I need your help to figure out Airscape's performance issues

Hi all,

Having the same performance issue when running 'No More Probes' on MacBook Pro 13' 2015. I am not sure why, but when I run the game in browser the fps is around 58, but when I start the game from a nw it goes to 28-29.

When I shrink the window size it goes to 60. Is this to be expected?

Did you try to add --ignore-gpu-blacklist to your package.json?

NW is insanely picky when it comes to Mac GPU models.

Aurel

I am quite new to osx, so can you explain it a bit more.

From what I read in this topic, running c2 games on mac is not desirable as you will get performance issues? Am I correct or there is a way to run your games and still get 60 fps.

EDIT: OK, I have selected 'Get Info', then checked 'Open In Low Resolution' and now the game runs at solid 60 frames. Not sure what it does, but it works

When you're exporting your game with NW, it create files. One of them is package.json (on MAC > in "ressources" if I remember well).

You can open it using a basic notepad, and change stuff in it. In this case, add a line to the parameters so your game accept all the graphic cards, and not only the ones accepted by the vanilla node webkit. Some graphic cards are perfectly fine to play C2 games, but are blacklisted for some reason. Even very powerful ones.

You may find some useful things in a previous post I made about exporting for Mac and Linux:

Hey all,

Just another reminder that I'm still looking for people with decent GPU's that experience non-perfect performance in the web demo I posted. If you have a machine with a decent GPU, it would be really helpful if you could quickly try out that web demo, chuck it on auto resolution, fullscreen it, and see if the fps is stable at 60. If not, there's a problem there that needs to be resolved, and I could really use your help figuring it out!

Thanks!

hello.

xeon quad 2.8 GHz

GTX 660Ti 2GB

8GB DDR2

W7Pro 64

runs smooth as butter rock solid 59 FPS

aldo constantly wants to install DX 9 on my machine...

PS.

Game really looks nice

and one advice... lose the need for pressing the "SPACE" key... set teleport to auto.

irina thanks for testing! I'm assuming you're trying the Steam demo?

What's this about DX9?

In regards to the teleporter - it was automatic a little while ago, but people hated it since sometimes you want to walk over it without actually finishing the level. It sort of took control away from the player that they should have had. So yeah, a year or so ago I was agreeing with you but I think at this point the space bar (or whatever you set it to in the remapping!) is just as good.

Hi,

last time i had constantly popup window from steam wanting to update my DX to v.9

But after restart its ok now.

well maybe good solution is that teleport might get jumped over but if walked on or standing on it for one sec it activates... but than again, thats only me

anyway, to me looks realy as AAA product, i love the design and the atmosphere!!!

good work!

All right... Time for a New Development!

For those who don't want to read back through the topic, the current problem is that the game, and even C2 benchmarks, perform really really badly (around 3000 objects max) on Intel integrated Graphics machines. You can test that here. Interestingly, webGL in this instance seems to perform as bad as, or worse, than canvas2D (You can test the same benchmark without webGL here.

Most forum members seemed to think that because the problem happens only on intel iGPU's, the issue must be on Intel's side, as opposed to a problem in C2. The pixi.js BunnyMark test was brought up but since it was quite different from the C2 test it wasn't really seen as a good GPU benchmark, and there wasn't much we could do there.

Today I got fed up with waiting on Intel for a solution, so I thought I'd have another crack at seeing if it is indeed a C2 problem. I downloaded pixi.js, another webGL engine and decided to remake the C2 performance test exactly.

here is the result.

On my machine, the pixi.js test managed 45,000 objects before dipping below 60fps. That equates to a rendering performance over 10 times greater than Construct 2's.

While it's true that pixi.js objects have a lower overhead than C2 objects, and the same can be said about the engine itself, neither of these should come into effect when pure rendering performance is being tested.

As far as I can see, the only reasonable explanation here is that something is wrong with C2's webGL implementation, but for some reason or another it's only evident on intel iGPU's.

Ashley could you look into this?

Everyone else: Any thoughts?

It may be worth it to check also pix.js on a non intel gpu to see if the ratio is still as big, and also to test it with moving objects (note I am on a tablet and the test you brought does not respond to touches so I do not know if those are moving), as there may be a optimisation for non moving objects to prevent rendering them again if not needed on a smaller level than the everything or nothing moves of C2.

Still an intel problem if their gpus reacts differently of course, but if there is something that can benefits everything, might as well do it. It would be interesting to know what they are doing differently (worst case: not using functions because of the intel issue), if it is for a good reason, might be nice.

Aphrodite

As for moving vs nonmoving objects: If you want to test moving objects, use Bunnymark. Also, as for an optimization to not render nonmoving objects - I don't think it's that simple - as far as I can see, there really is no point at all in such an optimization because it would be rendered useless 99% of the time, i.e. with scrolling, or opacity, or anything at all being behind the object...

The problem I'm going to face is Intel telling me it's a C2 problem, since 'it works fine in every engine other than C2!' And others will say it's still an Intel problem, 'because all other GPU's work fine.' We're never going to get anywhere.

Also, hmm, maybe I should make a new topic or something because this really isn't specific to Airscape anymore... even though for some reason nobody else has ever noticed this problem? agh...

sqiddster I understand, and I agree that until we know for sure, both parties should try to improve the situation, also I asked for pix.js on other GPUs as, if it is still much faster than C2, then we would know it is an intel issue BUT that there would be a sorta large room for improvement on the C2 side possibly, which would help everyone I think.

Surprisingly on my nvidia 780 card (newest drivers) with scirra renderperf (webGL version) I get ~112.000 before frames start to drop. On your pixi.js version I get only ~89.000

Don't have any Intel gpu to test thought :/

sqiddster btw. could you in spare time upgrade your benchmark with touch controls? I would really like to see a difference on mobiles between them (scirra and pixi).

sqiddster

Iw tryed that web demo on my old notebook and it runs at 15-20 fps on intel integrated graphics

i dont have steam there so i did not test steam demo.

one thing iw noticed... on notebook iw somehow managed to squeze squidster through wall and into the ocean... got lost and restarted level.

that might point to some issues with fps and delta time? couse i assume thats not supposed to happen!?