Classic Graal for iPhone

[12171217]

Originally Posted by SKJF91

yes, and each body needs it's own unique texture to be loaded in memory as well -- and we're on 433 mhz processors or so running a large amount of levels, scripts, receiving data on all 100 or so players etc..

The amount of textures is irrelevant, it wouldn't cause slowdowns.

You should only receive data on the players in adjacent levels and your own level, probably around 20.

Scripts, there are barely any scripts on the overworld.

Levels, all that has to be done is some simple collision algorithm and rendering them.

It's a mystery where the slowdown is coming from.

[Immolate]

Originally Posted by 12171217

The amount of textures is irrelevant, it wouldn't cause slowdowns.

You should only receive data on the players in adjacent levels and your own level, probably around 20.

Scripts, there are barely any scripts on the overworld.

Levels, all that has to be done is some simple collision algorithm and rendering them.

It's a mystery where the slowdown is coming from.

Would be cool to actually look at the actual sourcecode and find out first-hand, but that'll never happen, haha.

[WhiteDragon]

As far as I can tell, the Graal code is very abstracted (i.e., the other iPhone games running off of the same codebase), so inefficiencies were likely introduced in the multiple levels of abstraction. Stefan seems to have been trying to weed out those inefficiencies though.

There will be a breaking point where it is simply less efficient for being abstracted in the first place, but I'm confident that point isn't anywhere near; I'm sure there are more cases that can be optimized.


If the iPhone client was written directly from scratch, and wasn't made to support anything but exactly what it is currently doing, I'm sure it'd be plenty faster -- but it would also make the development a big hassle.

[12171217]

Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

As far as I can tell, the Graal code is very abstracted (i.e., the other iPhone games running off of the same codebase), so inefficiencies were likely introduced in the multiple levels of abstraction. Stefan seems to have been trying to weed out those inefficiencies though.

This is the answer I was looking for

Now my soul can rest in peace.

[SKJF91]

Originally Posted by 12171217

The amount of textures is irrelevant, it wouldn't cause slowdowns.

high amount of ram usage, constant loading of textures etc..

You should only receive data on the players in adjacent levels and your own level, probably around 20.

Graal servers receive data about all players x/y/headimg/etc.. and other playerlist data - it also has the knowledge of each player whose actually online, the client sends ping-data to the server, status updates etc..

but on a different note, the lag does occur only because of the people on adjacent levels. if you walk a few levels away from everyone, you'll notice all the lag is gone. so with that said, it's because of the amount of data being sent from people like constant gani-changes from idle->walk->sword etc, among constant movement packets from each player - and with about 20-30 people in all these levels, of course lag is going to exist. if you remember graal in the older times, when the best processor was a pentium 3 with like 650-800 mhz.. there was lag back then too although there was a lot more multi-tasking going on with computers then such as aol always having to be on for dialup connections etc..

but it wasn't that bad because it was levels, not really a map.

[12171217]

Originally Posted by SKJF91

high amount of ram usage, constant loading of textures etc..



Graal servers receive data about all players x/y/headimg/etc.. and other playerlist data - it also has the knowledge of each player whose actually online, the client sends ping-data to the server, status updates etc..

but on a different note, the lag does occur only because of the people on adjacent levels. if you walk a few levels away from everyone, you'll notice all the lag is gone. so with that said, it's because of the amount of data being sent from people like constant gani-changes from idle->walk->sword etc, among constant movement packets from each player - and with about 20-30 people in all these levels, of course lag is going to exist. if you remember graal in the older times, when the best processor was a pentium 3 with like 650-800 mhz.. there was lag back then too although there was a lot more multi-tasking going on with computers then such as aol always having to be on for dialup connections etc..

but it wasn't that bad because it was levels, not really a map.

High RAM usage doesn't affect performance itself, unless it's so high that things have to be dropped in and out off the hard drive every few seconds. Highly unlikely this is the case though.

Everything that you're saying has more to do with networking and memory management than FPS issues themselves, really.

Can we all just face the truth and say that the Graal client is a bit unoptimized at this stage of the game?

[SKJF91]

Originally Posted by 12171217

High RAM usage doesn't affect performance itself, unless it's so high that things have to be dropped in and out off the hard drive every few seconds. Highly unlikely this is the case though.

Everything that you're saying has more to do with networking and memory management than FPS issues themselves, really.

Can we all just face the truth and say that the Graal client is a bit unoptimized at this stage of the game?

There was an update to help improve the game, but with the lack of a powerful enough device to run mass-amounts of scripts and everything causes low FPS..

You're forgetting all the GUI scripts etc.. that are always run, like the movement weapons, chat, map etc

[DustyPorViva]

Stefan has made sure not to run many clientside scripts specifically for that reason. I've worked on the server for the iPhone before and he was very strict about clientside scripts. Most things have to be done serverside so it's not putting stress on the iPhone's CPU.

Downsider is right. There is slowdown when it comes to player's. Like I said, it's also on the PC as well. If you enter a level with a lot of players it can run horribly. I've heard people express lag during some of UN's more larger occassions with even 10x more power than the iPhone. It's not a rendering/graphics problem because iPhone's graphics chip is more than capable of handling it. However, a lot of speculation isn't really going to expose what the problem is as none of us really know how Graal handles it and what specifically is causing the slowdown.

[12171217]

Hopefully Stefan can work it out, or make movement not framerate dependent :3

Seriously, when was the last time you played a game and instead of getting choppy it actually got slower? Even Quake and Doom had framerate independent movement.

[cbk1994]

The strange thing is that the v6 Graal client on Mac is near flawless. I've never experienced any kind of lag resulting from normal use, even in the Era Concert, when we had 100+ players in one level with lots of lights. I'm surprised that the iPhone is having so many problems since it also runs the Mac client with some changes made.

[12171217]

The main problem seems to be players themselves.

Now that I think of it, it might be their collision algorithms, as they're not handeled the same as tiles and if they're handeled in an overly simplistic manner, then with 40 players, there would be an obese amount of checks that must be made.

This could also explain why indoors doesn't have such a bad framerate hit (nopk, no collision).

This is just me speculating, though.

[SKJF91]

Originally Posted by 12171217

This could also explain why indoors doesn't have such a bad framerate hit (nopk, no collision).

This is just me speculating, though.

That is a really good speculation, let's see when apple accepts the new release.

[WanDaMan]

Despite it's lack of content, I really enjoyed playing with other people and some what addicted to cutting up the swamp for money! Haha, a few flaws but I had a fun time. Goodjob, keep up with the great work!!

[Rufus]

I played on my friends' iPod Touch earlier, and while it was hard to move, it was really amusing for a while. There was also some guy who was just idling, advertising a website of secret Graal codes. They must believe that the images you use in "setsword" are secrets, it was really cute and even further reminiscent of the past. There are some bugs with the PK zones though, as someone was blocking the Burger Refuge entrance and there was a queue of people trying to get in. You could also take signs and bushes and hurt people in no-PK zones.

[Immolate]

Originally Posted by Rufus

I played on my friends' iPod Touch earlier, and while it was hard to move, it was really amusing for a while. There was also some guy who was just idling, advertising a website of secret Graal codes. They must believe that the images you use in "setsword" are secrets, it was really cute and even further reminiscent of the past. There are some bugs with the PK zones though, as someone was blocking the Burger Refuge entrance and there was a queue of people trying to get in. You could also take signs and bushes and hurt people in no-PK zones.

It really bugs me when people call them 'codes'.