali specific issue.

> Ok, All this posts are making me worrying about my game.

>

> So, I'm testing my current game on 3 different phones:

>

>
• Iphone 5s (the phone came out 7 years ago)
>
• One avarage android phone that is 3 years old (2GB of ram / medium cpu).
>
• Galaxy note 10.
>

>

> On the iphone, the game run with an average of 45/60fps depending on how much chaotic is the scene. The game is playable and the lag is still tolerant. I would be super happy if when I finish the game the performance are the same.

>

> On the "old" android phone it runs good, 55/60fps, still some lag sometime.

>

> On the Galaxy note 10, the phone runs 60fps solid, if there is some drops it is because there is something wrong with my logic code.

>

> The project now has 2000 events, 140 objects and 15 families and I'm using effects on 6 layers. I think that when I'm done finalizing the game, I will end up with probably 2700 events, maybe 200 objects and hopefully 20 families.

>

> I have tested the game only on the browser, and only once I exported it (APK). I noticed that the game would run a little bit slower compared to the preview mode (I opened a topic about it some months ago).

>

> So, is there anyone who have published a game on the Playstore and the App store that is not a small game? The big problem is not about the lagging or the crashes on the old phones. The problem are the bad reviews that the user would leave on the game.

>

> When you publish a game, is there a way to tell the store that the app support only specific specs?

>

> Why there is this difference between the APK and the browser? It seems to don't make sense. If chrome can run the game fast, why the exported project get chopped in somehow? Shouldn't run faster than the one on the browser since the game shouldn't load the browser stuff into memory?

>

> I think that it would be good to have 2 sub-forums about performance and about publishing a game. The general Discussion forum is too broad and the discussions get lost here.

I didn't got the meaning of 2000 events. Are they on the same event sheet,or are you talking about "total" events in the game itself?

My game had lots and lots of events and objects (if you want to try then thapli.netlify.app . And I am quite satisfied with the performance.(the game is still in construction)

A total of 2000 events distributed in 12 different event sheet.

My concerns are about the different result between the preview mode vs the final exportation. I'm confident about construct3 performance. I already made several project that are quite complex that run with solid fps on my old iphone, However, I never exported them to the actual app format.

I wouldn't like to see my game running 60fps in the browser and then a drop of 15fps in the APK for some reasons.

Also, I think that these problem are going to dissolve over the years, but still, it seems that everything is going is slow-motion. 5 years ago people were complaining about performance. Now, we are having the same problem, even with recent smartphone.