ca59eb38-e0ad-4975-9634-a2379c986d93's Forum Posts

  • Ashley First off, it's nice to have someone such as yourself explain these technicalities, but now i feel really bad about myself - who could have known that more precision actually is good for performance in this case?

    I'll look into updating the benchmarks for this to be fair now...

    But about the resolution - what you are saying is, that it's insufficient just to have a specific window size set with the resizing/scaling parameter set to "off", is that right? What else could be possibly done? Also, is this still a problem if the file is exported as an executable?

    Also, if you're already here, i have another question i'd like for you to answer. Does the minification and/or the image compression parameters have any noticeable effect on the performance?

  • Well, imo, the stability issues were mainly encountered in the editor, for example, large event sheets took minutes to open, editing was not very responsive and so on - the actual rendering was pretty good and stable. I do agree that C2 is a better program, however the performance leaves a lot to be desired, but i guess that you can't have both performance and multi platform support along with the ability to run in the browser...

    Either way, as i said, the vast difference is likely to be caused because my hardware doesn't support WebGL (or because the drivers are no longer developed) and therefore runs with the slower renderer. I'm curious to see what results others post, though!

  • PixelRebirth It's intentional and the original didn't have this. I made it so to have a more consistent framerate (at the expense of less smoother movement), because my phone, for which i intended to make the game, doesn't have a dedicated graphics chip and therefore renders everything by using the CPU, which is slow. If i had used the dt method, then more rendering would be done, as sprites would be moved every tick. Either way, your expertise is appreciated.

  • SgtConti Okay, i made a post with 3 benchmarks, you can check it out here: link.

    No physics tests as of yet, only basic rendering, but this seems like the logical thing to start with.

    I'd appreciate if you'd post your results there too!

  • Hello everyone, recently i met some guys developing a game in C2 for desktop platforms and we had a conversation, in which we discussed if CC would be a viable option instead of C2 and how the performance of the two compares.

    Now, i looked around the forum and the blog in hopes of finding a benchmark of the two, and while i did find one that did compare them (link), the blog post was made in 2011. Now, you'll probably agree that this is a long time and much could have changed in it, so i set out to make a new benchmark.

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/divider.png" border="0">

    The idea.

    The idea i had is to create benchmarks for both CC and C2, which could provide us with some information which is more performant and how the older implementation of different things (e.g. physics, collision detection) has aged, as well as to see how well different machines perform in general. Of course, you can't always make a 1:1 copy of the implementation of something, but i guess that is part of the challenge!

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/divider.png" border="0">

    What i came up with so far.

    For the initial testing i decided to try comparing something simple - the performance of drawing, rotating and resizing sprites. I made 3 benchmarks, testing each of the features in that order, both for CC and C2. Below you can compare the event sheet views as well as download an archive of both the .cap and .capx files.

    Download of the editor files:

    LINK ("every 5 ticks" version)

    LINK ("every tick" version)

    bench1 - drawing test

    The simplest of all tests, this benchmark draws a new 256x256 32bit .png file with transparent areas on screen every 5 ticks.

    C2: <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/c1.png" border="0">

    CC: <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/cc1.png" border="0">

    bench2 - rotation test

    A bit more intensive benchmark, this one does the same as above, as well as rotates the sprites by 5 degrees clocwise every tick.

    C2: <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/c2.png" border="0">

    CC: <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/cc2.png" border="0">

    bench3 - scaling test

    The last benchmark i made for this thread, it changes sprite sizes every tick, until they either reach a width of 256 or 128, then the process is inverted.

    C2: <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/c3.png" border="0">

    CC: <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/cc3.png" border="0">

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/divider.png" border="0">

    Differences between the benchmarks.

    There's a couple of things that you'll instantly notice, that are different. First, i used the spritefont object in C2 as opposed to the default font one, as there have been plenty of complaints on the forums about the performance issues with it. Secondly, there is no tick counter built-in inside of C2, therefore i just opted for using a global variable, which should perform almost as good, if not better. Lastly, in CC, there is no fps counter (unless you use the one in the caption, but it is lost on export), therefore i made one of my own, however the accuracy is rough at best (+/- 5 fps).

    Furthermore, i adjusted the settings for the best possible performance at the expense of graphical quality, because this is a benchmark for exactly that, not a comparison between the eye-candy options available or roundness of the pixels.

    CC (r2) settings: 800x600 window size, point sampling, fixed framerate, 60fps, aliased text, no multisampling

    C2 (r156) settings: 800x600 window size, pixel rounding off, point sampling, low quality scaling, no high dpi display, do not clear background, webgl enabled

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/divider.png" border="0">

    How to participate.

    Of course, none of this is important, unless you participate!

    The goal i'd like to reach is to have as many people as possible download the samples and run them, write down the results and post them here, so more people know what to expect performance-wise on different desktop configurations.

    Because of this, i tried to make the process as simple as possible, all you have to do is:

    1.) download the archive and extract the executables (you can build them yourself, but then you need to select webkit as the export platform in c2, to test the executable exporter).

    --LINK(~75MB, .zip archive, "every 5 ticks" version)--

    --LINK(75MB, .zip archive, "every tick" version)--

    2.) download the spreadsheet i made for easily comparing the results, depending on which office software suite you have.

    --LINK(.xls for Microsoft Excel, converted from .ods)--

    --LINK(.ods for OpenOffice / LibreOffice etc.)--

    3.) run the executables, keep a close eye on the fps values and write down the object counts at which fps reaches the values in the tables, also, if you can write down some basic information about your hardware in the indicated cells, that would be nice. furthermore, you really should check what renderer is being used by c2 and put it in the table (webgl or canvas2d)

    4.) take a screenshot of the resulting charts / spreadsheet, host it somewhere (imgur is usually good for this) and post it here!

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/divider.png" border="0">

    My results.

    Here are the results i got on my outdated laptop i made the benchmark on, but please keep in mind that WebGL is off because my hardware doesn't support it (yay, legacy, right?), therefore the performance is pretty bad there. Another thing, you'll notice that there are "x" in a couple of cells - this means that C2 didn't achieve the indicated framerate at all (shouldn't be a problem on most modern machines, though).

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/results.png" border="0">

    Also, if you'd rather view this in .pdf format, here are the results: LINK.

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/cc%20and%20c2%20benchmarks/images/divider.png" border="0">

    Also, i should probably mention that higher means better in the charts... :/

    This is pretty much just a test post to see what kind of feedback i get, if there is demand for stuff like this, i could compare things like the efficiency of physics, sounds, particle effects etc.

    Good luck, everyone!

  • I am making a sprite rendering test as we speak - just rendering an increasing number of sprites, rendering rotating sprites and rendering sprites which keep resizing. I'll make something about physics too, but i doubt that there is a sure way to test this due to the non deterministic nature of the physics engines (and due to just how differently collisions are handled). Either way, i'll post results later, but i might need assistance if you want to test WebGL performance, because my laptop doesn't support it (i'll just put up the files and you can test on your rig then, ok?)...

  • I am not quite sure if what you are saying about the performance is true, there used to be a benchmark for the performance a while back, and these were the results:

    <img src="https://www.scirra.com/images/allperf-graph.png" border="0">

    Link to post.

    Do you have a link to that resource of yours?

    Then again, it was more than a year ago. I guess i could cook something up really quickly to test the performance of CC vs C2...

  • SgtConti Well, you really seem to have thought this thing through, haven't you? :)

    What you say of the performance is... interesting? I'd love to see how well the game performs (even if i am currently stuck with an "antique" laptop and probably will only have my desktop available sometime next week), because with those image resolutions and sprite quantities you either must have a pretty good computer or have done some clever optimizations, although i have to admit that Webkit really seems to be more memory efficient compared to running the game in browser (around a 100-150MB RAM usage difference between it and chrome). Either way, i wouldn't want to spam your thread, so i pm'ed you my contact details.

  • Add ads and you got yourself $50,000 a day, lol.

    I have to admit, that i still feel surprised about how many downloads that game had on Play Store. It makes me wonder, why didn't anyone think of a concept this simple before? :D

  • Looks nice but the description sounds just too enthusiastic for what it currently is (an alpha version)... :/

  • I've made a basic clone of the popular Android game, Flappy Bird, in 55 events.

    Do whatever you want with it, i just wanted to see if i could make something like the game in a small amount of time and to check if it would run at a reasonable framerate on my HTC Wildfire, by using the PhoneGap export option.

    Screenshots:

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/FLAPPY-CLONE/forum/01.jpg" border="0">

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/FLAPPY-CLONE/forum/02.jpg" border="0">

    <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/FLAPPY-CLONE/forum/03.jpg" border="0">

    Files:

    HTML5 website (test online)

    //basic graphics

    //smoothed graphics

    Android .apk (test on your Android, PhoneGap was used)

    //no sound

    //with sound

    .capx

    //commented .capx

    More information:

    features

    -a scrolling parallax background, that is mirrored (endless loop)

    -the best score is shown in the menu with webstorage

    -obstacles created in randomized positions

    -obstacles have separate collision maps, for adjustment purposes

    -simple touch controls, some visual features (animated character, angle changes based on vertical velocity)

    -multiple game states without having to reload the layout

    -sounds for different in-game events

    bugs

    -if the game lags when loading the sounds into the memory, it is likely that 2 obstacles will be spawned, thus blocking the path. this is likely to happen only on weak hardware, though.

    framerate

    -to improve the framerate further, you could try to run the game without any rescaling, in the native 320x240 resolution (this was made for a phone after all), with the sounds turned off

    balance

    just a quick prototype, might need some tweaking to become playable, perhaps an increase in the speed at which the game is played. use it for whatever you want.

  • The problem i experienced has been solved.

    The cause for the problem is still unknown to me, but it appears that somehow the fonts became bugged. And i don't just mean the resource plugin i used, i mean that even the windows font viewer was not functioning (displayed empty lines). Either way, a restart fixed the problem, everything now functions as expected, it appears that the drag and drop action did absolutely nothing. As for the files, i've removed them, as my programming is nothing i'm exactly proud of, except for the archive with the plugins and effects - i foresee many of the links to them becoming broken and it's possible that someone might come across this thread and find links to the downloads of good use. Either that, or you could just want to randomly download a set of plugins and effects i've deemed to be okay (i'll keep telling myself this and you just agree that i didn't just waste both forum space and your time). Anyways, that was a perfectly good hour - wasted. At least i learned a bit about how to troubleshoot better.

    I'll keep this short.

    I've recently started working on a little project of mine: a top down game. Well, the details are irrelevant, really.

    After working on it for a couple of hours, i ran into a problem. As i was moving a couple of objects (in the Default folder) to another object folder (Menu), i accidentally let go of the mouse at one point. I don't know what happened, as it didn't appear to do anything at all, however i'm probably wrong, because i could no longer preview the project. As soon as the preview loads, the application crashes, with the following message:

    "Temp2.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

    Pretty generic, huh? So, i copied over the contents of that little information error: http://www.pastebin.com/m5XaijEa

    I also get an error prompt when i close the game:

    "Runtime Error!

    Program: ...Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Scirra\Temp2.exe

    R6025

    -pure virtual function call"

    However, i doubt that this is to blame, as this error also popped up whenever i ended the preview normally (by either clicking the close button of the game window or using the system action), and it didn't appear at any other time.

    Either way, everything appears to be fine in the event sheet and layout editor, i can't spot anything that i've done wrong, but i'm certain that it has something to do with me releasing the mouse when dragging one of the objects. If i remember correctly, i released the mouse as it was over another object. What could have happened? Is there any way to fix whatever occured?

    Do not suggest that i update my video drivers or something else that's comparably generic (such as reverting to a backup, i don't have one), as everything worked just minutes prior to whatever i did. Here's the .cap file, don't laugh at me, i'm no artist: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/zone%20revisited.cap

    Thank you for your time.

    Update #1: i was using r2 when this happened. The project was created and modified only in this version. No other changes were made directly to its files or whatever. Also, here's a .7z archive of every single effect and plugin i use, just remember to back up your folders when you add these (although they never crashed before this): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/Construct.7z

    Update #2: it appears that the crashes are caused by the MainText object. Removing it solves the problem, however this is not something that i can just do, as most of my progress revolves around these objects. Is there a fault somewhere in the event sheets or has something gone wrong in the layout editor? I await your response...

    Update #3: it appears that the problem is in the event sheets, as disabling all the events allows for the game to be run without the crash, trying to toggle groups back on one by one to find out more specifics...

    Update #4: i've pinpointed the crash to the event "On function "RefreshText"", under the group "setupFonts". Trying to find out more about why this happens.

    Update #5: the custom fonts aren't loaded anymore by the resource plugin. Trying to change to them generates the error. No idea why. Size and color changes work as expected. After some more testing, i've concluded that all of the custom fonts have ceased to work, they are either not extracted correctly or there are problems with loading them into the memory. I await your ideas on how to fix this, or any workarounds you can offer (but i need these fonts).

    By the way, here's the .cap file with the responsible events disabled. Enabling them causes a crash (at least on my machine, for all i know): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80437109/zone%20revisited%20w%20no%20fonts.cap

    Update #6: new error:

    "Construct encountered an error in the display engine. Please report this problem to the application developer.

    Failed to create render target texture (0x8876017c)"

    This error appears whenever i try to preview the game after deleting the Resource plugin. Furthermore, even if i don't touch it directly, it still crashes if i remove the actions that extract the font resources and load them, even when the actual events that are supposed to set the fonts are disabled / are non present. Weird. Is this just me? Any ideas?

    Update #7: upon re-opening construct, i can remove the Resource plugin without problems. It seems that having 2 instances of construct open could be the cause for this, but other than this, i have no idea why it didn't work just 30 seconds ago and does now, either way, i still need to find a way to restore the functionality.

    Update #8: confirmed. "Load font" indeed crashes when more than 1 instance of Construct is opened. What weird software this is... :/ Still working on the fix.

    Update #9: problem solved. Updated the top of the post.

  • Actually, it shouldn't be too hard to open it in another version (if you don't feel like downloading >100MB because there is no update system for the software):

    • unzip the .capx file with something like 7-zip in its own folder
    • open the .caproj file with any text editing program (Notepad++ works nicely)
    • find the line "<saved-with-version>XXXXX</saved-with-version>", where the X letters will be the version number
    • change it to whatever version you have (for example r152 -> 15200)

    For this, tell me what is "bleeding edge" supposed to mean.

  • Then again, making something that looks slightly distorted is better than trying to cope with frustrating limitations and ending up not creating anything at all. Why can't we just have a "stretch" mode, anyone?

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