Construct 2 game run very slow on android

[Narciso_N_]

Hello everyone,

I have my first game almost in the playstore but i am having a real problem with Galaxy s3 and some small lags in other devices. My game is a simple game of 6mb but when i export it using crosswalk the size is almost 30 mb and even with crosswalk it is very very slow.

Can someone here if there is a solution for this problem?

Note: I have been reading the forum and some of the possible solution didn't work for me.

Thanks.

[Amrita_C_Intel]

Hello,

Please refer to this FAQ Doc: https://software.intel.com/en-us/xdk/faqs/crosswalk#crosswalk-animatable

[Narciso_N_1]

Amrita C. (Intel) wrote:

Hello,

Please refer to this FAQ Doc: https://software.intel.com/en-us/xdk/faqs/crosswalk#crosswalk-animatable

I have the same problems after checking this link. I don't know why but the problem is more in Samsung S3 devices.

[Amrita_C_Intel]

Have you tried on any other device?

[Narciso_N_1]

Amrita C. (Intel) wrote:

Have you tried on any other device?

Yes, physically i have a nexus 4, nexus 5 and 2 Samsung S5... In All of them is running well just with some lags sometimes. In s3 it is implossible to play.

[PaulF_IntelCorp]

Are you also including the --ignore-gpu-blacklist option in your additions.xml file? I have an S3 and test games I have been given by developers work just fine on it (as long as that option is set). Are you building for Crosswalk 15? If your app requires a lot of memory, that might be a problem, the S3 does not have a lot of available RAM.

Our next version will support building with CW16, which provides much improved performance (but still requires that option to make things work well on older devices).

[Narciso_N_1]

Paul F. (Intel) wrote:

Are you also including the --ignore-gpu-blacklist option in your additions.xml file? I have an S3 and test games I have been given by developers work just fine on it (as long as that option is set). Are you building for Crosswalk 15? If your app requires a lot of memory, that might be a problem, the S3 does not have a lot of available RAM.

Our next version will support building with CW16, which provides much improved performance (but still requires that option to make things work well on older devices).

Yes i have it included in my additions.xml. It is a simple game, no more than 60 events. I have my images optimized with https://kraken.io/ and i don't know what to do next. 

I have been removing and improving my events and my animations in construct 2.

[PaulF_IntelCorp]

I would recommend that you DO NOT use that optimization engine for compressing and decompressing your images. You do not need this optimization because you do not have a network bandwidth problem: your game images should all be stored locally and read directly from the local file system, which is much faster than the typical Internet connection. Also, each of those images has to be decompressed using their library, which requires CPU effort.

Make the decompression work easier on your mobile device's CPU by using standard JPG, PNG and GIF images, which your device can probably then use the GPU to decompress, rather than the CPU. When you throw that Kraken.io library in the mix it requires the CPU to do the decompression and cannot be easily optimized by hardware. The Kraken approach works well on very capable processors, like your desktop or laptop, but mobile processors are significantly slower and less powerful, they've been optimized for battery life, not for performance. Having to use that library each time you reference an image will also result in more battery usage by your app.

If you are downloading some images for the game via the Internet, then using this technique to transfer the images down to the app is fine, but you should then decompress them into a standard JPG or PNG or GIF images that your app actually uses. In other words, if your app can be updated with new images, via some server, then just use that high compression technique to deliver them to the device as part of an update, not as part of the game play. Store them in a standard format on the device after you've downloaded and converted them into a standard compression format.

Hope that makes sense.

[Mitchell_Franklin]

Hi Narciso N,

I have built games through Construct 2 and had the same issue however it may not be the same cause as you will see noted below but may be of some help. It will depend on if your device is on 4.2 or lower and using Physics behavior.

I found that for my region (Australia) the release of updates are behind for Samsung S3 and at the time it was on Android 4.2, the only change to Construct 2 at the time was an engine change "some time back now" for Physics behavior.

I spoke with the Construct 2 developers about this while I was working on the issue and no specific reason for this was found even after a week of debug, to double check what was occurringI we loaded a game in the prev build and new build to test and I only got the issue on the new build.

Once manually pushed the standard 4.4 update to the S3 the game worked with no issues on the new version.

since 4.4 is now at least the core release on devices I have not had the issue since.

[Narciso_N_1]

@Mitchell Franklin Thanks for your opinion. I will ask about this in construct 2 forum. Until now, the devices which i have problems is S3 and S4 with Lollipop. In this case, i think you are right about the error is from construct 2.

@Paul F Thanks. i think you have a good point. I like your explanation i will test some more point of failure in my game. 

I will let you know about any change in my status.