One idea which comes to mind is to have a 'performance test' built into the game. This is something I'm doing in my current title.

For example, in my game, if you go under options/graphics, there's an option for high/med/low...and auto. Auto will spawn a couple test sequences, testing logic and gpu performance by measuring the fps avrg.

Of course, you could make this transparent by running these tests during downtime (intro sequence, title screen, level loading, etc).

Since you can't directly tell what hardware the game is running on, you have to approximate. Running a logic test -- some sort of arbitrary algorithm, escalate a loop until the fps declines -- and then a graphics test -- spawn sprites and animate them til fps declines -- would give you a measure of the discrepancy between the two. High logic/low gpu could mean iGPU...or it could mean malfunctioning drivers. So, in that case:

'You have integrated graphics don't you? If not, something is wrong...if you have a laptop and a nVidia GPU, you might want to google "nvidia optimus problems".'

PC gaming has always been a PITA...just gotta keep working around it...

michael JohnnySheffield Irbis — shinkan —

To be blunt, I don't think most people who buy C2 ever release anything...often not even half-assed test games or re-skinned templates. For some C2 is a game engine. For many it is merely a game. And most of those people won't care about exporters because, in the event that they do finish anything, they'll just upload it to a portal for their friends to play.

Essentially, I agree that the export situation is dicey. However, I'm trying to be realistic -- and a bit of a devil's advocate -- as well.

Ashley can't possibly build and maintain exporters from scratch.

The only realistic alternative is to maintain customized forks of the extant exporters, and take a more direct approach to correcting bugs; either by fixing them himself or paying someone else to do it.

If extra capital is needed, there is crowdfunding, a new license variant, subscription models, etc. Ultimately though, I don't think Ashley wants to do this. All we can do is try to convince him to reconsider, and work together as a community to solve what we can, as best we can. Or leave. There's that too. I'm not anywhere near that state of mind yet, but I understand those who are and sympathize with their frustrations.

The reason I choose C2 was not because it could export to a bunch of platforms. Not because it was 'code free' (which, really, it isn't). The reason I threw in with this platform was because, IMHO, it has the best community out there: active, helpful, knowledgeable, polite, and extremely noob tolerant .

My biggest concern? Those people going away, because they are as much the lifeblood of C2 as the engine itself.

I've seen far too many giants of the community expressing a certain hopelessness that C2 is destined to be a learning and prototyping tool as opposed to a serious development platform. Their concerns may not represent the majority, but their absence would be devastating.

Ashley, you've built something incredible, but the problem with doing something incredible is that people's expectations rise accordingly. Addressing these issues may be a lot of work -- and involve a bit of backtracking -- but it won't be as difficult as manning the 'How Do I?' forum by your lonesome.

I just got my game running using the linking libraries trick...though it's definitely a bit buggy on the penguin side. It's really a bummer that node-webkit is setup this way on linux. To be clear, the fault does lie with node, not with C2. Certainly not as bad as the mega-lag issue some users are experiencing on osx.

FYI: there is a post on node's github that list a few workarounds for this issue. Eisenhans linked to it in this post:

FYI, for the short term, anyone having this problem should sign up on github and register a comment on this thread:

https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/issues/2176

I did (even though I'm not exporting to mac ATM).

It's also possible to offer a 'bounty' (ie., a cash award) for the problem being corrected on Github. So, if it's a dire issue, there's that option.

If Ashley is going to bounce it over to the node webkit devs with issues like this, C2 users need to register on Github and let their voice be heard.

michael

I think it ultimately comes down to what possible for one man to do.

Creating in house wrappers for desktop and mobile would require an immense amount of work. It might be possible for Ashley to do it -- especially if he decided to fork some of the extant export options into C2 specific versions -- but it would mean all other new features grinding to a halt.

He's said as much before, and it's true.

Let's face it: shiny new features might not be as important to hardcore users as stability, better UI/workflow, and better export options...but Scirra's target markets (those who want to make a good looking game with minimal programming) are much more likely to care about shaders and shadows.

Scirra is a small business operating off a 'pay once-own forever' model, supplemented by academic licenses (potentially lucrative, but who knows how that's going).

They HAVE to pull in new customers. Every day, every week, every month.

Creating and maintaining in-house wrappers equals a dearth of shiny new features. Which equals less new customers.

No customers equals no money. No money equals game over.

The various options have been gone over time and again, but it all boils down to hiring some additional programming help. That's not a cheap proposition. Maybe Scirra is doing well enough now to swing it. Maybe they aren't.

One funding option would be to crowdfund the development of the dedicated exporters. I think this is an option that should be seriously considered. I understand that this goes against the 'pay-once' model in some ways, but ultimately I think there are a substantial number of people using C2 who would be willing to pitch in...especially those who are actually making part of their living off it.

Any way you slice it though, it means bringing in external help...or maybe Ashley could hire rexrainbow to work on some shiny new plugins for a few months while he slaves away at taming the beast of the buggy webkit.

shinkan

Thanks for the post. I'll be on my desktop a little later, and I'll give it a spin. I'd forgot about the paster plugin!

Ashley

This would be great.

Also, if we could click anywhere on an event sheet and get 'Collapse/Expand Groups' and 'Collapse/Expand Events'. Right now, with groups, you have to right click on a group to collapse all groups. I think it would be faster to have it in the general right click menu.

Ashley

Would it be possible to add an option to export with different versions of node-webkit? So that, if a newer version breaks functionality, we can use an older one? Maybe it could be a dedicated export option: Node-Webkit Custom, with a description warning 'Scirra cannot guarantee functionality on older versions of node-webkit.'.

spongehammer:

Thanks for the capx. Your approach looks great, but makes way too many objects for my game. I came up with another solution, which I'll post when I get it done, but mine is a trade off too: I need two 'force own texture' layers to accomplish the necessary masking. It's enough to make my iGPU hurt.

Once I post the capx, maybe someone else can figure out how to do it on one layer; masking makes my head hurt.

In the end, I think I'm going to go with a hybrid approach: spawning 4-8 segments and animating them the old fashioned way: multiple frames.

I'm not sure quite what else to call it. Attached capx is the first idea that came to mind, but it seems clunky, and I'm wondering if there is a better approach.

I never understood why this wasn't supported: it seems trivial, and would be very useful. Am I missing something?

it'd be great if we could select an object and have a "see all events associated with" option.

megatronx

Import/export capx file into project, to reuse capx more easily.

So, kind of like a merge feature?