Game runs at 30 fps even though setAnimationInterval:1.0/60

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Game runs at 30 fps even though setAnimationInterval:1.0/60

(19 posts) (11 voices)

Started 2 years ago by redsky
Latest reply from Wayne

Tags:

redsky
Member
The title pretty much says it all. I am at a loss.
```
[[Director sharedDirector] setAnimationInterval:1.0/60];
[[Director sharedDirector] setDisplayFPS:YES];
```
But the FPS display shows constant 30 FPS.

This started happening to me in 0.8.1. I decided to upgrade to 0.8.2 and rebuilt my project and the same thing happens. I have tried to do a 'clean all' as well.

It does this on the simulator and on my 3G device. The SDK doesn't seem to matter. It happens from 2.2 up to 3.1.2.

The only thing I can think of is that one time a few weeks ago I purposefully set setAnimationInterval to 1.0/30 because I wanted to see something. It dropped to 30 FPS as expected. When I tried to set it back to 1.0/60, it did not go back to 60 FPS. I remember having to clean the project or do something else to get it to go back to 60.

Ever since that time, I occasionally have this problem where I am stuck at 30 FPS -- only this time, nothing I do gets it back to 60.

This happens in both release and debug mode

-- edit to add more info --

i just noticed that scenes that have a scheduled tick method are the ones running at 30 FPS and if I change to a scene that does not schedule a routine to run it runs at 60.

So if I change between my title screen (has scheduled tick) and my credits screen (does not), the game switches between 30 FPS and 60 FPS
Posted 2 years ago #
riq
Key Master

What type of Director are you using ? FastDirector ? CADisplayLink Director ? NSTimerDirector ?
Make sure that you have removed every possible setAnimationInterval from your code.

Posted 2 years ago #
redsky
Member
Hey riq, thanks for the ideas...

I am using
```
if( ! [Director setDirectorType:CCDirectorTypeDisplayLink] )
		[Director setDirectorType:CCDirectorTypeDefault];
```
Doing a project search reveals just the initial
```
[[Director sharedDirector] setAnimationInterval:1.0/60];
```
call in the main app delegate.

Also, I am not using any NSTimers. Just for the heck of it, I commented out my single setAnimationInterval to see what would happen and its still locked at 30 fps. I wonder where this value is coming from if I am not specifying it? I will have to dig deeper.
Posted 2 years ago #
riq
Key Master

What firmware do you have on the device ? 3.1 ?
If you have >= 3.1, then it will use the DisplayLink director.
Else, it will use the "NSTimer director".

DisplayLink director only works at: 60, 30 and 15 FPS.
NSTimer works at any FPS from 1 to 60.

Don't do FPS tests on the simulator, since it is unreliable to do such tests on the simulator.

Try setting the animation timer to 1.0/15 to see if it runs at 15 FPS.

Posted 2 years ago #
redsky
Member

device is 3.1.2

setting to 1.0/15 runs at 15 FPS on device and simulator.

now it gets weird...

zipped up my game and deployed from 3 different macs. when i deploy from a mac mini, i have the 30 fps frame rate problem. if i deploy same zip from 2 different macbook pros the game runs at 60 fps

something with the mac mini seems off. what i really don't understand is why if i deploy from the mac mini is why is it slow on the device too?

deploying from the macbook pros runs at normal speed on the device

its not too early in the day to start drinking is it?

Posted 2 years ago #
onedayitwillmake
Member

That's a reaally weird problem I offer no solutions for that scenario, and suggest you start drinking

Posted 2 years ago #
redsky
Member

I commented all the code out of my init for my starting scene and tried again... 60 FPS.

Ok, so that means its my fault somehow. I start adding lines back one at a time.

Still 60...

Still 60...

BAM! 30 FPS!

I found where the problem happens but don't know why it happens.

I have 2 480x320 Sprites each with some transparency. If I add either of these sprites to the layer, it works fine at 60 FPS. Once I add both sprites to the layer, I get 30 FPS.

The higher Z index sprite has a cut out basically where the lower sprite shows through.

No other code exists in my init function currently but adding two sprites to the layer and its 30 FPS.

I could understand not using the right texture format could cause performance issues, but how that could lock the director at a solid 30 FPS is beyond me!

Posted 2 years ago #
michaelm
Member

I had the same problem, with the exact same drop in FPS. It has to do apparently with the size and the transparency of the sprites in opengl. One doesn't do it, but compositing two does. Atlas sprites do the same, I haven't found a way around it after searching like you did. The good news is it doesn't drop anymore large fps drops for adding more sprites.

I decided I'll just live with a solid 30 fps. But if you find a solution please post it. I think it would help a lot of people.

Posted 2 years ago #
MikeSz
Member

I noticed something similar back in 0.8, when using grideffects. game was always at steady 60 fps, but try to use an effect like a lens and bam! down to 30. EXACTLY 30, always 30 ;)

any chance you are using "3d" effects ?

Posted 2 years ago #
Tim
Member

Michael, this seems like it would be a nasty one to track down and probably worth adding to the tips page. Can you PM me any particular details so we can add something to the page? Is this a by-product of where both sprites have some transparency? Or is applicable to just one using transparency? Could you determine at what point it became a problem based upon image size as well?

thx

Posted 2 years ago #
michaelm
Member

@Tim I'll do some playing around later tonight, have to go see Avatar 3d... I'll test different sizes and see what sizes it kicks in at. But from what I remember when I was testing before, even if only one has transparency it kicks in. The sizes I was using were large 512 x 256 I'll try mixing up some different sizes tonight and see what I can come up with.

Posted 2 years ago #
Tim
Member

Thanks Michael, no big hurry but I think it's worth capturing the details.

Posted 2 years ago #
redsky
Member

Awesome! I'm glad I'm not crazy. Well, I may be crazy but not as a result of this issue.

I have some additional information to hopefully help someone figure out what's up.

Sprites that have alpha/transparency do not seem to be the cause. I created a bunch of PNGs, 8 bit, 24 bit, opaque and transparent. Regardless of the format, the results were the same across the board. All images were 480x320, anchored in the middle and placed on top of each other with varying z indexes

all pngs were solid color and 4k on disk

1 sprite = 60 fps

2 sprites = 30 fps
3 sprites = 30 fps

4 sprites = 20 fps
5 sprites = 20 fps

6 sprites = 15 fps
...

this test was the first time i tried adding more than 2 and saw that continued fps drop. interesting.

note that these are not fluctuating fps values, its pegged as if that's what the director was set to.

i hope this helps someone with their research

--- edit ---

just some more research info, again these are sprites not atlas or ccsprites

for 480x320 sprites, it takes 2 to cause a drop to 30 fps
1 sprite = 460.8k OK
2 sprites = 921.6k BAD

for 360x240 sprites, it takes 3 to cause a drop to 30 fps
2 sprites = 518.4k OK
3 sprites = 777.6k BAD

for 240x160 sprites, it takes 6 to cause a drop to 40 fps
5 sprites = 576.0k OK
6 sprites = 691.2k BAD

In each case, it looks like there is some boundary being crossed between >576k <691k where the problem starts to happen regardless of the size of the image.

take these numbers with a grain of salt as i don't claim to know anything about anything :)

to any other people that have experienced it, did you experience it on the mac mini? Could it be the mini's GPU or a driver implementation specific to that machine?

Posted 2 years ago #
michaelm
Member

Alright so here are some results of some tests I ran.
Like redsky there does appear to be some fuzzy boundary.

So here are the conclusions I came to not really any smoking gun. It seems if your compositing your largest sprites and the total pixels of the those two are <~200000 your ok, no huge drop.
About 200000 - 215000 fluctuating fps dropping about ~ 10 - 20 fps
> about 215000 drops to the 30 fps.
More than 2 will affect but not as fast a drop and it depends on size of sprites too.
Nothing exact, I wish I could have found some smoking gun.

*-------
Messy notes just as I was doing them,

These tests are in simulator, landscape, measurements are width x height .82 version of cocos2d
I know simulator not the best to test fps with but I don't have my current version provisioned yet,
but everything else being equal shows a relation to the drop anyway
2 atlas sprites 1 no transparency second with
1 512 x 256 2 512 x 196 drops about 10 - 20 fps same manager
1 512 x 512 2 512 x 512 drops to 30 fps
1 512 x 196 2 512 x 196 drops about ~ 10 fps
1 512 x 196 2 480 x 196 drops about ~ 10 fps
1 480 x 196 2 480 x 196 drops negligible
1 320 x 196 2 320 x 196 drops negligible
1 320 x 320 2 320 x 320 drops negligible
1 480 x 320 2 480 x 320 drops to 30 fps solid
1 480 x 480 2 480 x 480 drops to 30 fps solid
1 480 x 240 2 480 x 240 drops to 30 fps solid
1 480 x 220 2 480 x 220 drops to ~ 40 fps not solid
1 450 x 220 2 480 x 220 drops negligible but not solid up down
// Heres a cutoff area I think
1 460 x 220 2 460 x 220 drops ~10 - 20 fps
1 220 x 450 2 220 x 450 negligible drop, so not a problem of overdraw, just compositing over certain sizes
1 220 x 300 2 220 x 300 negligible drop
1 300 x 300 2 300 x 300 negligible drop
1 320 x 320 2 320 x 320 negligible drop
1 360 x 300 2 360 x 300 drop about ~ 30 fps important one
1 340 x 300 2 340 x 300 drop ~ <10 fps
1 340 x 320 2 340 x 320 drop to ~ 30 - 40 fps
1 340 x 320 2 220 x 320 drops negligible
1 200 x 300 2 512 x 300 drops ~ 10 - 20
512 x 196 = 100352*2 drop<10fps
480 x 196 = 94080*2 neg
480 x 320 = 153600*2 30fps solid
460 x 220 = 101200*2 drops ~10- 20 fps
360 x 300 = 108000*2 30 fps
220 x 450 = 99000*2 neg
1 200 x 300 2 512 x 300 = 213600 drops ~ 10 - 20
with 3 sprites all 200 x 300 transparency etc negligible drop

Posted 2 years ago #
spawrks
Member

i experienced this drop with a single background image rendered as a sprite on a macbook pro. I'm wondering if its the image type itself...seems strange that only two images would cause such a drop.. any of the dev's know of a known issue? I would be curious to see if they are seeing it.

Posted 2 years ago #
gnomesgames
Member

Does anyone have solved this issue yet ? I have the same kind of issue on the iPad simulator with latest cocos2d and iOS 4.2.
I have 9 CCSprite of 320x480 each, if only one is visible on screen, i get 60 fps (solid), with 2 visible i get from 40 to 50 fps (variable), and with 4 visible, i get 30 fps (solid)...
I have seen somewhere that iPad simulator fps aren't reliable, but i haven't an iPad to test on, and i would like to know if what i'm seeing come from the simulator or from this issue...

Posted 12 months ago #
TBBle
Moderator

Probably the Simulator. The iPad Simulator's not as fast as a real iPad, at least for me.

Posted 12 months ago #
QcMat
Member

As riq said, you cant check FPS on the simulator and think it's anything related to the real thing. Do such testing on the device, and you wont see those wonky FPS drops that we all see on the simulator.

Posted 12 months ago #
Wayne
Member

For my particular animations, I found that using 1.0f/60 on the simulator worked roughly the same as 1.5f/60 on the iPad itself. Also, using 1.0/60 doesn't work the same as using 1.0f/60 for me. I recall reading somewhere on this forum about this.

Posted 12 months ago #

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