Edit: No FPS limit on Android Player or APK; Old: Low FPS in Desktop player, great on Device

amaximov · April 2013

Hi I am developing a game that will be some what graphically and physically intense with lots of bullet objects, and some explosions. I have been using the network feature for Gideros player to test on device and hadn't used the desktop player for several days. When I did go back to the desktop player I noticed that as my game progressed the desktop player was no longer at 60 fps, but more at like 25 or 30, even if I put it on "unlimited" fps. The player zips at a blazing 60 fps on android, and building an apk also produces a stable 60 fps. My machine has 6gb ram and a 3rd gen i7 so it cannot possibly be my comp. Are there any known desktop simulator issues that I should be aware of ?

ar2rsawseen · April 2013

@amaximov is this happens only for this specific game or any game you run on desktop player?
There were some similar issues on some specific types of machines (maybe combination of specific hardware), but since it was not possible for Gideros team to reproduce it is really hard to find and fix such things.
Maybe if this happens for this project only, then we could isolate the exact part that is causing it.

amaximov · April 2013

I will get back to you with some testing after school.

amaximov · April 2013

Oh no! you guys just updated your site and my previous posts on this thread are gone! I hope they can be restored?

atilim · April 2013

Here are your posts from the old forum:

---

Just did some testing. I think the problem is completely different. My game has a spaceship which I currently limited to only being able to shoot 6 bullets/second. I turned on the Gideros Dekstop player and shot continuously for 30 seconds and got out 161 bullets which is roughly ~ 5.4 bullets/second. There is obviously a performance issue but it is not major. However, I then turned on the Gideros Android player and got a wopping 277 bullets off which is ~ 9.2 bullets/sec! I did not change ANY code and I even made sure I put my finger in the same spot in my control UI. My friend tested on a Galaxy S Blaze and got performance similar to the desktop simulator while I get the 277 bullets/sec performance on my Optimus 2X P990. This occurs both with APK's and Gideros Player. I also checked my code for memory leaks and there are none. Lua memory starts at about 500kb, grows to 620kb and stops there. I assume that means there are no leaks because objects get collected properly?

---

Also on enterFrame on the Optimus 2x doing a print(1/e.deltaTime) within an enterframe results in values ranging from 50 to 400 fps... I really don't think this is a bug in my code as the simulator stays between 50 and 60 fps. I also have 60 fps set in the project properties. Do I need to modify anything once I export the project to eclipse?

---

This only seems to happen when I set the project properties to 30 fps. At 30 fps the device successfully throttles itself to stay at 30 fps but setting it 60 breaks throttling for some reason.

amaximov · April 2013

Any help with this? I have tried reinstalling gideros to no avail. I will test out the enterframe on the sample apps later today.

amaximov · April 2013

This also happens on the included sample apps.... Bumped this thread:)

amaximov · April 2013

Anyone????

ar2rsawseen · April 2013

So your problem is that your game is running too fast on device?

How do you actually shoot? Do you use onEnterFrame to start and move bullets?
You can check this example project for lots of good practices in creating shooting game.
http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/comment/17263#Comment_17263

Starting from handling bullets, to pooling them for reusage.
One version was with bitmap bullets other with meshes which is even more optimized.

So does the same issue happens with these projects?

amaximov · April 2013

Hey ar2rsawseen. I have a joystick class which accepts touch events and updates its display objects on an enterframe event. In one of my scene modules I have another enterframe which grabs values from the class using "stick:getPower() and stick:getAngle()" methods and sends these over to a spaceship class. The problem is that even basic code like

<lua>
local obj = Sprite.new()
local function myListener()
print(1/e.deltaTime)
end
 
obj:addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, myListener)
</lua>

does not follow framerate. Setting project to 30 fps and sending over to device via gideros player does keep the fps at 30, but setting fps to 60 produces eradic results from 50 to 400 fps. This occurs on ALL sample projects.

amaximov · April 2013

Is this a known issue or...

amaximov · April 2013

I guess its back to the "beer sdk" if such a core thing as an enter frame event doesn't work properly....

Nascode · April 2013

Hi @amaximov,

We have Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 device, and we test it with gideros, the fps cap goes higher than 60. on all of our iOS device we got solid 60fps however. I suggest to use deltaTime instead of frames to update your game logic since some android device cant lock to 60fps.

amaximov · April 2013

Do you recommend I use a timer object to call my update functions? I can do this but I am still worried that exporting at 60 fps will cause my users devices to unecesarily over perform as they break the 60 fps barrier. I ran ar2rsawseen's code and got about 120 fps on my device. There must be a way to fix this as Corona enter frame events do lock to 60 on my device. I really want to move to gideros but this seems like a major bug and drawback for me.

Nascode · April 2013

Hi @amaximov
I suggest you use event.deltaTime from enterframe event.

Some case: you want to move a car 120px a second.

If you know you would get solid 60fps then every enter frame you will move it 120/60 = 2px

However, in real world when a player play your game, he/she got sms, notification or just the hardware is underpowered or overpowered, which will make your fps go down or up. That way on one second, you are not getting 60fps.

By using event.deltaTime you could calculate it to move every enter frame at 120px * event.deltaTime to handle the case above

Here is a nice article about game loop http://www.koonsolo.com/news/dewitters-gameloop/

Let's ask @atilim if we could lock fps to 60 in Android too for another solution

amaximov · April 2013

I totally see what you are saying and I have used that for a game I made in an old SDK however I'd reallllyy like to avoid going over 60 fps as it is important on mobile to conserve battery, etc. I also prefer it that things just work right and the fact that the fps doesn't lock to 60 bugs me a lot. I also have many enterframe listeners in the game I am working on and it would be a minor pain to make a "performance adjustment" variable. I'd prefer to just optimize my game well and remove support for arm v6 devices in the Andro-manifest.

hgvyas123 · April 2013

in the ios you will never get fps more than 60 so it is totally safe over here but in the android in some device there is no lock at 60 fps ( from my understanding only when you install custom os available from the internet) so you may get fps more than 60 but no need to worry it will not happen in most of device and on top of that i think @atilim can easily fix this

amaximov · April 2013

I sincerely hope atilim can get a fix on this sometime soon. And yes, I am in fact running Cyanogenmod on my phone so that may be the reason. However that shouldn't really be an excuse as there is a workaround right

?

amaximov · April 2013

Will this be addressed in the next release which according to the Gideros schedule is in the next 2 - 6 weeks?

atilim · April 2013

Hi,

I wonder what's printed on your device when you take the average FPS:

local frame = 0
local currt = os.timer()
local function onEnterFrame()
	frame = frame + 1
	if frame == 60 then
		local newt = os.timer()
		local dt = newt - currt
		print(60 / dt)
		currt = newt
		frame = 0		
	end
end
 
stage:addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnterFrame)

Because calculating the FPS at each frame may not give correct results.

And currently your device is Optimus 2x with Cyanogenmod, right?

amaximov · April 2013

Yup I am on CM 7.2(Old I know!) and this code gives me about 117 fps on average. I also made sure only init.lua and main.lua are executed so there are no other files messing with it.

amaximov · April 2013

I have also tried using timers but they are very inaccurate in their timing so I realllyyy hope this Fps issue can be solved soon so I can use enterframes again.

atilim · April 2013

yes. I'll solve it

amaximov · April 2013

awesome! I was also wondering if its possible to implement a method like "sprite:getGlobalRotation()" that would return the rotation relative to the stage?

amaximov · April 2013

Scratch that, just made one myself. Here it is

function BetterSprite:getGlobalRotation()	
	local parent = self:getParent()
	local gRot
	if parent ~= stage then
		gRot = self:getRotation()+parent:getGlobalRotation()
	else
		gRot = self:getRotation()
	end
	return gRot
end

I think a lot of people would find this useful

amaximov · April 2013

Just gonna bump this to keep this issue in mind:)

OZApps · April 2013

@amaximov, just a thought, what if...

you have a sprite within a sprite within a sprite, multiple hierarchies and each with rotations, not just a single parent. You might want to iterate through all of the parents till you reach the parent which is the stage.

amaximov · April 2013

@OZApps As long as you make your "sprites" from the "BetterSprite" class, you can nest objects as deep as you wish and each successive parent will call its own "getGlobalRotation()" method and eventually return back to the child. Difficult to explain but trust me it works. (As long as your sprites are "BetterStprites"!)

atilim · April 2013

Hi @amaximov,

While fixing this problem, I've realized that the fix can be done by simply changing your Activity.java file. You just need to replace current GiderosRenderer class with:

class GiderosRenderer implements GLSurfaceView.Renderer
{
	public void onSurfaceCreated(GL10 gl, EGLConfig config)
	{
		GiderosApplication.getInstance().onSurfaceCreated();
	}
 
	public void onSurfaceChanged(GL10 gl, int w, int h)
	{
		GiderosApplication.getInstance().onSurfaceChanged(w, h);
	}
 
	private static void sleep(long nsec)
	{
		try {
			Thread.sleep(nsec / 1000000, (int)(nsec % 1000000));
		} catch (InterruptedException e) {
		}
	}
 
	private long startTime = System.nanoTime();
 
	public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl)
	{
		long target = 1000000000L / 60L;
 
		long currentTime = System.nanoTime();
		long dt = currentTime - startTime;
		startTime = currentTime;
		if (dt < 0)
			dt = 0;
		if (dt < target)
		{
			sleep(target - dt);
			startTime += target - dt;
		}
 
		GiderosApplication.getInstance().onDrawFrame();
	}
}

This modification will stabilize your FPS to 60.

Also if you need an Eclipse version of Gideros Android Player (to apply this modification and deploy to your device), you can create an empty project (like with name GiderosAndroidPlayer), export as an Android application and delete assets/assets folder.

amaximov · April 2013

thanks @atilim! I will get back to you once i try this out.

Nascode · April 2013

thanks @atilim will this template available as default on next version of Gideros?

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Edit: No FPS limit on Android Player or APK; Old: Low FPS in Desktop player, great on Device

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Edit: No FPS limit on Android Player or APK; Old: Low FPS in Desktop player, great on Device

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