Guide to faster games with less memory usage

That was a fast reply, and thank you!

Are they really converted to wavs? That's surprising. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how you would use mp3s in MMF2? I've always known that they had to be converted to Oggs in order to be used.

You can select MP3s when using "Play sample". Some details to care about are mentioned in the help file (Distributing your application-iOS-Differences)
Btw, the format doesn't matter too much in other runtimes, because MMF has a great Wav compression. Unfortunately not in iOS :(

Thank you, you've been very helpful!

does scaling sprites (and handling scaled sprites animations, movements, etc) consume a lot of memory? cause i intend to draw some small graphics in pixel art and then scale them all at like 3x or 4x. would this work?
thanks in advance :)

I recommend reading these docs: http://community.clickteam.com/showthread.php?t=65188&p=491650&viewfull=1#post491 650
The last one in the list will answer your question in detail.

thanks! it seems like it is a good idea then!

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Originally Posted by JoKa

You can select MP3s when using "Play sample". Some details to care about are mentioned in the help file (Distributing your application-iOS-Differences)
Btw, the format doesn't matter too much in other runtimes, because MMF has a great Wav compression. Unfortunately not in iOS :(

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I'd like to know what MMF does to the WAV files during the compilation? I have a nice bunch of WAV musics (3 to 6 Mb each) which sound terrible once I run the app on the device. Unless a better compression can be achieved, I would really like to be able to tell MMF to let my WAV files as they are. Not to mention that the composer I hired for the project would be disappointed to hear what happened to his musics.

EDIT: Let us use the "Compress Sounds" app property?

I think we can't use the compression option because wavs can't be compressed in iOS. About the quality, does the sample rate affect this? Haven't noticed such problems although I always use wavs.

I always use uncompressed WAV files: 44100 Hz 16 bit PCM Stereo. So you think that MMF doesn't compress WAV files when the app is exported to iOS. Could someone confirm this please?

I'm usually using 22050 or 44100 Hz 16 bit PCM Mono, not sure if that makes a difference. Francois mentioned some months ago that there's no Wav compression.

According to Yves the WAV files aren't touched at all. Only OGG, MOD and AIF files are converted into WAV at export time.
Maybe you can send me a WAV file to test on?

That's nice of you, mail sent.

After listening more carefully to the file on the PC, and setting the volume to the max, I could hear the annoying roar/buzz. So the problem is the audio file itself. I'm very sorry for the bothering! :p

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Originally Posted by Anders

Most graphics doesn't need 100% crispness and quality. It will only take 1/4th of the previous memory usage if you cut your image size in half and then at runtime scale it to 2.0. It will also run much faster as it utilizes the graphics card RAM cache much better.

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what's better for performance: many backdrop object at full size, or many active objects (with no collision detection) scaled to 2.0 at runtime?
thanks in advance :)

I'm working on a project right now, and it was getting 35 fps in one part of the game where I was rotating several active objects that were using the add effect. Changing the effect to none and using a graphic that had an alpha layer instead has bumped the fps up to 46.

With this change in performance, I can only assume that the ink effects are a little slower than using an alpha layer.

In theory the performance should be the same. If all the active objects are drawn sequentially there should be no difference. OpenGL mostly only have slowdowns when changing many rendering and texture parameters. Are you testing this on the simulator or on the device itself? The simulator cannot be trusted when it comes to graphics performance as it is drawing using completely different techniques (CPU rendering instead of HWA)

The fps testing I did was on my device (iPod touch 4th generation).

May I ask approximately how much memory on average would be reasonable for an ios game nowadays (for retina devices) ? Thanks for the guide btw.

I just tested it on a very high end device (Nexus 4 by Google/LG) and this :
Always
-> Add 1 to counter
When the counter is text-type, the app becomes a framerate and memory eater !
Thanks a lot for these tips !

I was thinking about a thing after I read (I cant find it but I think it was here) that all the animation frames in an object takes up performance even when they are not displayed. So if that is the case, say I am making a level generator that put out 1000 blocks for the level (they need to be actives). Is it better to have 4 different blocks (normal, right wall, left wall and so on..) instead of having one block object but just change its animation depending on what it should look like?

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Originally Posted by Anders

Tip:
Try to make your graphics of a size close to something of a power-of-two. It will waste less precious memory.
A power of two size is one of the following: 8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024
Images less than 8x8 pixels will be stored in a 8x8 texture as they cannot be smaller than that.
You can easily use different sizes for your width and height, they don't have to be equal.

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Hi, where can I find more information about this? And would this be a good practice even when making games for the PC?

Edit: What I really want to know is how this helps to use less memory.

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Originally Posted by ezzypixel

Hi, where can I find more information about this? And would this be a good practice even when making games for the PC?

Edit: What I really want to know is how this helps to use less memory.

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It helps to use less memory because of the GPU, though I'm not 100% sure the exact reason, you could probably look it up on the internet (try searching "GPU texture power of 2" or something like that). I don't think it makes the app take up less hard drive/flash drive/etc. space, though, but it's still an important thing. It also helps make PC games take up less memory, but, since PCs have a lot more memory, it isn't as big of a problem there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ezzypixel

Hi, where can I find more information about this? And would this be a good practice even when making games for the PC?

Edit: What I really want to know is how this helps to use less memory.

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This would only benefit HWA PC games and not standard. This is because the HWA version utilises the GPU to render and draw as opposed to the CPU.

Thanks, Danny, & Happygreenfrog.

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Originally Posted by Danny

This would only benefit HWA PC games and not standard.

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So do you mean like using the DirectX9 display mode as opposed to standard?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Danny

This is because the HWA version utilises the GPU to render and draw as opposed to the CPU.

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So the GPU uses power of 2 for mapping and CPU doesn't?

Edit: Also, I've read more on the subject, so I've become a little more knowledgable about it.

This have been asked before by other users but no answer:

1) To make a background out of 12 unique active static objects 256x256px, each containing 1 frame is better performance wise than making 1 object with 12 frames and duplicate the object 12 times?
Worded differently, is it better to use duplicates containing many frames or use many unique objects with 1 frame?

2) Duplicate frames in an animations? Do they take up space in a spritesheet and therefor memory?

2) Background images lowers performace more than a static object? So as a rule thumb maybe not use them at all?