construct 2 mobile performance

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  • Hi guys

    I thought to register myself here and ask a very important question. I need a game software to make good games. And iam not sure if construct is my right choice due to many people said that it does not perform well on mobile games due to performance issues. As construct would be my 3rd phase out of 4 I need a reliable software for it. Is the performance still so bad to deploy for ios,android,windows phones and tablets?

    I bought a course for construct 2 on udemy and so I need your feedback to know if it is still so bad??

    Would like to know what you guys have to say about the constrcut software.

  • Hi and welcome to the forum.

    This question was asked many times already, so please use the search function and you will find enough information about this topic. And the best is to find out and test it for yourself. There is a free edition of C2, that comes with many examples.

  • neversommer

    Construct 2 is a very powerful software for web and pc games, it's also very easy to learn and use, and you can save hours and hours compared with other programs. i finished my 1st complete game in just 2 days!

    But it's the worst choice for mobile, the worst ever!

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  • Hi Chup

    I did search for that Topic, but however some Posts are from a few months back and since I hear that you get constant updates from the Developer, things can Change. I did read a post that was made in Nov.14 and the Performance for mobiles is better then it was 6 Months ago with those "wrappers", and that was posted in Nov.14..so since we have now March-April now in 2015, I thought it would be good for me asking by myself.

  • neversommer

    Construct 2 is a very powerful software for web and pc games, it's also very easy to learn and use, and you can save hours and hours compared with other programs. i finished my 1st complete game in just 2 days!

    But it's the worst choice for mobile, the worst ever!

    I checked your 2 Games which are on the GooglePlay Store. So if Construct 2 is such a bad choice for Mobiles then why would the developer still mention that you can publish games to mobiles if it is the worst choice ever (People get angry or dissapointed due to the low performance) and even you publish games on the Google Play! Store?

    I heard same things about Gamesalad that Mobile Games are not running well so I moved over to Construct 2 plus it just looks a lot more appaeling to me, plus I don't like to have games published which are done the same Company I bought the Software from. Thing is I don't want to create complex games. I work on Unity in the same time to publish a game which is a 2D Jump N Run Game but I Need to learn C# so in the meantime I am looking for a Software to create games in a bit quicker way.

    I have 2 Cats at home and I wanna create for them a cat game which should be possible to make in Construct 2 ?

    Hope it makes sense

  • neversommer

    "why would the developer still mention that you can publish games to mobiles if it is the worst choice ever"

    lack of public communication is my guess, C2 exports games with html5+javascript features meant to run inside a browser, the thing is that technically mobile browsers can make them run (and they do actually), however, every single wrapper relies on this same exact process (browser +the game), and so shares the same issues a mobile browser has (with slightly more features if we want to be exact), even though other wrappers are specifically made for games, however, this is more "mobiles that support html5 and javascript correctly are supported, others are not" kind of situation, which is fine if you want to make small, medium or even large browser games, but not what the user will expect from an actual downloadable application from the play store.

    In the end, it is doable but takes time, and unfortunetelly, it can be tricky at times for some people, and you still have the "need to wait for something to be fixed by browser vendor X" which is just more annoying than with native, since native at least has more advantages when it works*.

    *for a browser based web game however, it is a fine situation.

    I hope I sum it up nicely.

  • neversommer

    "why would the developer still mention that you can publish games to mobiles if it is the worst choice ever"

    lack of public communication is my guess, C2 exports games with html5+javascript features meant to run inside a browser, the thing is that technically mobile browsers can make them run (and they do actually), however, every single wrapper relies on this same exact process (browser +the game), and so shares the same issues a mobile browser has (with slightly more features if we want to be exact), even though other wrappers are specifically made for games, however, this is more "mobiles that support html5 and javascript correctly are supported, others are not" kind of situation, which is fine if you want to make small, medium or even large browser games, but not what the user will expect from an actual downloadable application from the play store.

    In the end, it is doable but takes time, and unfortunetelly, it can be tricky at times for some people, and you still have the "need to wait for something to be fixed by browser vendor X" which is just more annoying than with native, since native at least has more advantages when it works*.

    *for a browser based web game however, it is a fine situation.

    I hope I sum it up nicely.

    Your Explanation of the Problem with C2 is amazing! Now for me it does make a lot more sense, cause I don't know the Software at all.

    So yes it can be done but with a lot of work and time put into my Project.

    Like I mentioned I really wanna make simple games, some for my Cats as they always come up to my tablet and see if I Play something which they can Play as well

    I really like Construct 2 and for what I have found so far it "could" do games I am after before I am getting more into C#.

    Now there are not many other programs out there like Construct 2 and since GameSalad has poor mobile Performance, stencyl or something which I have not found yet may be the only choice or I leave it at Unity completely.

    There is another Program out which I can't remember now to which is new and seems also like a very powerful "tool" to create games with.

    But your Explanation is top notch!

  • Construct 2 is a HTML5 game framework. And that means what it means.

    If you want to publish to mobiles you'd better get a mobile friendly framework.

    These are the best options I can see:

    Corona SDK or Cocos2D (you have to code)

    Stencyl/Game Maker (a bit like construct, you don' have to code if it's not something very complex)

    Or Unity/Unreal Engine 4. A bit overkill but they do the job. Unity has some problems for the moment but it will be fixed hopefully.

  • neversommer

    About my apps on Google store right now :

    "Egyptoon app v1.3" is a native android app not C2, I used C2 to make version 1.0 and 1.1, both versions were VERY BAD , so a friend of mine write the new version from scratch 100% native android, the app apk now is very very small and the app works perfectly on all devices.

    About the game "Propaganda", Google play sent me an Alert 1 month ago and it'll be removed because i used Crosswalk 7 with C2 and it has an OpenSSL issue that makes Google play refuse the APK but it's playable.

    updating to crosswalk 10 made the game completely unplayable, Crosswalk 10 is useless and makes the performance terrible.

    I never made a single app or game with C2 for android and runs as i want.

    but for webgames C2 is the only perfect choice, only for web and pc users.

  • anyone heard of clickteam multimedia fusion ? seems like an easy game maker with support for native mobile apps

  • Thanks guys for the nice Feedback.

    So this leaves me with no choice to look out for another Software to create simple 2D Games for Platform before I continue on my bigger Project with Unity..

    I am really wondering if I should go with Gamesalad or with Unreal 4 & Blueprints. But then I have Unity & Unreal with are 2 Major Game Development Programs.

    Damn and I really thought I found the Game Developer Program I was looking for with Construct 2.

    A bit dissapointed I must say. So the Hunt goes on.

  • The problem with making mobile games/apps with C2, is that most of the third party exporters are missing key features of C2.

    (or has extremely low perfomance and a big overhead)

    The only exporter that has "DECENT" perfomance on mobiles is (CocoonJS) which is now unsupported, and is still missing key features. (thats why its unsupported, by the way)

    Your only hope is to wait for a miracle! - and we all hope that C3, will be just that ...

  • I helped one of the forum members get his 5fps game that would crash on mobile. To 60fps and memory effecient on the same mobile fps under CrossWalk. Use the info however you want.

    eh. I'll expland

    Scirra promotes a no need to optimize and no need to micro optimize. This however is untrue. Not only should you mirco optimize, you should also be wary of C2 own Plugins. Some of C2 plugins will in fact hit your performance hard in ways you wouldn't think so. However if you take up good game design on your efforts, micro optimize, careful use of plugins, replace plugins in some cases. You can get descent running games on mobile.

    1. Sort you images into types and layers.

    You need to take advantage of C2 quircky texture packing to maximize the WebGL renderer. You won't notice this an issue with small games. You will on bigger ones.

    • All ui images are in one sprite.
    • all platform images are in one sprite.

    so on etc.

    2. Each Sprite Object is it's own texture pack

    Right from the get go this relates to 1. Each Sprite object will pack have it's own images packed into it's own sprite sheet. So if you repeat images in 2 different sprites. Then those images will be repeated in more than 1 sprite sheet. So do number 1 is mandatory.

    3. Behaviours carry performance weight.

    Don't attach plugins willy nilly like theirs no tomorrow. A simple Plugin such as Pin. Has curve based performance reduction. It's strange to think that Pin which figures an XY value hits performances. but it does. A few objects with pin is fine. a few hundred objects with Pin, and then you will start to notice.

    4. Some behaviours are just slow.

    I will use this one as an example. I wanted a rotating background in my game. So I made a 2048 by 2048 image. The game currently ran at 60fps with the background not rotating. As soon as I added Rotate Behaviour the performance dropped to 8fps. whoaawhh

    I switched to rotation in the EventSheet and that jumped performance to 30fps.

    I then rotated in the EventSheet every other tick(ie updating the image rotation at 30fps) and the game ran at a buttery smooth 60fps. And there was no visual difference.

    Lesson. Don't use Rotate Behaviour. I don't know why. I looked at the code. Doesn't seem like anything would hit performance. But eh.

    oh the game was running on a 6 year old Tegra 2a Tablet. So we are talking pretty old in comparison theses days.

    I had a link to a C2 game. The developer was showing a video of his main menu. Which was an orbital space system. Where clicking on an area woudl scroll the rotating systems to another set of rotating systems. The planets, moons and start acted as the button interface. This ran at 60fps on a 1core chip with 512 mb. Was buttery smooth, supported 3 level deep parallax layering.

    However I will be brutally honest. Due to Scirra not having a lot of value in micro optimization. this put's far more responsibility on the C2 developers. And new C2 developers just can't cope with the heavy rigid performance design. Most just come in and start making a game. Then use C2 in the most intuitive manner possible, because it's so easy. Then find doing so causes extremely bad performance. The few who I have encouraged rigid discipline and listed tend not to have much in the way of performance issues.

  • I helped one of the forum members get his 5fps game that would crash on mobile. To 60fps and memory effecient on the same mobile fps under CrossWalk. Use the info however you want.

    eh. I'll expland

    Scirra promotes a no need to optimize and no need to micro optimize. This however is untrue. Not only should you mirco optimize, you should also be wary of C2 own Plugins. Some of C2 plugins will in fact hit your performance hard in ways you wouldn't think so. However if you take up good game design on your efforts, micro optimize, careful use of plugins, replace plugins in some cases. You can get descent running games on mobile.

    1. Sort you images into types and layers.

    You need to take advantage of C2 quircky texture packing to maximize the WebGL renderer. You won't notice this an issue with small games. You will on bigger ones.

    - All ui images are in one sprite.

    - all platform images are in one sprite.

    so on etc.

    2. Each Sprite Object is it's own texture pack

    Right from the get go this relates to 1. Each Sprite object will pack have it's own images packed into it's own sprite sheet. So if you repeat images in 2 different sprites. Then those images will be repeated in more than 1 sprite sheet. So do number 1 is mandatory.

    3. Behaviours carry performance weight.

    Don't attach plugins willy nilly like theirs no tomorrow. A simple Plugin such as Pin. Has curve based performance reduction. It's strange to think that Pin which figures an XY value hits performances. but it does. A few objects with pin is fine. a few hundred objects with Pin, and then you will start to notice.

    4. Some behaviours are just slow.

    I will use this one as an example. I wanted a rotating background in my game. So I made a 2048 by 2048 image. The game currently ran at 60fps with the background not rotating. As soon as I added Rotate Behaviour the performance dropped to 8fps. whoaawhh

    I switched to rotation in the EventSheet and that jumped performance to 30fps.

    I then rotated in the EventSheet every other tick(ie updating the image rotation at 30fps) and the game ran at a buttery smooth 60fps. And there was no visual difference.

    Lesson. Don't use Rotate Behaviour. I don't know why. I looked at the code. Doesn't seem like anything would hit performance. But eh.

    oh the game was running on a 6 year old Tegra 2a Tablet. So we are talking pretty old in comparison theses days.

    I had a link to a C2 game. The developer was showing a video of his main menu. Which was an orbital space system. Where clicking on an area woudl scroll the rotating systems to another set of rotating systems. The planets, moons and start acted as the button interface. This ran at 60fps on a 1core chip with 512 mb. Was buttery smooth, supported 3 level deep parallax layering.

    However I will be brutally honest. Due to Scirra not having a lot of value in micro optimization. this put's far more responsibility on the C2 developers. And new C2 developers just can't cope with the heavy rigid performance design. Most just come in and start making a game. Then use C2 in the most intuitive manner possible, because it's so easy. Then find doing so causes extremely bad performance. The few who I have encouraged rigid discipline and listed tend not to have much in the way of performance issues.

    +1 for whole post

    anyway it would be nice if some behaviors could be optimized by Scirra too (AFAIK platformer behavior is heavy too)

  • jayderyu

    this should be an article not just reply, please do it.

    and i don't understand number 1 : how to put all images into one sprite ?!

    About rotation: do you mean not to use rotation behavior and use just "rotate" action in Event sheet every 0.0333 secs ?

    Thanks a lot

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