Lag issue

[AndyH]

I've noticed a lag with mmf iOS games every now and again but could never quite put my finger on it. Some people have reported this as a delay or lag on the touch controls of upto half a second.

I've now got an iPad to test with and I'm spotting a repeatable pattern to this lag. In a simple game with a few active objects, background objects, multiple touch and accelerometer objects and the platform movement object, with not many events and with no common gotchas like fast loops or large images/memory use, I see the lag every time I restart my game after powered up. If I press the home button to close the game and then restart it, the lag disappears and runs at normal speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsih0gGXMR8

In the above you tube video I wake up the iPad and start the game. The fps is around 40 and the touch joystick is slow and sluggish. Tap the home button and then restart the game and now the fps is around 60, the animation is noticeably smoother and the touch joystick is smooth and responsive. The game will play fine from this point onwards. However if I put the iPad to sleep and wake up again, the game is slow on first run once again.

No other (non MMF) game appears to have this problem. I've seen this happen on the itouch too although not in a repeatable way. I have a bigger almost complete game that will sometimes exhibit this lag on my itouch, not yet tested on the iPad. I can't say I've noticed this on cave diver or just survive. Not sure what conditions my two games have in common that shows up this lag...maybe the color reduction setting? Maybe having multiple touch and accelerometer objects in the frame? Not sure what else the two games have in common?

I can post this game over to you Andos, Francois if it will help (pm where to email it).

[BHGames]

It used to happen to me when I had joystick and accelerometer objects on the frame. Since I was using my own controls, I set the device to none (on the iOS joystick options of the MMF editor) and destroy the accelerometer object when it is not needed. And of course I am using the latest beta targeting ARM7 devices, only.

[AndyH]

Seems to be a constant problem on the iPad. I see it in a frame with only a counter and just an event to test for mouse click and another event to set the counter with the FPS value.

In my game I have found a work around, but it's not good for the game and I guess it's no guarantee it won't come back due to the random nature of the problem. I'm testing for the reactivation of the app and then issue a "restart the application" action. I've put a blank frame at the start, which will still report 40fps but when changing frames it will return to 60fps. So far this is working but it does mean the game always restarts when it wakes up.

[BrashMonkey]

This is EXCELENT legwork and a critical discovery. Why has no one else commented on this thread? Good job AndyH! Good Tip too BHGames.

[Anders]

We have been talking over PM so this is why this thread have been a bit quiet

[BrashMonkey]

cool. Good to know its in good hands. Thanks for the inof Andos.

[JasonDarby]

I think i am getting performance issues when closing the App using the big round button (no idea of its name..lol), and then going back into the app.

Is this related?

Edit: Ah looked at the tech docs... the HOME button

[Anders]

Jason: Is this for app already compiled and running only on the device (not connected to the Mac) - or does it only happen while debugging the app? Does changing the build-mode to "Release" instead of "Debug" help? (In XCode 4.2 you do that by editing the project "Schemes" I think they are called)

[AndyH]

Hi Jason. Similar to the issue i get except it slows down after pressing the power button and switch back on, the app runs slower. Press home then restart the app and it returns to normal speed.

I have tried release mode and disconnected from the machine but it is the same.

[JasonDarby]

Andos: This is an already compiled and released app.