Disappointed over bad communications!!!

Ashley, I'm going to risk exposing my limited knowledge here... Is there scope for setting alpha masks for transparent objects somehow? A big change, I know, but if you can define what not to draw then the alpha problem might be manageable.

Nobody has answered my question and I'm genuinely curious.

Why is mobile performance of C2 games so bad? Is it the fault of the HTML5 wrappers?

Nobody has answered my question and I'm genuinely curious.

Why is mobile performance of C2 games so bad? Is it the fault of the HTML5 wrappers?

The simplest answer is:

Mobiles are far less powerfull than desktops and to get good performance on mobile a game/app needs way more optimisation.

It will take a lot of bad programming and bad use of system recourses before a desktop gets into trouble.

Mobiles on the other hand, having less power and recourses, are far more likely to get into trouble when processor-time/graphic-abilities are mis-used.

The biggest challenge of programming is working within limitations and making it appear there are none..

Nobody has answered my question and I'm genuinely curious.

Why is mobile performance of C2 games so bad? Is it the fault of the HTML5 wrappers?

Partially, users are partially faulty but wrappers in their current state are not that great, it was also hinted that it could be because C2 games runs only on one core, but that is something I am not sure about, more profiling tests and comparisons between wrappers and browsers would be nice to have to awnser that question exactly.

LittleStain

"The biggest challenge of programming is working within limitations and making it appear there are none.."

Very true, however, said limitations seems pretty blurry at the moment, which does not help as two systems can react differently while having the same type of hardware, and sometimes a better hardware will not support correctly something, hard to define the limits and so, to work with them.

LittleStain

Thanks for the reply, but all that is mostly obvious, at least to me. But some here are talking about a very basic crappy bird clone that can't run smoothly.

But like I said above I made a very simple game, no physics, one layout, just using bullet behaviour, performance with Crosswalk 10 is awful (little better with 7).

It only has 32 events and I can't optimise it any more. This is tested on a Note3 and S4.

Very true, however, said limitations seems pretty blurry at the moment, which does not help as two systems can react differently while having the same type of hardware, and sometimes a better hardware will not support correctly something, hard to define the limits and so, to work with them.

I agree, the limitations could and should be a lot clearer and more predictable.

"Build once, publish anywhere" is too bold of a statement at this time.

for me a a single sprite with bullet behavior is jerking on PC and S4 using CHROME!

if chrome has some / lot bugs as mentioned, i wonder WHY the perfered exporting way is to use Intel XDK and Crosswalk, which is also based on Chrome!?

capx:

http://www.floerl.cc/jerk_bullet_on_Chrome.capx

[quote:tqhjnv27] wonder WHY the perfered exporting way is to use Intel XDK and Crosswalk, which is also based on Chrome!?

Chrome being bad is.. new. It's something that happened over the last 2 months. Before there were sporadic problems, but they really came down hard.

Also there's still no better alternative.

I think it all went wrong with chrome 37 in Aug 2014 and it hasn't fully recovered yet. Begs a lot of questions about how Google's hundreds of engineers actually test what they've done, but here we are.

I love C2, and really feel scirra have created an awesome product.

But sadly as it stands it seems that C2 is a prototype/learning tool - at this stage there are no export options that produce satisfactory results for serious game development - or at least that how many of us feel.

Chrome is now a bug - don't use it!

To address the constant barrage of performance complaints I really feel that scirra needs to build a real world game with their own product.

This will provide at leaste three benefits:

A showcase game that demononstrates the power of C2. An example/model of how to use this tool effectively/correctly. An opportunity for scirra to see what issues are faced in a project with more than one layout and a few events.

If anyone can make a game that works with satisfactory results with current exporters, scirra can!

If scirra can pull it off - then it will be proof that the product is fine, the exporters are acceptable, and all the complainers just have to buckle down and learn to use C2 properly. However I suspect that the end result would be as frustrating for scirra as they are for the developers of the shiny examples on the scirra home page.

I'm kind of sorry to read so many bad experiences but also of the kind of aggressive tone that is struck when it comes to addressing the Scirra People themselves.

Me, i haven't even finished a proper Game yet, so i'm still learning and exporting to Mobile doesn't interest me too much (PC foreva!!) so of course, it's easy for me to say.

Nevertheless, i kinda had a thought, which probably is too much to tackle for the Guys and i rather have them doing what they do best: making Construct a better Tool but here it is:

How about doing a Crowdfunding campaign to pay a Coder to do C2 optimized Wrappers for all the major Platforms and then make those Open Source so it will be maintained by the Community? This way, no Time is getting taken away from developing C2 and no overhead is created of maintaining it...

Just a thought, i really love C2 and what it does for me and if it just stays a Hobby, so be it. It was still worth every Cent I know it is probably frustrating for someone longer around than me to never being able to publish his stuff properly on the Platform of Choice but i would never not recommend C2 to anyone because even if you won't make your Blockbuster Game in it it is still a great Way to learn about Game Making and i'm pretty certain as HTML 5 matures more, so will C2.

[quote:1v7s14gv]

Also there's still no better alternative.

Thats all? Other game makers does not have such performance issues.

For now, CS2 and Crosswalk10 is complete useless. Dont know if its just the combination.

Try to export my sample above (just 2 sprites and one with the bullet behavior) using Cs2 200 and crosswalk10 and see that the bullet sprite is jerking.

for now CS2 is not able to export a game to android which is running smooth - 2 sprites.

From CS2 side its not very helpfull to point every time on Intel, Crosswalk, bad hardware...

[quote:2gjcebyr]Thats all? Other game makers does not have such performance issues.

There are not many event/gui-based HTML5 game engines I know of, but those that I know of suffer from the exact same problem for the same reason.

The interesting question is: Why do so many people buy a HTML5 engine if they don't want one? The "we can export with wrappers!!!"-thing came as a bonus over time and is still just a bunch of hacks.

For sure we want a html5 game maker but there must be a reason why 2 sprites are junking when i export a game with the prefered android export procedure intel xdk and crosswalk.

Ive read nearly all performace issues in the scirra forum and every time scirra is pointing on others instead of helping the people and thats frustrating and thats also why this post was opened

Heres the problem I'm having.

I wrote a game in C2 on a layout that was 1024 by 768. Everything seemed fine on my desktop. When I put it on my iphone though it was REALLY SMALL.

Ashley, can I send you my capx and can you explain why it is so small on my IPhone?

yours

Winkr7