String object frame rate drop.

[UrbanMonk]

To me this is an odd problem, and it isn't consistent at all.

Sometimes my app will drop from 60 down to 30 fps for a split second when I change the text of a string object, and it seems to happen most when the screen is also scrolling.
Most of the time it only happens the first time the text is changed. After that I can change it over and over with no frame rate penalties.

Sometime the frame rate drop won't occur at all.

This is using an iPhone 4.. on the iPad 2 this problem is nonexistent.

Is there anything I can do about this?

UPDATE: I paused my screen scrolling when displaying a string and the lag is gone.

[Anders]

Is your string object bigger than it needs to be to display the string in your game? Resize it to fit your string better and it will be faster. Some people are tempted to size the object as big as the screen just for convenience but it will slow down the process of changing the string.

[UrbanMonk]

No it's just big enough to display the text.

I've fixed the issue by pausing the scrolling when the string is displayed.

[UrbanMonk]

Ok, so I was still having lag while in-game even though I fixed the string display slow down.

Well I had a hidden string offscreen that contained a character map for loading level arrays.
After deleting that and moving the string to a Global String the framerate jumped to 60 fps consistent.

So it seems even hidden strings have a huge performance drop.

This is odd. I really think there is something wrong with the way the string object is built.
IT is literally the only thing that lags my apps.

UPDATE: I just discovered that making a string object blank whether hidden or not will negate any performance problems that it causes.
So it doesn't effect framerate as long as it isn't storing any text. O_o

[DistantJ]

Remember that fonts are vector, so it needs to render them in a different way, so strings are a lot more memory intensive than you might think; it's best not to use more than you need.

[Anders]

I will have a look at the hidden string performance problem. They shouldn't cause any slowdown when they are hidden. If they do then there is something wrong

[UrbanMonk]

Yes, it was a hidden string causing the slow down oddly.

Also the frame loads faster now. It loads pretty much instantly now. Before it took a few seconds.

Removing the string completely fixed my game.

[DistantJ]

Maybe it's allocating the memory it shouldn't be?

[UrbanMonk]

More than likely it's using more CPU than it should.
But it's prolly a combination of both.