nw.dll weighs ~90mb of my 130 mb game, what is it?

That's my game, in the sig.

Performance is outstanding. Not a concern with the latest chromium powered NWjs.

That's not to say there's no issues, there certainly are, but performance for desktop is not one of them.

I might end up with approximately 250~300 mb in game size from my calculations (as I have not yet decided to stay with retro or go with more complex design). Maybe. Add to that ~130 handicap.

No problems there. There are games (a lot) larger than that made with C2 available on Steam.

[quote:2oobxp7m]If your gf/wife bought a dress with a hole in the back especially to go to a play at the theathre, would you tell her that its doesnt matter as mostly she will be sitting through the play? What if there is standing ovation? And what about the journey to and from the theathre?

Maybe a better comparison would be if she had bought clothes that had extra 50 kg weight, and you were about to go hiking.

OK.

Anyone tried any of the other html5 wrappers?

What are the sizes of those?

to me NW.js file size is not a problem, but I feel is (as I previously posted it) not reliable.

With the last alpha and latest C2 version I cannot use the debugger as an example, and with just a prototype game I have sometimes slow downs in fps which are sudden drops.

In my case, I'm (sadly) slowly moving to Game Maker which represents for me to learn a new software plus learn the coding language as well.

R0J0hound

Well I wouldnt want to get my hands dirty in the source files for chrome, as obvioulsy I shy away from non-visual programing and the likes.

I would rather use that time to focus on designing my game, as is the idea of visual programing software. Altough I hear what you are saying regarding the size matter not affecting performance, since you have some experience in C2 judging by your coding examples in the forums.

I just would like to ask have you not seen posts that state something different in regards to file sizes above 600mb?

—

Thanks for your screen and information regarding this issue. What is interesting to me is that your dll is around 66mb and mine is around 90mb, while my game is around 130mb with 20 sprites with sizes lower than 128x128 or 64x64 pixels for each sprite and as I mentioned before 495 events and 1 particle system with a 12x12 sprite so far.

This is my screen:

Could you roughly estimate your event number, spirte number and game size while having the nw.dll at 66mb?

What is interesting that when exporting an empty scene today, with no sprites or no events I ended up with a nw.dll that wieghed 129 mb(!) as I did end up mentioning earlier in the thread. Just crazy stuff.

Is it possible for you to export an empty scene with NW.js and see what size is your nw.dll file in that empty scene?

Regarding your other problems with your game do they strictly have to do with NW.js export? (not meaning to go off topic as this thread is about the nw.dll file being large and no info speaking of this anywhere to be seen, but I am curious regarding this matter)

newt

It would be nice to know any other wrapping alternatives, perphaps Ill look for those on the forums but once again, the time I spend on this I would rather focus on game dev.

—

Regarding the debugger, it seems to work for me now. Have you been messing with holding down the ctrl key and scrolling the mouse wheel up and down while in the browser? I did that while thinking Ive switched windows and it somehow impacted the performance of the debugger as it maxed out the quality of the html5 output in the browser I think. Altough be warned to this at your own risk I spend some time trying to fix this, in the end I did but dont remember how exaclty (this has something to do with scaling up and down the content/text in firefox).

As for NW.js being not reliable, what arguments have you got behind this? Just curious as we are close to the subject (if you want to share).

I really do wonder what exactly goes in there (I roughly know its all to do with runfiles for chromium standalone) and why does my empty Nw.js file differ to others (if that is the case).

It would be nice if anyone else could export an empty NW.js file and compare the nw.dll size.

I am curious wether this the size of this nw.dll increases with the size/concent of the NW.js file? But that doesnt make sense when an empty NW.js I made had a ~129 mb nw.dll file size.

(EDIT: the nw.dll size is different for both win32 and win64 - on win32 it weighs ~60mb, on win64 around ~90.)

Why is it that I'm not seeing this file that you guys have? Is it because I'm still using a win32 machine? Right now my entire game is under 130 mb, exported.

Quicksand - the file is there in Win32 too ("nw.dll"), but in win32 it weighs ~68mb. In Win64 it weighs ~90, just noticed that difference now as I am on a Win64 OS... If your game is 130 mb at this stage it means that your game is 130 - ~60 = about 70 mb without the wrapper. Thats for win32 desktop. For win64 it would be 70 + ~90 = 160mb.

Which brings me to another question — - are you using Win32 or Win64 to export/show the size of the nw.dll on the screen? My bets now are that you are using Win32.

—

Thanks for your screen and information regarding this issue. What is interesting to me is that your dll is around 66mb and mine is around 90mb, while my game is around 130mb with 20 sprites with sizes lower than 128x128 or 64x64 pixels for each sprite and as I mentioned before 495 events and 1 particle system with a 12x12 sprite so far.

This is my screen:

Could you roughly estimate your event number, spirte number and game size while having the nw.dll at 66mb?

What is interesting that when exporting an empty scene today, with no sprites or no events I ended up with a nw.dll that wieghed 129 mb(!) as I did end up mentioning earlier in the thread. Just crazy stuff.

Is it possible for you to export an empty scene with NW.js and see what size is your nw.dll file in that empty scene?

Regarding your other problems with your game do they strictly have to do with NW.js export? (not meaning to go off topic as this thread is about the nw.dll file being large and no info speaking of this anywhere to be seen, but I am curious regarding this matter)

win32 export has a smaller dll, and it also runs faster.

Unless you absolutely need above 4GB ram usage, exporting to 32 bit is much better as it runs on 32 bit OS AND 64 bit OS (all my test rigs are 64bit).

I've got 17K events and thousands of sprites and particles (I stopped counting). Native 1920 x 1080.

And it runs really well on PCs from 2006, on integrated Intel GPUs... can't really complain about performance at all TBH. Unity would be struggling on that hardware with my scene complexity.

The other issues are MAC & Linux exports being broken with recent NWjs alphas (which are required due to fixing memory leaks and additional performance gains). Then the lack of Steam integration, it's a waiting game as each new iteration of NWjs requires an iteration of GreenWorks adapted to C2..

So it's not perfect, far from it. But for PC (AND iOS!), performance is outstanding.

— - good to know, seems all this racket I is blown out of proportion.

60 mb sounds better than 90 that is for sure and in win32 my game is 107mb.

Just one last thing if you could answer even roughly within what range does your total game size fall under?

— - good to know, seems all this racket I is blown out of proportion.

60 mb sounds better than 90 that is for sure and in win32 my game is 107mb.

Just one last thing if you could answer even roughly within what range does your total game size fall under?

~420MB.

There's bigger C2 games. I optimize my sprite usage for low memory footprint.

Solomon

Double the file size in x64 comparatively to 32 bits.

Also, 32 bits not working at all. I cannot start the exported file.

The debugger is not working, and a few users in the forums are experiencing the same problem with the same versions of C2 and NW.js.

NW.js in the past had several issues with performance and this worries me.

I think maybe the reason I'm not seeing any nw.dll is because I haven't upgraded to the new alpha yet. Are the issues with saving in the newer NW alphas been solved or worked around yet?

Quicksand

Known issues are in C2's beta release notes. Nw.js is correcting most of the issues rather quickly though.

Solomon

The size of that dll likely would be different every time nw.js gets an update but it should stay around the same. It is possible to compress the dll with compressor like upx, which sounds like it can almost half the file size on the disk.

Anyways a 600 Mb project is possible. The events and layouts of the project only add kilobytes to the size whereas assets like images, sounds and videos will be what makes your project that big.

What exactly is the problem with some large files? Sure, I guess it's quite a large number, but what really is the concern? If you're worried about download size, then you'd be crazy not to compress it, in which case the total numbers are 46mb for win32 and 55mb for win64 for moderate compression (just Windows' add-to-zip feature, so you could probably get it lower with better compression), still not a lot compared to the average desktop game download and not long to download on broadband. For the uncompressed size of ~130mb, are you worried about the disk space it uses up? This is a drop in the bucket for most modern desktop systems, which easily have hundreds of gigabytes of permanent storage. Maybe you think it affects performance? It's large because it's bundling the entire Chromium browser engine, which has generally had the best performance of any browser - file size does not itself affect that. For example modern operating systems are efficiently designed enough to not even read from disk parts of a DLL/executable file that are not executed, and CPU caches are only concerned with the data that is actively in use. So it's perfectly possible that a very large file still be highly efficient. (Consider also most operating systems themselves are very efficient these days, but have colossal install footprints in the gigabytes.)

If you are anticipating a 200-300mb project (presumably the compressed figure, since usually most of that is already-compressed PNG, Ogg Vorbis, etc) then an extra 55mb is only a moderate overhead relative to the size of the game itself. If you had a small project then it can be a high overhead relative to the size of the game, but then you can work around it another way: everyone in the world already has a browser installed on their computer, and you can publish as a HTML5 game to the web, with no overhead at all.

We've been using node-webkit/NW.js for a long time now, and very few people have complained about the filesize. I don't think it really materially affects anything.

Ashley

Now this might make me unpopular here on the forums but as you have not addressed what I have written in the posts here I will once again write it out so that this time you can adress these worries of mine.

What exactly is the problem? Well I have mentioned that in my previous posts here but you did not seem to adress it. So I am reminding you of the parts which were directed strictly at you:

[quote:5ivvus3v]Why is this information not in a FAQ or anywhere that is visible? Why have potiential C2 licence buyers, like myself before purchasing C2 licence, have not been informed about this?

I for one would like to produce games strictly for PC, and as you might imagine adding 130 (!) mb to my game from the beginning is such a huge handicap, its mind blowing to me.

[quote:5ivvus3v]How about having a NW.js export in free version with a big massive Scirra watermark and a 320x240 resolution limit? And a big notice stating: this NW.js export is from the free C2 version, and is not allowed for commercial distribution. And 20 seconds play time the most before the NW.js window closes. Now does that not sound fair?

The first problem I have is of a marketing nature, and of "buying" a cat in bag sort of scenario, at least when it comes to this part of C2.

Do you think it is fair to not give a person the chance to try out an export of your only standalone method of publishing for the PC and not inform about add additional handicap which is present at this situation?

Do you think the answer is just to brush this off and say: eh you can always use html5 to export, as that was not my main reason for purchasing C2?

I for one will say that you sound quite arrogant saying that there is no problem whatsoever. If there is no problem perfomance wise (which I am reading just now in your post and in some of the previous posts) there is a problem of a more moral standing - how this was not mentioned.

It is plain to see that this feature of C2 not mentioned anywhere, nor was it available to test out.

How about adding this to a FAQ, and writing there the things you have told me just now after me trying to figure what was going on.

• Every exported game for standalone PC wil have an additional 60 to 90 mb increase in size after export to our standalone PC app version.

You can always zip this (well to be honest do you think I dont know one can zip a file? and guess what, a file that is 60~90 mb less, wieighs even less when it is zipped!) or you can use our html5 export if it doesnt suit you.

Now as a customer that doesnt want to export html5 ---- as I can only publish this to the web if I want to preview it and not even launch from my computer, as is not the case with NW.js, does not cut if for me.

Now once again, did you mention this in your previous post? The fact that substituting NW.js for html5 will only allow you to run html5 once it is published on the web and not straight from my computer? How is it ok for you to compare these two if the workflow regarding publishing both is different?

That there are additional steps that I need to make, get a web page, upload it have it published on the internet - but hey you will just brush it off once more and say - well then do it!

Well no I dont want to do it. I want to get what has been marketed and introduced to me in the free version and in the information on the main page.

There is also the question me wanting (possibly after a probable kickstarter campain) to distribute my game on a dvd/cd rom. Now how is that possible with html5, since html5 needs to be published on the web? Im not sure here that is why I am asking, it might be possible, in which case I am wrong.

[quote:5ivvus3v]So it's perfectly possible that a very large file still be highly efficient

/b]

This is your quote and I would like to remind you that "possible" is not the same as "for sure" or "100% yes". "Possible" = might be yes, might be no. It might be possible.

But I suggest we compare apples to apples, comparing a game to an operating system is not that.

Lets compare games to games, export options to export options. Html5 ---> on the internet, NW.js ----> on your hard drive.

I have bought your software not because it is html5, but because it is a visual-programming software that is easier for beginners. There is information about stand alone export with NW.js without going into the details of, yes I will mention this once again - adding 60~90 mb to ones game.

So to summarize what I would like you to adress if I may as your customer:

1) How is it that this information is nowhere to be learned - the fact that NW.js is 60-90 mb larger once exported.

Again saying that I could use html5 as a substitute does not cut it as these do not work under the same conditions - NW.js being straight out of desktop, and html5 needing to be exported to the web. Can you imagine that for some this is a deal breaker? Also some people - like me for example do not want to publish to web. I only hope you dont start talking about how its better to publish to web, because as you know this thread is not about the reasons for publishing to web or not.

2) Why is there no way to test out NW.js export even under very strict limitations and still not inform people about the additional mb's?

Saying stuff about piracy here I dont think will be adequate as Ive read information - here on Scirra forums, that people use 3rd party wrappers to export games from their free version of C2. I dont know how that works or even if its true but that is what Ive read.

3) Why is there no information about this size increase and that altough this increase in size is there, it will in no way possible affect performance (only download times). That this has to be learned by spending 1 day on the forum - and by asking around.

4) How can you compare hmtl5 export to NW.js export (especially to a customer that does not want to use html5) when both differ in the process of export and I imagine in the process of distribution.

5) Is it possible to distribute a html5 exported game from C2 on DVD? ( why do I have the feeling that you will write about NW.js being 60-90 mb bigger will be of no problem on Dvd - but again that was not the question - remember it is you who suggested html5 export if I dont like the +60~90 mb).

If anything I posted here is not true I will back down from it - here on the forums. But if what I have written is true - I will stand by it.

I understand that after this post my stay here at the forums might be unwelcome. If that is the case so be it I will pack my bags and leave.

I will risk this if it means that I can speak my mind freely regarding issues that I see as problematic for me.