What Corona can do ? (Corona performance in heavy setups relative to other platforms)

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

I have tested Corona SDK for just a few hours. At first I underestimated the product but when I understood this my trial period had expired and the support has not yet answered for an extended trial period.

So, since I cannot test Corona performance on my own I am asking you here…

I am really thrilled with Corona easiness on code writing, but how would you compare Corona Game Edition performance to that of Unity or Cocos2d, for example? In these two platforms someone can have a rather heavy game setup with 10+ draw calls (dozens of objects) and constant movement/animations (with or without physics) updating on 60fps without significant fps drops (on iPhone 3G). Some examples are Zombiville (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvfVDczQXOY) for Unity and Doodle Army (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=folfyqtxqIE) for Cocos2d.

I am trying to convince myself jumping in Corona development, but what stops me is the lack of some showcase examples that would proove the speed of the platform on a real world game with complex graphics/animation/physics involved. The provided project examples don’t involve any kind of “stress test”. Published games on the other hand are not many and I can’t find a heavy game published with Corona. Alien Horde and Core Damage are not fast paced games, in terms of graphics.

The only one “heavy” game (Doodle Dash), that I found and bought to see what Corona can do, gives constant fps drops (on iPhone 3G), even on 30fps which is the current cap for Corona apps. At first I liked the fact that someone managed to publish an action game with Corona but then I thought that this performance has no luck in the AppStore (and I am sure the developer is doing his best!).

The only clue I have for Corona performance is that demonstration videos with the new physics capabilities of Corona. But how are this abilities translated in real apps running on real iDevices (especially the old generations)?
Do you developers see an acceptable performance in heavy setups? Is Ansca going to allow 60fps framerate soon? Would you justify the abandnment of other mature platforms, that demand more coding but give steady performance, in favor of Corona convenience?

Please forgive my negativity here. My intention is not to insult anyone, but rather to start a discussion that could help a lot of potential Corona adopters to better judje their decision.

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#2

Warlords Armageddon version 1.1 will be released in about a week. (We had released before realizing that we had memory issues on the device, but I believe that we have begun to show what Corona is capable of graphically, because of our issues have been resolved.) Our game is not an action game; it is flick based, but we are running our own physics system on 30 + objects that consist of multiple sprite levels and are running looping sound, destructible objects, unique behaviors, different attack types, lighting effects that change when objects are destroyed, and many other things at the same time with no issue at all. [import]uid: 4871 topic_id: 1697 reply_id: 4989[/import]

#3

@Magenda: I’ve reset your trial. Sorry for the delay. [import]uid: 3 topic_id: 1697 reply_id: 4990[/import]

#4

Also, check out the docs that talk about fps control here. [import]uid: 3 topic_id: 1697 reply_id: 4991[/import]

#5

Seanh, thanks a lot for the trial period extension.

I am looking forward to other developers’ experiences (especially with fast paced games), while I am doing my own stress-tests with Corona-SDK. My primarily results show something very positive: Corona is not very sensitive to iOS background load peaks, which can lead to unavoidable fps drops (even in a very simple scene).

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#6

We continue to work on performance improvements, so if you come up with something that looks slow, let us know. The core engine is all OpenGL rendering, so for the most part graphics are “free”. Any significant calculation will have performance impact, obviously. Whenever assets are loaded, there is a cost, but we do a lot of caching.
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