Frame Rate Drop When Showing Ad

When displaying a banner ad on my game, the frame rate drops and lag is noticeable. Is there any way to stop this from happening?

I have seen this with Admob. I would suggest that you try and not refresh the banner ad while the person is playing the game or show the banner ad during static portions of your game. Like at scene end. Not sure what provider you are using but Facebook ads caused less of an issue than Admob. If you are using Appodeal you can disable networks based on placement. So you can create a placement that show banner during play from networks that have more static banners and then switch to the dynamic banners of admob during all the other scenes.

I’m using appodeal, do you know which ad networks show the dynamic banners?

No, I do not.

This may be hard to hear, but when I hear showing banners is impacting framerate, it sounds like you’re trying to show banners at a bad time. Here is the harsh truth.

Advertisers want their ads to be seen and interacted with (tapped on and taken to the advertiser’s page). They don’t want to pay you to show ads that no one is going to notice. Abuse of this principle has been going on for years and it’s one of the reasons that eCPM’s for banners is so low.

There are basically two types of games: games that are time sensitive and those that are not. When I say time sensitive, any game where if the user takes their attention away from gameplay to look at an ad and interact with the ad will penalize them (think of a shooter game where their player would get destroyed by enemy attacks or a platformer where the zombies will attack them), then the player will not stop gameplay to look at an ad until that level is over. Therefore you shouldn’t waste your advertiser’s ads showing them when they won’t be used. If you’re making a card game where time and attention are not important, you can effectively show banner ads during play.

When I hear “banner ads are impacting my framerate”, then that’s a pretty good indicator that your game is one where users are not going to interact with the ads anyway. You should consider if your ad strategy is the best for your game. I would recommend showing banners on menu screens, game over screens, next level screens, etc.

Here is what AdMob has to say about this:

https://support.google.com/admob/answer/6128877?hl=en

“To avoid accidental clicks, banner ads should not be placed next to interactive buttons, such as a “next” button or a custom app menu bar, next to interactive content like a text chat box or an image in an image gallery, or on a game play screen where users are continuously interacting with the app.

Loading banner ads require networking activity and interrupting your game to create and show a native graphic on the screen. If your app is sensitive enough to where frame rate matters, this is going to happen and there is little anyone can do about it.

Rob

I have seen this with Admob. I would suggest that you try and not refresh the banner ad while the person is playing the game or show the banner ad during static portions of your game. Like at scene end. Not sure what provider you are using but Facebook ads caused less of an issue than Admob. If you are using Appodeal you can disable networks based on placement. So you can create a placement that show banner during play from networks that have more static banners and then switch to the dynamic banners of admob during all the other scenes.

I’m using appodeal, do you know which ad networks show the dynamic banners?

No, I do not.

This may be hard to hear, but when I hear showing banners is impacting framerate, it sounds like you’re trying to show banners at a bad time. Here is the harsh truth.

Advertisers want their ads to be seen and interacted with (tapped on and taken to the advertiser’s page). They don’t want to pay you to show ads that no one is going to notice. Abuse of this principle has been going on for years and it’s one of the reasons that eCPM’s for banners is so low.

There are basically two types of games: games that are time sensitive and those that are not. When I say time sensitive, any game where if the user takes their attention away from gameplay to look at an ad and interact with the ad will penalize them (think of a shooter game where their player would get destroyed by enemy attacks or a platformer where the zombies will attack them), then the player will not stop gameplay to look at an ad until that level is over. Therefore you shouldn’t waste your advertiser’s ads showing them when they won’t be used. If you’re making a card game where time and attention are not important, you can effectively show banner ads during play.

When I hear “banner ads are impacting my framerate”, then that’s a pretty good indicator that your game is one where users are not going to interact with the ads anyway. You should consider if your ad strategy is the best for your game. I would recommend showing banners on menu screens, game over screens, next level screens, etc.

Here is what AdMob has to say about this:

https://support.google.com/admob/answer/6128877?hl=en

“To avoid accidental clicks, banner ads should not be placed next to interactive buttons, such as a “next” button or a custom app menu bar, next to interactive content like a text chat box or an image in an image gallery, or on a game play screen where users are continuously interacting with the app.

Loading banner ads require networking activity and interrupting your game to create and show a native graphic on the screen. If your app is sensitive enough to where frame rate matters, this is going to happen and there is little anyone can do about it.

Rob