Extreme Lag on Older Devices

Hey guys, another problem I've come across recently.

My app, a basic Minesweeper, runs EXTREMELY laggy both in Menus and in-Game. Occasionally it can lag up to 5 seconds between frame changes.

Problem Devices
iPod Touch 3G/4G
iPhone 3GS

I tried other games made with MMF2 (Plasmatron, Pocket Ninjas) on these devices, and while they ran slower than a 4 or 4S, they were WAY less laggy than a simple Minesweeper game, where the only "action" on-screen is clearing blank tiles out of the way, and super basic transition-less menu frames.

Troubleshooting
1. Are there settings in Xcode that might be the cause?
2. I notice some frames run at 35mb, how is that in the grand-scheme of things? Could that mean a memory leak in MMF2?

Final Note: The app runs mostly well on a 4S. Only 1-2 second frame-change lag.

Thanks,

Verbage

I specifically bought a iPod 3G since I wanted to make sure my games ran decently enough on older hardware. Stuff I make that runs at 50fps will run as low as 20 fps on the 3G. It is a marked difference in hardware.

Today I managed to buy back 10fps however, since I found a single event that was always running, instead of only once per mouse click.

How many events are on your frames?

Heres a trick I learned: Make a counter in the frame, and then in some event in your event editor, add a line that adds 1 to that counter. When you run it, the speed that the counter increments will tell you how often your event is running. If its an event that selects a lot of objects, it could easily cause a slowdown.

You can also try deleting the bottom half of your events and see if the framerate recovers. If it doesn't, delete the top half. Continue bisecting until you find events that eat up the processor.

I'll try eliminating all "Always" events. That could be an issue. But still, these are highly basic menus and lag is unbelievable.

try downloading the most recent build in the forum. also set xcode to build instead of demo. these things killed the lag in my games.

I'm always on the most recent build. I'll try to locate and change the build setting.

The "debug"/"release" toggle is under project settings under "Info" correct?

You may already know most of these tips, but these are some things to keep in mind:

size of your graphics could contribute to putting older devices under stress. Keep them as small as possible and as close to the next power of 2 in width and height (eg: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 256, 512 pixels wide/high etc).

Use the colour reduction mode. You can override it on specific objects as needed.

Don't make a retina resolution if you are planning to support really old devices if you can help it. MMF has to scale these down and memory is smaller on the older devices.

Avoid Fastloops running all the time where possible use MMF events and built in functionality.

Set FPS to 60 or 30.

Keep things simple, try not to over complicate a feature - you can still make it do what you want but there is always a better way.

Test while developing on an older device - it helps highlight what changes you make cause slow downs.

Use timer based movements if needed (either MMF's built in support or code your own - I posted an example some time ago) - This allows you to keep the appearance of speed with moving/animated objects when the frame rate drops.


I test on an itouch 2nd and 4th gen devices. I find the 2nd gen is limited, but it is possible to keep things moving really fast and MMF works well in general.l

Object selection is really slow compared to PC, if your grid is made up of 12x12 objects, and you're testing them via object selection, that could be the cause. I'd recommend doing all object testing (number crunching to find nearest bombs etc) via the array object, and then transfer the results back to the onscreen object when you need to update it visually. The advanced game board object may be another solution (if you're not already using it).

Are you using fastloops?

Only necessary fast loops that draw bombs as the user reveals the first tile (required for a safe first reveal). I can look through my Event Editor again, but I cannot go without that fast loop.

I should clarify: My actual game is not very slow at all. Just the menus and transitioning between frames is unbelievably slow.