IOS Player Issue

plamen

Hi guys,
I've been busy until Christmas and couldn't replace my Gideros framework with the latest one. Now i replaced it from 2012.09.2 to 2012.09.5. There is significant performance difference and i need an idea where to find the problem. I have no compilation errors or any kind of warning messages. Everything is loaded properly and the only thing i turned off /commented in the code/ is the new sound loop method. I have both IOS players installed on my device and when i start the project it runs perfectly well on 09.2 and very shaky on the new one 09.5. The frame rate is unstable going up and down. Any suggestions which of the new features might have something related to this performance difference are welcome.

atilim

There is something wrong with 09.5 and still I don't know what it is. I'll look at it and write here if I find the problem.

plamen

@atilim. Thanks, ill try to focus on it too, subdividing it by functions to see where it will pop.

atilim

Hi @plemen,

I've developed a simple shoot-em up game to see if there is performance difference between 09.2 and 09.5. Up to now, I cannot see any noticeable difference. But I'm digging more.

I'm sharing the code because it contains some useful tricks that may help others such as:
- pooling to efficiently create/delete lots of bullets (~300) and explosions
- box2d for collision tests
- simple sound manager

It also contains another project (v2) that displays all bullets with a single mesh.

And if you catch anything, that'll help me a lot.

Here is a video:

ar2rsawseen

@atilim cool game, but if you want to impress us, need to do better than that.
Reference: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/comment/16919#Comment_16919

P.S Found a bug, the monster does not die, no matter how long I shoot at him )

atilim

But if I polish a little bit more then it can be a good game :-bd

atilim

P.S Found a bug, the monster does not die, no matter how long I shoot at him )

) You don't die also. It's a fair game

ar2rsawseen

) You don't die also. It's a fair game

Ahh and I thought I was just such a great player )


Ok tested both on Android LG P500
Used Gideros Player from 9.2 version and exported apk from 9.4 and 9.5 version

Minimal fps I could get (when there are a lots of bullets both ways and I was constantly moving finger on screen) from with v1 project

• version 9.2 was 18
• version 9.4 was 18
• version 9.5 was 12

V2 project on all versions did not drop down below 25 fps

So I don't know if it's coincidence that 9.5 fps dropped a little lower (I think it is coincidence, because it can't be different from 9.4 version, can it? )

All in all, visually all project seemed to run similarly and it seems to be very efficiently written, will definitely learn something from it

ar2rsawseen

That's interesting, after upgrading to 9.5 version can't run Mashballs anymore, shows error:

[string "sound.lua"]:2: bad argument #3 to 'new' (number expected, got boolean)

can't figure out where something is wrong. And everything worked in 9.4 version

atilim

Yes, 09.3, 09.4 and 09.5 are basically same.

On Samsung S 2, v1 and v2 runs at 60 fps. On iPod touch 4th gen, v1 runs at 40 fps and v2 runs at 60 fps.

LG P500 is an armv6 device, right? damn armv6!

atilim

@ar2rsawseen - is there a probability that you've run the game with 09.2 instead of 09.5?

ar2rsawseen

@atilim yes you are right, I was trying to run on 9.2 Gideros Android player from 9.5 Gideros studio, just to test the difference. I've commented out the music class and it all worked, also did not notice any difference in performance between 9.2 and 9.5

And yes LG P500 is armv6 device and actually it was quite playable, considering other games I've tried to play on it )

plamen

@Atilim: Thanks ill test it asap. Lemme see if you use movie clips in it.

plamen

@Atilim: So far on my iPod touch 4th gen, v1 runs at 53-57 fps and v2 runs at 60 fps. on 9.5 and it pops error msg about missing method on 9.2 Its texture region method and ill try to see to replace it with older one. And if this will help there are no movie clips in the examples but in my case i use them a lot. @ar2rsawseen:
version 9.2 was 18
version 9.4 was 18
version 9.5 was 12
this is huge difference from 18 to 12 fps. I am still testing.

plamen

@Atilim: Its not possible to test directly both version because there are deprecated methods not just in sound but in texture region so i wonder what i miss and how you guys tested on both version of players without changing the code?

plamen

Looks like not the touch screen events..

ar2rsawseen

@plamen well the difference may be due to I don't know some background process started, etc.

plamen

@ar2rsawseen: did you changed the code before starting it in 9.2?

ar2rsawseen

in @atilim project no, in mine only sound option discussed previously (simply commented it out)

plamen

@ar2rsawseen: 9.2 player returns me an error where new setRegion method is used. Are u sure you test with 9.2 not with 9.3 or 9.4 vs 9.5?

ar2rsawseen

@plamen it is @atilim project?
Yes I've rechecked on Android I have 9.2 version and could launch it from 9.4 studio

plamen

Oh, sorry its my fault my IOS player was 9.0 not 9.2 /or i think its 9.0, on the screen it says 2012.2.2.2/ that's why i have the errors of missing method. I'll investigate further where this performance overhead comes but @Atilim it looks like somewhere about 40-50% difference. And for the discussion about multi-core efficiency its quite visible between single core IPod 4 retina and dual core Iphone 4 Retina.

gmarinov

@atilim @plamen

checked on 2012.2.2.2, 2012.9.2 and 2012.9.5 on iPhone 4s, and iPod touch 4. I tried with and without touching.

to get 2012.2.2.2 to run, I commented out the textureRegion methods (line 51, 52) in bulletlayer.lua. I tested against the other versions with the same code (the lines commented out).

iPhone ran at steady 60fps so I used 9 times the player bullets to bring it down to 30-ish fps, I then ran the same on the iPod touch.

iPod touch ran at variable frame rate between 14 and 35 with 2012.2.2.2 having the worst performance of the three (down to 14 fps on the Touch for 2.2.2, vs 16fps on 9.2 and 9.5). Touch events took another 2 fps on average.

So whatever problem there is, it doesn't seem to be in the example, or at least in the textureregion stuff?

zvardin

@atilim thanks for the example!

It's interesting that you set the body to inactive and then nil out the body so it gets collected later by the garbage collector. Is this much more efficient than using the destroyBody function?

OZApps

@Atilim,
It would be nice to see that develop into a game... looks good

moopf

I really don't think it's related but figured this was as good a place as any to post, but since updating to 09.5 today I keep on having the Mac player crash every few reloads with errors such as a missing TTF or .wav. Thing is they're there, so it's like the player is forgetting about them or removing them when you reload the app in the player (and Gideros only updates changed files when you do this). Re-running the player again and everything works fine, and then a few re-runs later the same thing happens again.

atilim

@zvardin I set setActive to false and store that body in a pool to be reused later. Therefore, it's not collected. If you want to destroy a boty, you should call destroyBody no matter what.

atilim

@plamen @gmarinov then can we say we cannot see the slowdown problem with my example, right?

zvardin

@atilim Ah ha, thanks! That makes sense, I hadn't gotten a chance to go through the example more yet.

plamen

@atilim yes, thanks! your example runs fine. I also tested movie clip performance because it was not in the example and seems its running fine too. Frame rate degradation in my case was in both versions just for the older it is smooth so its less noticeable but its a bit bigger. In 9.5 frame rate is actually higher but it is a bit shaky. It is problem of my project so ill accommodate it.

atilim

@plamen thank you for your time. btw, my example also contains movie clips (the small explosions).

When you have time, can you try your game with collectgarbage("stop")?