Performance issues on subsequent scene reloads.

Astirian · May 2018

Hi guys! I am inches away from releasing my game but the last problem remains.

I've done a pass on the game to minimise GLOBALS, where I have them I localise them before use etc... I've double checked my array loops on onEnterFrame and made sure I'm calling as much as I can on update with self (GameScene).

My issue is that the first round runs relatively well but subsequent retries and further rounds get slower and slower. I'm nilling everything I can get my hands on (GAME, self.world, self.player, self.rt etc...) in the gameOver() but it doesn't seem to be helping.

Is there a clean-up function I can use? Do I need to transition to a different scene first? Or manually mop up every child in self.game before I move?

I'm also calling collectgarbage("collect") on init() and gameOver(), is that a bad idea?

I'm sort of stretching the framework here so I don't have a lot of room to maneuver (lots of getPixel() calls to draw on my render target) but the first scene always behaves itself, it's just the scene reset seems to be holding onto some stuff I guess.

sceneManager:changeScene(scenes[3], 1, SceneManager.fade, easing.linear)

is what I'm using to make the transition to another round or reload the current one.

Astirian · May 2018

So, typing stuff out on here seems to help haha! I think I might not be getting rid of all my eventListeners, I'm only calling self:removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, self.onEnterFrame, self)...

I'm guessing sceneManager isn't getting rid of that stuff automagically?

But if that's the case, does it mean I need to go around killing all my textures and sounds etc...? I would have assumed that's baked into sceneManager...

Astirian · May 2018

Same with bump, if I nil the bump world, does it kill its children? (fun sentence!)

Astirian · May 2018

I've also got 9 timers and a bunch of those have Event.COMPLETE triggers. Not to mention the events on my touch controls... When a MovieClip finishes should I nil that too? Got a bunch of these as well... chartboost:addEventListener(Event.AD_RECEIVED ...)

Astirian · May 2018

One last consideration, if I have instantiated NPC classes in ENEMIES, is making ENEMIES = nil sufficient? Or do I need to loop through the array and firstly removeChild() and then set all children to nil?

Astirian · May 2018

OK, last comment, honest. If I do something like this (just for argument's sake):

self.rt = RenderTarget.new(background:getWidth(), background:getHeight())
GameScene.renderTarget = self.rt

If I then subsequently do self.rt = nil then GameScene.renderTarget no longer exists right? As I'm assuming it's pointing to the same object (self.rt) in memory.

And again, is nilling sufficient or should I be removeChilding it first?

antix · May 2018

@Astirian If you are going to reuse things then you just need to reset them, not destroy them and recreate them. Whenever making reusable classes.. resetting (or cleaning up) them is one of the things you need to build in right from the beginning.

With bump for example...

-- remove all items from bump collision world
local bump = BUMP
local items, len = bump:getItems()
if len > 0 then
  for i = 1, len do
    local item = items[i]
    bump:remove(item)
  end
end

Personally I would make the RenderTarget a global and localize it when required, but I'm fond of making global vars.. they really arent; the evil they are portrayed to be

For example your enemies class. In my opinion it is so much easier to make it global. I would have something like..

Enemies = Core.class(Sprite)
 
function Enemies:init()
  self.actors = {}
  -- other startup stuff goes here
end
 
-- dispose of all enemies
function Enemies:reset()
  local actors = self.actors
  if #actors > 0 then
    for i = actors, 1, -1 do
      local actor = actors[i]
      actor:removeFromParent() -- remove sprite from parent
      -- dispose of other actor stuff here
    end
  self.actors = {} -- our actors list is now empty
  end
end
 
-- create a new enemy
function Enemies:newEnemy(options)
  local actors = self.actors
  local actor = Pixel.new(0xff0000, 1, 32, 32)
  self:addChild(actor)
  -- init other actor stuff here
  actors[#actors + 1] = actor
end
 
-- update all enemies
function Enemies:update(dt)
  local actors = self.actors
  if #actors > 0 then
    for i = actors, 1, -1 do
      local actor = actors[i]
      -- process actor ai etc here
    end
  end
end

Then in my main.lua..

ENEMIES = Enemies.new()

The ENEMIES can then be reuses an infinite number of times just by calling it's reset() function and then using self.enemies = ENEMIES when you recreate your game scene.

In your scenes you need to stop all of their listeners. Here is the basic game scene that I use, where I remove my listeners in onTransitionOutBegin()

Game = Core.class(Sprite)
 
function Game:init()
  GAME = self -- make this scene a global variable
 
  self:startUp()
 
  self:addEventListener("enterBegin", self.onTransitionInBegin, self)
  self:addEventListener("enterEnd", self.onTransitionInEnd, self)
  self:addEventListener("exitBegin", self.onTransitionOutBegin, self)
  self:addEventListener("exitEnd", self.onTransitionOutEnd, self)
end
 
function Game:onTransitionInBegin() -- initialize variables here
end
 
function Game:onTransitionInEnd() -- add listeners, start logic
  self:addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, self.update, self)
end
 
function Game:onTransitionOutBegin() -- stop timers, remove listeners
  self:removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, self.update, self)
end
 
function Game:onTransitionOutEnd() -- removed from stage, cleanup
  self:removeEventListener("enterBegin", self.onTransitionInBegin, self)
  self:removeEventListener("enterEnd", self.onTransitionInEnd, self)
  self:removeEventListener("exitBegin", self.onTransitionOutBegin, self)
  self:removeEventListener("exitEnd", self.onTransitionOutEnd, self)
end
 
function Game:startUp() -- initialize scene
  self:reset()
end
 
-- reset all game stuff before starting a new game
function Game:reset()
  self.mode = 'menus'
  self.paused = false
end
 
-- update every frame
function Game:update(e)
  if self.paused then return end -- don't process anything if the game is paused
  local dt = e.deltaTime
  local mode = self.mode
  if mode == 'playing' then
    -- process main game logic
  elseif mode == 'gameover' then
    -- process gameover
  elseif mode == 'menus' then
    -- process menus
  else
  end
end

Without seeing your code it's hard to tell what might be going wrong. However.. you should only have one ad thing happening so a global chartboost instance I would think.

Hopefully I've provided a little insight. All these topics and more will be in my Gideros EBook when I finish it

Astirian · May 2018

Thanks again @antix, this is incredibly useful stuff. I think I'm just about getting my coding standards to the point where I'm starting to realise that I've been extremely messy!

In retrospect, I think maybe Apple's SpriteKit is very forgiving with memory management and scene transitions and so on but teaches some baaad habits. I like being responsible for my class uhm... cleanliness?

So it looks like I have more work to do, just when I thought I had it licked, more learnings are to be had, you're like a Gideros Yoda man.

I will most assuredly be buying your book when it's finished!

antix · May 2018

@Astirian when I first started in Gideros I never cleaned up after myself either

totebo · May 2018

If I showed you the source code to No Brakes 1 you would both cry!

antix · May 2018

@totebo, heheh

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