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iOS 4.2 performance problem (4.3 as well)

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:25 pm
by doctorZ
So, I updated my still shiny iPhone 4 with the iOS 4.2 update today. Sadly, the performance of Rogue Touch seems to have taken a major hit. There seems to be quite a bit of lagging, giving the gameplay a jerky feel. A lot less pleasant that before.
Anything that can be done from the user side to fix?

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2010 7:56 am
by CommanderData
doctorZ wrote:So, I updated my still shiny iPhone 4 with the iOS 4.2 update today. Sadly, the performance of Rogue Touch seems to have taken a major hit. There seems to be quite a bit of lagging, giving the gameplay a jerky feel. A lot less pleasant that before.
Anything that can be done from the user side to fix?
Nighthawk informed me of the same issue last night... I have just begun the research to determine the cause of this new round of slowdowns. The iOS 4 debut really caught everyone by surprise in how badly the screen drawing was crippled. That time I'd managed to come up with some clever solutions to help.

Call it a hunch, but I suspect that Apple is killing the performance of non-OpenGL games on purpose. In doing that, the (usually) better developed OpenGL based games by larger teams start to look even more appealing, shoving the "little guys" out of the picture. Sort of a wake-up call that they need quality over quantity of apps/games... but the problem is there are some hidden quality gems that don't use OpenGL that suffer, like Rogue Touch! As I said, just a theory, but considering they are aware of the problem but continue to make it worse rather than better... :P

Just to let everyone know, I still have a couple ideas up my sleeve to improve this, but if they slow it down for a third time I may be painted into a corner. That will accelerate the next-gen Rogue Touch EX project for sure!!! :mrgreen:

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:56 am
by ironcashew
I was able to increase the performance significantly by switching to airplane mode. There was still the odd slow down, but not nearly as bad as before. It would be worth testing if it was a blue tooth, wifi, or phone signal specific issue. Airplane mode shuts all that down I think.

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 12:26 pm
by Nighthawk
Interesting.... what iDevice do you have? I'm on a 3GS and (subjectively) I'm not seeing any improvement. Question: In general, when you start a level (or are in an area where not much needs to be rendered on-screen) is the animation relatively fast, and then gets progressively worse as you explore?

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 5:50 pm
by CommanderData
This is interesting... As Nighthawk says, it usually gets worse as you explore a level further. This is in part due to the mini-map being overlaid on top, and each new area you explore becomes another square for it to draw. I did some optimization by stretching to fill a whole line of "blue map" at a time, but even that does not help completely.

Still working on ideas. The one that excites and terrifies me the most is just caving in and tacking on an OpenGL rendering system to the base game, and reworking the draw routines to use it.

That would fix the problem with 100% certainty, for all users. It might even reduce memory use in older devices!

The problem is my current code was not designed with this sort of task in mind... :oops:

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:04 am
by ironcashew
I'm using an iPhone 4 with ios4.2. The game definately gets faster as I progress. I'm going to test my airplane mode theory out a few more times tonight. I'll post if any interesting results happen.

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:09 am
by Nighthawk
Sorry for being pedantic, but when you say "the game gets faster as I progress," can you be more specific? For example, describe the speed and smoothness of the animation (both exploring AND combat) at the following points:

*During your first few steps after starting a game
*After you've explored ~1/2 of the first floor
*After you've explored the entire first floor
*During your first few steps of the second floor

Play on a little further and try and describe the animation when you're in a dark room as opposed to a lit one in the same kind of circumstances as I listed above.

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 12:54 pm
by elswitzer
I have the same performance problems, using a 4th gen itouch with 4.2.1. Extremely sluggish movement, turning airplane mode on did seem to help a bit but it also seemed to just skip around faster, not really fix the problem. I also froze up when I died last. I didn't notice any major differences as I progressed in a level, but combat is especially slow now. Still one of my favorite games, and the oldest one on my itouch that keeps me coming back, but this has made it unplayable for me.

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:01 pm
by CommanderData
elswitzer wrote:I have the same performance problems, using a 4th gen itouch with 4.2.1. Extremely sluggish movement, turning airplane mode on did seem to help a bit but it also seemed to just skip around faster, not really fix the problem. I also froze up when I died last. I didn't notice any major differences as I progressed in a level, but combat is especially slow now. Still one of my favorite games, and the oldest one on my itouch that keeps me coming back, but this has made it unplayable for me.
I agree it's just too ugly the way it stands on OS 4.2.1, I have been able to run a number of tests over the last month - and I don't hold out much hope that OS 4.3 will fix these issues.

Everyone will be glad to know that I have decided to bite the bullet and re-write the rendering system for Rogue Touch, to ditch the Core Graphics and Layer code, and move it to OpenGL, which will eliminate all of these performance issues!

Unfortunately there is no ETA for completion just yet, but I will let everyone know as I make progress :ugeek:

Re: iOS 4.2 performance problem

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:43 pm
by Waxequestrian
Just signed up to say Thanks for trying to sort this apple induced problem

I even tried restoring back to os 4.1 just to get rogue working properly again
And then spent 2 hours getting it back to a working os4.2 with still jerky rogue :(

Imo this is Best iPhone game ever so far
Certainly most used app by me
Loved rogue on old mainframe systems
Your version is a great port to touch screen interface

Looking forward to mineko though