Blog for Simon OCallaghan at GarageGames.com

Flipper Performance

Simon OCallaghan — 2008-01-15T21:07:42+00:00

One thing which has been bothering me for sometime is the performance of my game. This was further highlighted by a couple of people during feedback that said the start-up of the game had extremely low FPS and was unplayable.

Initially when I looked at the problem I thought the FPS issue was due to something not finishing on time at the start of the game and causing the slow down with FPS.

The start-up scripts were split between a common / mod directory and there was not much documentation to help with what everything did. Eventually I got the scripts down to their bare essentials, but this did not fix the FPS problem.

When I first started playing with the engine I found out very early on that it could cope with 3D assets. Which was very good news because I can create 3D assets much easier than I can create 2D assets. What I did not know at the time was, the engine was very good at pushing large amounts of 2D assets but not good with the same amount of 3D assets.

My initial tests of the engine were just a couple of models to see if I could get the 3D importer working correctly and the FPS was just fine. As the game started to grow so did the amount of 3D assets I was using which included coloured tiles, shadow models, special tiles and highlights. All these 3D assets were really hurting the FPS and I needed to find a way to convert some of them back to 2D assets.

The first logical choice for asset replacement was the main tile grid as it was drawn all the time and made up of two 3D assets, tile & shadow. I took a couple of screenshots of what the performance was like beforehand so I could tell if anything had changed.

In order to convert the 3D assets into 2D assets I used the engine to do the hard work for me. I setup a grid of grey tile in various rotation angles and took a screenshot which I used to create a 32 cell animation stripe.

Once the 2D asset data blocks were setup I replaced the front menu 3D tiles with a complete grid full of looped animated tiles and checked the FPS speeds. I was amazed and relieved that I had found a way to speed up the game without any difference in appearance.

Test Results: Top part of screen 1024x768, Bottom part of screen 800x600

Left: before any changes - Right: no 3d assets

Left: Static 2D asset replacements - Right: Animated 2D assets as a 32 cell stripe

Sims

Flipper v1.3b

Simon OCallaghan — 2007-12-26T18:04:29+00:00

Additional Info:
www.simonoc.com/pages/design/games/flipper.htm

Changes

* Fixed a bug when cancelling the level screen
* Re-worked the highlight system, sometimes would leave some highlights active.
* Added more functionality to the help screens.
* You can view help from any level now, not just certain levels.
* Help button is yellow/flash first time a new feature is introduced.
* Can scroll back through all previous help screens
* Added some debug stuff to config file (performance checks)
* enabled 16bit graphic modes (640x480-1280x1024)

I am really interested in getting feedback from people that did not use the previous version.

Thanks
Sims

Flipper v1.2b

Simon OCallaghan — 2007-12-23T02:26:58+00:00

Additional Info:
www.simonoc.com/pages/design/games/flipper.htm

Changes

* Different Interface (simple/advanced)
* Tile numbering
* New help system
* Alot of backend code fixes
* Some new effects added
* Most things can be changed via an options file (no gfx interface ingame yet, waiting on final feedback)
* Changed some tile gfx

I am really interested in getting feedback from people that did not use the previous version. I have changed the help system to hopefully make the game easier to get into.

Thanks
Sims

Flipper Game Released

Simon OCallaghan — 2007-11-07T21:28:01+00:00

www.simonoc.com/pages/design/games/flipper.htm

Finally the game is finished!

I have had an awesome time creating this game and it was amazing to see what other people did with it. I have probably spent close to a month of my spare time working on this game and it still feels like I could add more!

I had a ton of cool ideas from different friends but I had to draw the line on features and simple finish the game, maybe next time.

If you played this game and want to let me know what you think of it, then contact me on the email address at the bottom of the page. If you create any level packs that you think are amazing, then please let me know.

Sims