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Performance

Started by bstaz, December 28, 2009, 05:38:25 PM

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bstaz

Any chance we're going to see a native binary of Creeper World? AIR is nice as a cross-platform tool, but performance is just dreadful in comparison to something native. Even on 3GHz Xeons you have to be careful how large you make the window when there's a lot going on. The number of cores you have is irrelevant since it's not multi-threaded.

knucracker

Yeah, performance is the worst thing about AIR.  Now AIR2 will be out early in the new year as will an updated version of the flash player.  IN theory there should be some real support for video acceleration.  I've not played with the beta of the new player yet, so I can't say what level of performance increase there will be.

In CW most of the time is spent drawing the screen.  This time goes up based on the resolution of the window.  About 25% of the total computational time is spent on the game itself.  Most of this 25% is spent calculating the creeper expansion and on path finding for the packets.  Even these things could be much better on almost any other platform.  The things one has to do to get good performance in AS3 are really crazy... basically don't make method calls... ridiculous!

Were I to do a CW2 and incorporate bigger maps, better graphics, etc I'd pretty much have no choice but to do it on some other platform.

But that said, AIR has been an adequate platform for doing a fine little game.  About 10% of the users are on a mac, so I'm glad to be able to offer the mac community a version of the game that is identical to the pc version.

Aurzel

*cough* 'were i to do' implies you're setill thinking about doing it or not *cough*
don't make a bring a mob with pitchforks and torches :P

Karsten75

How come I've not noticed the performance hit? I have a Win Vista PC with a performance index of 5.2 and I'm playing on a large screen (at least 1024x768 pixels - my screen is much bigger).

Aurzel

maybe because it was slow to begin with :P

Mrmcdeath

The only time it ever goes slow for me is when i have it in fullscreen and am near the end of the game with my base filling up almost half of the screen...
Life Lesson #1
When life gives you lemons make lemonade.
Life Lesson #2
Unless life also gives you sugar and a cup, your lemonades gonna suck.

Karsten75

Quote from: Aurzel on December 29, 2009, 08:57:37 AM
maybe because it was slow to begin with :P

*facepalm* *huge sigh*

Aurzel

poor people, so dramatic

Kamron3

As long as the graphics aren't 3D and the terrain isn't 3D, then I'll support CW2.

If you do add those in, it will begin to degrade very badly.

I don't believe graphics make a game, gameplay does. And if my gameplay is impaired by 3D graphics on a 2D-based game... then that is bad.

_k

Aurzel

100% agreed, why fix something if it's not broken

Kamron3

Quote from: Aurzel on December 30, 2009, 06:28:27 AM
100% agreed, why fix something if it's not broken

Finally someone who agrees with me. Most people thing graphics makes or breaks a game. For me, if it is a decent play then I will play it! :)

_k

Aurzel

for me it's storyline too, i love a good storyline

Kamron3

Yeah, story line is a part of gameplay. :)

_k

nic nac

It's a mix of everything. I play 3D and 2D alike, but if the gameplay sucks I'm not hooked.
That's why I stay clear off the latest C&C Games. Heroes ffs? No thanks.
logical S... means big S... - me

Kamron3

I don't really like those games that base everything on graphics.

_k