Tilemap versus PNG image for Layer?

I've spent several days testing both issues so I'm not trying to get work done for me.

I'm making a dungeon crawler and I've imported a Tiled (TMX file) for my Layer_0 background. I've also saved my TMX as an image file (PNG) inside of Tiled and imported that as my background into C2.

After setting up my hero to run around (which works very good), I run the debug window and the statistics are not that different between the two. However, my hero works much smoother with the PNG background.

My concern is that since I've only been using C2 for a week, there may be issues down the road that I'm not aware of now in choosing whether to use the Tilemap or the PNG option for all of my maps. Animations, enemy interactions, finding gems and items, etc.. I've already been cutting my sprites out of tilemaps inside of Photoshop to use on the PNG background, versus just using those sprites from the tile map inside of C2 with a TMX map.

I'm very much concerned about how much smoother things work on a PNG, and the collision checks are less when my hero is not running around on 24x24 tiles.

I've read the manual section on Tilemaps several times, but I had trouble understanding some of it. So I have been researching this as much as I know how.

What am I not seeing here? Which would be the better option?

Thank you in advance.

Tilemaps should only be used if your background is made up of reusable images, i.e. the tiles. Otherwise if it's just a single individual image then it should be a png. You should split your png into sections no bigger than 512x512 though and reassemble them in construct.

After setting up my hero to run around (which works very good)

Have you tried put just the itens you want to verify in the debug "watch" tab (clicking the eye).

For me, the main debug tab run things slowly on Mobile.

I haven't used the watch in debug yet but I'm sure I will. I used it often in Visual Studio and relied on it.

I will slice my images in Photoshop then and continue to use PNG files for my maps. I build them with tiles but I don't need to have them tiled in C2 that I know of. I just wondered if for reasons I'm not knowing of now I should use tile maps.

Thank you both for your replies!

I would strongly recommend you do not compose layouts from large images. It is extremely wasteful of memory. See remember not to waste your memory