Tips for speeding up frame loading?

The initialization routine is your best bet here. What I would do is this:
Create the splash loading screen on the frame before-hand, after 5%, call the next frame. That's your first jump done. Preload your loading materials on the next frame ready, so the user doesn't see the transition. Start it off at 5%. Then, call your initialization loop to start loading the level.

So pretty much what you got above, I think, from what I can see. I always create the same loading assets on the frame beforehand, so they are most definitely created before the load of the next frame and the user can see it is indeed loading. Fusion then loads the next frame where the transition can't be seen as it's preloaded them up. Then in the background you can work loading up your level with the loops etc. until completion.

Yes, however, you don't need to set them global to be kept in memory. If the images are used in both frames, they will be kept in memory. This is a great advantage of the Fusion 2.5 runtime, you could preload all of your heavy graphics across previous frames or (a loading frame) before hand and they will all be kept in memory if they are to be used in the next frame.

It's a very cool and handy thing to know, especially if you're looking to create a more seamless and realistic loading sequence.

Also when it comes to purging ram, unfortunately it can't be done manually but the routines the runtime uses, garbage is automatically dealt with when not needed. This is to keep the game performance as optimised as possible.

So practically i make a seperate frame where i load from my Array and create the objects i need. Switch to my game frame where it places Everything to X/Y positions?

Quote from Volnaiskra

Ok, so am I right to suppose that if an object is used in frame 1 and frame 2, it gets kept in memory. But if it only gets used in frame 1 and frame 3, then it'll automatically get purged at the beginning of frame 2, and then need to load again at frame 3?

That's correct. It's a cool thing to know, especially for creating loading frames prior to the actual game frame, giving you time to actually load the assets into memory.

Quote from zip2kx

So practically i make a seperate frame where i load from my Array and create the objects i need. Switch to my game frame where it places Everything to X/Y positions?

Sure you can do that. You will still need to reload them at the start of the game frame to ensure everything you needed to load is loaded but they will be memory-ready for when the next frame loads.

Thanks danny!

Hey Volnaiskra,

I wrote an article on it a few days back

Please login to see this link.

PNG will Alpha does take up a lot of memory. I only use PNG32 for characters and UI or objects that need good clarity. Everything else I use PNG24 for objects that the user will see but not pay attention to and PNG8 or JPG for anything that I can viably get away with...

I thought it didn't matter what you imported your images as? Besides the alpha channel being a memory hog, doesn't Fusion convert them to whatever internal format it uses? So it wouldn't matter if you saved your images as PNG, JPG or BMP.

I mean, it would only really make a difference if the original image had less colors (less memory usage).

Fusion does save in its own format internally but PNG with alpha take up much more than a standard jpg/png24. Fusion still retains the alpha channel.

Size matters. A 14kb jpg is going to be much more efficient than using a 264kb png with alpha. You probably wouldn't notice on small to medium sized games but you certainly would with large games, especially on mobile where gpu and memory are crucial.

Sorry about the late response Vol, I wanted to clarify 100% with Yves but Fusion 2.5 converts to 24-bit upon import (retaining an alpha channel if needed). So even though it may also seem redundant to export your images out of Photoshop/Fireworks at 8-bit, it is still warranted to keep the filesize down if you want to stick to keen optimization.