Construct 2 (r252) poor performance on Windows 10

Problem Description

Construct 2 editor is lagging on Windows 10.

Toolbars, menus, context menus (when you right-click something) take a long time to re-draw.

Sprite Editor is very slow, even in small or blank projects.

C2 takes over 30 seconds to load.

(Event dialogs are also opening with a significant delay, but as this may be a different issue, I logged another bug report for it)

All these problems are temporary resolved with Windows restart - C2 startup time becomes less than 5 seconds, editor works without noticeable lags.

First couple of hours after windows restart C2 works well, but then it starts to slow down again.

Please see this video, it demonstrates the difference in performance before and after Windows restart:

https://youtu.be/8thpozIBnUU

Attach a Capx

https://www.dropbox.com/s/541c7mrvrydgt ... .capx?dl=0

This capx doesn't really matter as the performance is bad in all projects, even blank ones.

Description of Capx

Capx with some test objects and events from the video above.

Steps to Reproduce Bug

Possible way to reproduce:

I made a test yesterday - restarted my laptop, ensured that C2 works fast and there are no lags.

Then I launched a bat file which starts a C2 project, waits 40 seconds, exits C2 and then repeats everything again and again.

With every cycle, C2 loading time was noticeably slower.

After 1 hour of running this bat, loading time for C2 dropped down to 30 seconds and all performance problems returned.

Observed Result

See the video

Expected Result

Stable performance

Affected Browsers

N/A, editor issue.

Operating System and Service Pack

Windows 10 Home, Version 10.0.16299 Build 16299

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU 2.50GHz, 2712 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

RAM 8GB, 256GB SSD

Video Intel(R) HD Graphics 620

Construct 2 Version ID

r252, r251 and earlier versions

Is this new in r252 or were old versions affected? If old versions are affected, at which release did it start exhibiting a problem?

Otherwise when exactly did you first notice this occurring?

I've no idea what could be causing this though - I don't even know what type of problem could cause the same app to be slower to launch after completely closing it. It should be starting from a blank slate every time. Additionally any problem that takes more than 30 seconds to demonstrate, let alone an hour, is extremely time consuming to even investigate let alone solve. A typical bug report might involve me trying 20-30 different things; for an instant repro, this is a few minute's work, but for an issue like this, it could take weeks. So I'm afraid this may be a long-term project to investigate.

Ashley,

r246 was definitely affected. Probably r244 too, but I don't remember for sure.

I first noticed this about 30 days ago, when I started using C2 on this laptop with Windows 10.

I included information about that experiment with bat file as I hope it might be useful. It's obviously a synthetic test and not a real usage case. But it demonstrates that it's not the windows uptime (or not just the uptime) which is causing these lags, but also the number of times C2 was launched.

Also, you could probably try to leave a similar script running on a Windows 10 PC with all recent updates overnight, and check next morning if C2 is running slow or not.

I understand, that an app should be starting from a blank slate, and I've never seeing anything like this with other applications. So maybe C2 leaves something behind after closing that's slowing it down over time? (temporary files, some processes in memory, open files or something like that?)

For example, after that experiment I found that C2 created lots of temporary folders, 400Mb in total, many of which contained copies of project files in \Documents and Settings\{profile}\Local Settings\Temp

Unfortunately, removing these folders didn't improve the performance. Only rebooting Windows seems to help.

r246 was definitely affected. Probably r244 too, but I don't remember for sure.

Can you install the old versions and check? This is essential diagnostic information.

Ashley

Yes, I can. Which versions do you want me to check?

Testing each will take hours, so please only give me a couple of key versions where you made some big changes in the editor.

Update: I disabled Meltdown/Spectre updates as described here and tested again with versions r252 and r239.

For each version I rebooted Windows and ran that bat-file for an hour, and in both cases C2 slowed down considerably.

I didn't notice any improvements.

I also noticed another funny little bug (probably completely unrelated, but who knows) - with each launch, the right panel with the Project Bar expands a bit to the left. So after about 50 launches, it fills the entire window.

If C2 versions as old as r239 (which came out late 2016) are still affected, but you only noticed in the last 30 days or so, this does make it look like a Windows Update is behind this as well. I suspect it's the same issue as in the other thread. Maybe it's a different update to the one you disabled.

Ashley, I couldn't have noticed it earlier because I installed C2 on this laptop only about 40 days ago

Well, it at least means it's not due to a Construct 2 update, and nobody else noticed it until late 2017, so again it points towards some kind of Windows Update.

Well, it at least means it's not due to a Construct 2 update, and nobody else noticed it until late 2017, so again it points towards some kind of Windows Update.

MS rolled the Intel CPU patch back about a month ago:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-em ... ectre-fix/

And, again, the issue occurs on systems that never received the patch (and which worked fine previously, and have not received OS updates since working fine previously), which unless I'm mistaken, is what was initially blamed for the issue?

There are multiple patches going out. AFAIK the main patch changing the page tabling has never been rolled back. Anyway, I am far out of patience for arguing over this. Closing.