Well it's running on iOS in canvas2D... which is where the problem is, since it can't use webGL to let the GPU handle some of the load.

I have the sprites in game as a global object but they are on a layout that isn't accessed... Do I need to have it go to that layout first and then jump over to the main layout?

I think I was having worse results by having it destroy at start but remain in the main layout.

Do you think maybe creating the objects at start and then destroying them would load them while also removing them until I need them?

While both of them give a great performance boost they are not even remotely close to native performance which is a thing that has to be considered, if you want complete freedom you need to go native (or Stencyl).

I agree with this. I've only tested CocoonJS but the performance increase was next to nothing. I was expecting native performance but got basically the same performance I get in Safari on an iPad.

I'm going to give appMobi a try tomorrow, hopefully... but from the sound of it, I shouldn't be expecting much improvement there either.

It's really disappointing that Construct 2 doesn't have a way to just export natively to mobile devices. I know HTML5 is "the future" but right now it's pretty terrible for mobile platforms. I don't see Apple allowing webGL ever, as it would directly affect their own app sales, since people could just circumvent the app store and host their own games without Apple getting it's 30% cut.

So basically unless some miracle occurs, don't expect to release heavy HTML5 games to any iOS device because they just won't run at playable speeds. Without hardware acceleration, games have to be pretty simple and light.

I'm having some performance issues that I feel are being caused by sprites loading on creation instead of being loaded at the start.

I have about 6 *heavy* sprites (heavy meaning over 100 frames of animation in a 128x128 dimension image) which seem to be causing me problems.

The thing is, my game runs at a nice steady framerate until these sprites need to be created. Then it nosedives for a couple of seconds until the sprite is "loaded". But doesn't Construct 2 load this stuff at the start?

Further evidence that the sprite creation is the problem, is that after a while, my game's framerate actually improves overall, even with more of these sprites on screen. Which tells me that now they are "loaded" and not causing stress on the hardware.

Is there some way to preload sprites or images? Is there a way to preload other things as well? I thought perhaps setting the sprites to global and putting them in another layout, they would be "preloaded" but this doesn't really seem to be working.

So what's the deal?

Okay well I solved the lagging when creating certain objects by just putting them in a new layout and setting them to global objects. (a trick I read on the forums)

Two more questions:

1. is there any way to display how much memory is being used?

2. is there any special way to get a game to resize to fit inside the window of a tablet/phone that takes into account the address bars? I designed my game for i-pad resolution but the address bar doesn't go away, so the game is sizing up to the width of the screen but not the height... meaning the game window is being cut off which leads to the page scrolling when you drag up/down on the screen.

Also is there a way to keep focus on the game even if the page can be scrolled? It's a big issue when touch controls don't work because every swipe is moving the screen around

Okay so I've read the performance tips page a dozen times, I've tried optimizing everything to the best of my ability.

I'd like to know if anyone has any tricks/tips that aren't listed or are harder to track down.

What are some big performance hitters? Should I worry more about graphics file size or resolution? Should I worry more about the code? What about nested loops, is that a huge deal with maybe a dozen objects?

Also my game seems to be locking up for a second or two when creating some of the heavier objects at runtime... Is there a way I can avoid this happening? Like can I preload the objects somehow?

Right now I have some objects that are destroyed at the start of the layout, and later on I create them again... but when I create them my framerate drops to 0 for a second and then the game plays as normal. But after that they can be created over and over without any issue. Are the objects not loaded into memory if they are destroyed at start? Maybe I should create them at runtime and destroy them after? Would that keep them in memory when I create them again later?

Oh and one other question... I have rather large backgrounds (roughly 1200x800. Should I bother chopping these up into multiple images? I think I attempted to do this a while back with little to no change in framerate. It also seems that breaking up the image actually increases the overall file size... So what is the answer?

Thanks in advance. I really enjoy using Construct 2. :)

edit: oh forgot to mention I'm trying to target mobile iPad/iPhone/other mobile devices

The editor is vastly, vastly improved over MMF. No need for spread values, no limits on the naming/number of variables, has sub events, behaviors that are actually maintained and work, event sheet includes, more options for picking objects, the list goes on and on.

Yeah I've been working with C2 a bit and I definitely love sub-events and the way that variables are set up. Much easier to do things this way. Also love the object selection options.

2 has exe export, there's currently a performance problem in the current version on some machines, but it's being worked on and has been significantly improved in the next version which should be out within a week.

I hope this turns out well... I was reading a thread where someone mentioned the cold start up is really slow though.. Hopefully that can be fixed?

ata is stored with webstorage, you can use arrays, JSON strings, hash tables, whatever you like.

So that means no offline storage? I'd love if it I could just include a level pack in the exe so players wouldn't have to be online just to load a level.

2 is 2d, but there have been some attempts at 3d plugins in the plugins forum, but performance wasn't too good when I tried them.

Is that a problem with C2 or is that a problem with HTML5? I've seen some pretty impressive 3D demos done in HTML5. Would it be ridiculous to assume I could get a few dozen 3D meshes animating with textures on screen without it killing performance? There is one game I wanted to make that would probably require me to have 3D meshes... but not to the extent of needing a full 3D environment or anything. Just some low poly meshes with textures/animations. Can even be baked in lighting.

Thanks for the response!

Despite the fact Construct 2 has a HTML5 based engine, it actually has some fairly decent tools for working with data client-side. See Using project files in Construct 2. If you know how to set up a server you can also use the AJAX object to send and receive stuff to your server.

Okay so I set up my level editor using an array that loads via AsJSON. Does that mean I could just save out the json files and add them into the project to include them as levels so I can avoid the player having to download levels and have an internet connection? That would be fantastic.

've no idea where you read HTML5 is insecure - have you got any links? I am confident it is perfectly secure, and modern browsers have a pretty good security record too, and issue updates rapidly if any problems are found.

I don't remember exactly where I read it... but basically someone was saying that since it's javascript, you could easily read it or basically take the code and modify it easily to change the game and make it your own. Or in a situation where you create a really awesome gameplay feature, someone else could just read the code and implement that feature into their game without having to go through the trouble of figuring out how to do it on their own. Stuff like that I guess. I mean, I understand that no game is really secure but I'd prefer if people couldn't just copy/paste my game code and modify some stuff and claim it as their own game without much effort.

onstruct 2 automatically generates spritesheets on export. There are also tools to import sprite sheets in to the Construct 2 editor.

Ah yeah, I actually meant importing sprite sheets... Is there some possible way of setting a sprite sheet as a project file and then being able to just update the sprite sheet externally and it would update inside Construct 2? I have a game that would require some rather large sprite sheets and it's much easier to modify them externally, but would be a pain if I have to update every animation/frame manually.

ope that helps answer some of your concerns!

Definitely. Thanks for being so helpful. :)

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forums and to Construct, and I'm curious as to what sort of limitations/restrictions I can expect out of Construct 2 and HTML5.

I've mainly been using other middleware. I'm experienced with Multimedia Fusion 2 and I'm curious as to what the upsides and downside are when switching over from that.

Also I would really like to release my game as an executable, and I'm wondering how difficult that would be since Construct 2 mainly builds to HTML5. So if anyone could share their knowledge of the program or anything, that would be great.

My main concern is how to store data (such as levels in an array, or player save info). Would I need to store this on a server or can I just do that locally? I also have read that HTML5 is really insecure. Should I be concerned about this? My aim is to create a game that I can release as an online demo (via flash or html5) and allow people to buy the full version of the game for download.

So... drawbacks? Positives? Negatives? What about exporting sprite sheets? How difficult is that with Construct? Has anyone implemented any 3D meshes into Construct?

Sorry for asking so many questions here, but I find that the forum search fails to really give me any results that I want. (or results at all)

Thanks!

What's up with this twitter? why not facebook for example?

Facebook doesn't allow contests where you are advertising/liking something to win a prize.

Okay thanks for clearing that up... but I'm still confused as to what is being set up here:

every tick:

sprite1: set z2 to self.z

sprite2: set z2 to self.z

What are these?

*bump* anyone able to help? :V

Are "sprite1" and "sprite2" conditions? If so, how would I do that?

I assumed that a family variable is just a shared variable among all objects... so it would just be updating that shared variable a bunch of times until it's the last object's z variable.

Looking at your example... duh it's so simple! I didn't realize you could do "sub-events" by right clicking the event and adding them in. Just my third day using the program. Haha... I was trying to just drag the other ForEach event under the first ForEach event and it was just putting them together as one event.

Thanks!