A couple of questions about rendering&performance.

First off, these questions aren't exactly urgent (the post is made on a smartphone to pass time), but i'd like to have them answered anyways.

Recently, i've started making a game for mobile platforms that would utilize CocoonJS, however i'm not very optimistic about the performance. Since i read in the manual, that rendering consumes about 90% of the memory used by the applications, i won't concentrate on scripting.

This brings up my first question.

While i can't test on a smartphone, i have an old laptop that should be comparable in performance. It's a Dell Latitide D510: 1,7Ghz CPU, 64Mb VRAM (no shaders, no WebGL), and 512Mb of RAM. Would testing on it yield similar framerates to those of CocoonJS app on a modern smartphone?

Second question.

The game will have a native resolution of 720x480, so it should scale comparably well on most screens, however i was wondering about performance on smaller screens. Say, a 320x240 screen is used - will the screen be rendered in 720x480 in memory and then rescaled, or will it be rendered directly in the screen's resolution?

Third question.

How effective is texture rescaling, vs having textures premade in desired resolution? File sizes aside, i was wondering if the VRAM usage would be the same for a 16x16 textire rescaled to 32x32 and a 32x32 texture (no interpolation), since they should take up the same space on the screen (but then again, they are of different resolutions)?

Fourth question.

Would having multiple settings for texture quality work, if i'd store the different quality textures in animation frames? Are all of these pre-loaded into memory, or are they loaded only upon appearing in layout/ on screen?

Fifth question.

I read that the screen is only re-drawn on mobile if it changes (e.g. a sprite moves). Is this true? If so, could i make a limited framerate by executing movement and other visual changes only in set intervals? Say, nest everything under a "every 0.05 seconds" condition (20 fps). Also, if this'd work, could i use separate "every x seconds" events with the same values to achieve the desired effect (would they synchronize), or would i have to set up calls from a function?

/off the record question.

How strict are Scirra guys about legal policies? Say, can i make prototypes for my game on a pirated copy (because the odds of me completing the project are slim, but i need those features) without getting into trouble? Furthermore, if i can't scrape together the money for purchasing the license initially, would the devs close their eyes if i released from a pirated copy and bought it afterwards?

That's it for now, perhaps more questions coming...

How strict are Scirra guys about legal policies? Say, can i make prototypes for my game on a pirated copy (because the odds of me completing the project are slim, but i need those features) without getting into trouble? Furthermore, if i can't scrape together the money for purchasing the license initially, would the devs close their eyes if i released from a pirated copy and bought it afterwards?

This is a joke, right?

No it's not.

I live in Latvia (a pretty poor country), i am a teenager with little income, my GPU died, platform stores need registration fees, CocoonJS probably will at one point.

Purchasing something while knowing that i might not finish a project (no revenue) is a waste of money.

As for the second part, it's more of a theoretical question (how fast would the devs detect me?).

I guess it'd be what you call a "bottom line" scenario - e.g. i release an app with free and paid versions, free having admob banners as a part of gameplay (clicking grants a one-time bonus of some sort; used for repetetive actions) and hope that revenues add up before i'm detected. What would happen if i failed (legal action)? How long do you think would getting money for a license take (on a pretty mediocre product, something like doodle jump; a casual game)? The way i see it, a chance of a purchase is better than no purchase at all!

But i'm not here to condone piracy (i am just being curious about if/how it would/n't work), i'd just like to ask some questions... So, anyone have any data on the previous questions? Perhaps any information about new developers' average revenues?

1) You should test on a range of devices to get a feel for performance. There are no definite answers about how devices compare.

2) It will render directly to the smaller size, which will be faster.

3) VRAM usage is based only on the source image size - the size it's drawn at is irrelevant. So a 32x32 image takes up 4x as much VRAM as a 16x16 image.

4) No, because you'd just use up even more VRAM. The C2 engine loads entire sprites in to memory at once (all animations and all frames).

5) It's true the screen is only redrawn when everything changes, but you should not try to make your own framerate limiter like that. It will not work smoothly because 'Every X seconds' does not have sufficient resolution to achieve that timing well.

6) Obviously we do not want to talk in detail about how we deal with piracy. We're aware piracy is a fact of software development and basically cannot be avoided, but we work really hard to ensure legitimate customers are getting a better product than the pirates. We have the right to take legal action if you do not use the correct software license.

Stiivais:

I'm from Ukraine and this is poor country too, but thanks to the scholarship - I bought C2 this spring. So try to find legal decision. Personal license - it's a stable updates and more-more... And you support developers what mean that C2 will be better

Thank you for the responses, guys!

A great and helpful community, as always.

It might seem that i've made some bold statements, so i'll just clear this up:

i intended to use a pirated version of the software for development and testing, and once i'm able to afford it (i do get scholarship, but only as long as my avg. grade is above 80%, 40$ a month; but then again, development takes a long time too), i'd buy a personal license and export the game. Being impatient and curious, i wondered about "alternatives" (feel free to dislike me for this)...

To be honest, i really wanted to know more about the methods of how i'd be detected (and how much mediocre developers make, on a side note), but i also realize why you'd rather not talk about it. I guess i'll just study hard and wait!

/ramblings

Just 1 more little detail:

Could you elaborate a little more, why my attempt at capping framerate wouldn't work (seemed to work on a loader layout i made)? How would you go on about implementing something similar? Or should i skip the idea entirely?

Thanks again, also, sorry if you feel like i offended you guys (i simply tend to be egoistic/ignorant).

Wow, this is the first time I've ever seen someone ask on a forum directly about if it's ok to pirate their software...

But yeah, if Scirra gave you the exception since "you are poor", then that would make it unfair for all users that have bought it legitimately. And if EVERYONE had Construct 2 for free because they are poor, then Scirra wouldn't make money and wouldn't progress and we'd all be sad :( lol. I admire your humbleness though, you aren't trying to be nasty or against Scirra, but it's pretty crazy to see someone saying this on here! <img src="smileys/smiley22.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Didn't ask for an exception to be made, just asked what's the average detection time / percentage (i am somewhat curious, as stated previously), and of what magnitude are the possible consequences of being caught. It's irrelevant, though, since i don't intend to release a game and profit off of it with a pirated copy (again, stated earlier, "closing eyes" didn't mean ignoring the fact altogether, just not instantly suing).

The thing is, i just don't feel like being a hypocrite about pirating software. If i can afford it, i buy it. If otherwise, i look for other options. Simply put, i can't make the project with the limitations of the free version, however i also can't just purchase the software and start working on the project (i first need to see if i am capable of making what i intend to), if i manage to achieve my results and i have the money, i'll buy it. If not, i'll drop the project, Scirra's license terms won't get abused and no harm will be done. Plain and simple.

But please, this post was supposed to be about the techinal aspects of the Construct, let's not derail it any further.

Well there's a few things you need to realize.

1. You can't derail this train wreck.

2. This isn't a third world issue. Simply being online implies you are better off than many others. So asking for sympathy is like stealing from the candy store, rather than the bread store.

3. Pirates aren't profitable.

You're basically asking for information on how to circumvent our detection of pirates, on our own forum. That seems a little bold. Closing this thread.