game LAGS on physics collision

CoronaCards (Corona in native apps) CoronaCards for WP8
#101

Olaf,

We’ll be sending everyone a new WP8 update today which provides the framerate and timer improvements that you need.  It’s a pretty huge improvement and I’d be interested to know how well it works for you.  Just note that if you have native XAML UI on top (like a TextBox), then that can cause a huge framerate issue if you’re rendering at 60 FPS.  I can’t do much about that because Corona and Microsoft’s UI are heavily competing for the rendering thread’s time.  If you frequently display native UI on top (I don’t think you do), then you’ll have to switch to 30 FPS… which by the way is much smoother and improved as well.  Kind of a bummer that I can’t make 60 FPS play nice with XAML, but this is the best compromise that I could come up with.

I also had the Win32 functions removed that caused your app to be rejected from the Windows Store.  Just note that I haven’t tested uploading it to the Windows Store myself.  Not set up for this yet and haven’t had time.  So, if you can confirm if this resolves the app rejection issue then that would be great.  Thanks!

#102

I’ve also whipped together the following Lua code which you can use to measure the framerate…
 

local lastEnterFrameTime = nil local durationCollectionSize = 60 local durationCollectionIndex = 1 local durationCollection = {} for index = 1, durationCollectionSize do durationCollection[index] = 0 end local function onEnterFrame(event) local currentTime = system.getTimer() -- If this is the first frame, then fetch the current time and exit out. if (lastEnterFrameTime == nil) then lastEnterFrameTime = currentTime return end -- Store the duration since the last frame. durationCollection[durationCollectionIndex] = currentTime - lastEnterFrameTime lastEnterFrameTime = currentTime -- Do not continue if we have more durations to collection before averaging below. if (durationCollectionIndex \< durationCollectionSize) then durationCollectionIndex = durationCollectionIndex + 1 return end -- Average the collected durations and print it to the log. local averageDuration = 0 for index = 1, durationCollectionSize do averageDuration = averageDuration + durationCollection[index] end averageDuration = averageDuration / durationCollectionSize local averageFps = 1000 / averageDuration print("Average FPS = " .. tostring(averageFps) .. ", Average Duration = " .. tostring(averageDuration)) -- Reset data collection. durationCollectionIndex = 1 end Runtime:addEventListener("enterFrame", onEnterFrame)

The above will print the average framerate once every 60 frames to Visual Studio’s Output panel.  Just remember that you don’t want to print() on every frame since that function has a huge performance penalty on WP8.  I measures about 3-4 milliseconds per print!  But once every 60 times isn’t so bad.

#103

Joshua,

I’ve just tested the new CoronaCard build. It’s sooo much smoother! :slight_smile: I could even increase the particles number because I didn’t observe lags when the particles were removed. Once I increased their number - the tiny lags appeared again but I noticed them only because I knew they occured before. Now the lags don’t affect the gameplay at all! Thanks a lot, it’s a great improvement!

Below this post I paste a framerate output I get on my Lumia 625 - nearly 60fps :slight_smile:

I have only rate&review native UI popup appearing at the beginning after every 5th game launch, so it doesn’t affect my fps during the gameplay.

Regarding submitting the package to the Windows Store - it has passed the validation now, thanks.

So once you have the native/lua communication done, I’d be able to submit my release candidate to the Q&A Microsoft team with no fear :-) When do you think it might be ready?

Here’s the fps log:

Average FPS = 40.187541862023, Average Duration = 24.883333333333 Average FPS = 50.718512256974, Average Duration = 19.716666666667 Average FPS = 59.820538384845, Average Duration = 16.716666666667 Average FPS = 60.606060606061, Average Duration = 16.5 Average FPS = 59.464816650149, Average Duration = 16.816666666667 Average FPS = 56.232427366448, Average Duration = 17.783333333333 Average FPS = 60.06006006006, Average Duration = 16.65 Average FPS = 60.240963855422, Average Duration = 16.6 Average FPS = 59.94005994006, Average Duration = 16.683333333333 Average FPS = 59.94005994006, Average Duration = 16.683333333333 Average FPS = 57.08848715509, Average Duration = 17.516666666667 Average FPS = 58.42259006816, Average Duration = 17.116666666667 Average FPS = 58.42259006816, Average Duration = 17.116666666667 Average FPS = 60.606060606061, Average Duration = 16.5 Average FPS = 59.52380952381, Average Duration = 16.8 Average FPS = 57.19733079123, Average Duration = 17.483333333333 Average FPS = 60.240963855422, Average Duration = 16.6 Average FPS = 60.180541624875, Average Duration = 16.616666666667 Average FPS = 56.127221702526, Average Duration = 17.816666666667 Average FPS = 54.347826086957, Average Duration = 18.4 Average FPS = 57.526366251198, Average Duration = 17.383333333333 Average FPS = 59.52380952381, Average Duration = 16.8 Average FPS = 60.362173038229, Average Duration = 16.566666666667 Average FPS = 59.701492537313, Average Duration = 16.75 Average FPS = 57.692307692308, Average Duration = 17.333333333333 Average FPS = 59.464816650149, Average Duration = 16.816666666667 Average FPS = 60.362173038229, Average Duration = 16.566666666667 Average FPS = 58.881256133464, Average Duration = 16.983333333333 Average FPS = 59.701492537313, Average Duration = 16.75 Average FPS = 57.034220532319, Average Duration = 17.533333333333 Average FPS = 60.728744939271, Average Duration = 16.466666666667 Average FPS = 59.171597633136, Average Duration = 16.9 Average FPS = 37.974683544304, Average Duration = 26.333333333333 Average FPS = 60.483870967742, Average Duration = 16.533333333333 Average FPS = 57.636887608069, Average Duration = 17.35 Average FPS = 57.859209257473, Average Duration = 17.283333333333 Average FPS = 58.939096267191, Average Duration = 16.966666666667 Average FPS = 59.582919563059, Average Duration = 16.783333333333 Average FPS = 60.301507537688, Average Duration = 16.583333333333 Average FPS = 57.859209257473, Average Duration = 17.283333333333 Average FPS = 59.820538384845, Average Duration = 16.716666666667 Average FPS = 60.120240480962, Average Duration = 16.633333333333 Average FPS = 58.881256133464, Average Duration = 16.983333333333
#104

That’s great!  Thank you so much for your patience and for taking the time to post your test results.

I didn’t mean for it to take this long (achieving 60 FPS was quite challenging), but I think the performance improvements were worth it in the end.  :slight_smile:

Regarding native UI framerate issues, I’ve only noticed serious framerate issues when giving a TextBox the keyboard focus or when pinch zooming a WebBrowser control.  Interestingly enough, giving a text field within a WebBrowser control keyboard focus does not cause a framerate issue.  It’s really hit-or-miss.  But I suppose it’s not that big of deal since you probably wouldn’t display native UI during gameplay and only in static screens within Corona.

I’m currently working on the native/Lua bridge API now.  I expect to have it done by the end of this week (worst case).  Hopefully sooner.  Also, I still plan on looking into the “applicationSuspend” issue that you’ve mentioned with the Start/Home key.

#105

Yes, the extra time and your effort were definitely worth it! Thanks :slight_smile:

#106

Olaf,

I just tested for the “applicationSuspend” issue you mentioned before where pressing the Start/Home button and then pressing Back doesn’t always cause a suspend event to get raised.  It’s always working for me.  I also tried pressing the Power button and Search button too.

Are you still able to reproduce this issue?

I’m kind of baffled as to what might be causing this.  The only thing that I can think of is that something crashed during the suspend, which Visual Studio’s debugger should be able to catch.

Edit:

I’m testing this with our “Hardware\SystemEvent” sample project that is included with the Corona Simulator.

#107

OK, I’ve tested it again and it seems to be working fine now. I’m getting an applicationSuspend event every time I hit Start button.

Maybe the issue was caused by some bug from the previous build? Anyway, it’s working now. Thanks.