Strange Performances issues with chrome/NW.js

Hi there Y'all,

I'm having a rather strange issue with the way my game performs, namely in NW.js,

First off, when I run the game in Chrome, NOT in fullscreen, it performs terribly , no real stuttering at all, this was a relief because I suppose it negates the likelihood that my admittedly amateurish coding or events were the culprit, or the way in which I've arranged the art assets.

The problem is, when I preview the game in NW.js, in windowed form (480,270) everything appears to be fine, though admittedly I am squinting trying to see the thing It seems clear it's running just fine inside the box. Hit "P", and everything just tanks. I'm not sure of the exact FPS, but it is in an unplayable state, constant stuttering and input latency. In fullscreen NW.js, it runs at least as bad if not worse than Chrome does in it's not fullscreen state.

So I exported the games using NW.js just to make sure the issues don't get ironed out somehow when exported and unfortunately they don't, the exported version is just as bad, fine windowed, broken in fullscreen.

Personally this is alarming because I intend for this to be a desktop game, I hope to put it up on steam and everything, and I need to be able to export in a good state in order to do that.

The game is pixel-arty, not too demanding and Chrome can obviously run the thing, so what could be causing this issue?

For reference, I've also tried running the game using firefox, it runs alright though does stutter a bit, still much better than NW.js, and fullscreen seems to do little to the games performances in this scenario. I also tried explorer, where it also runs alright, just this weird intermittent TICK jarring the game, explorer won't allow me to go fullscreen.

I haven't included a cap.x because, well, the games kinda big. Not in terms of size (it's only 18.6MB according to the editor) but there are a lot (hundreds if not more) of original assets in the project. I guess I could make a super striped down one but that would take some time and I'm kinda hoping there is a remedy to this that will allow me to continue with this rather long project I've been working on with the peace of mind that it won't be in vein because of some weird performance problem.

Thanks for reading

There are still issues with NW.js that need ironing out, but the latest Alpha builds are getting there.

What version of C2 and NW,js are you using?

You are describing that jank and stutter behavior that is well known for NW in recent times.

The 0.13 alpha 6 and 7 are excellent so far for performance, smoothness. There's still some minor things that needs to be smoothed out but it will be fine.

Danwood has good results with his epic survival game as well as other testers.

Thanks for the replies, it's nice to hear this is being worked on. I was semi aware of jank issues regarding NW.js, but I thought they would manifest in Chrome as well, and Chrome in fullscreen running near perfect kinda through me for a loop. at least I have a way to preview without issues. : )

I guess i'll wait and see what future builds of NW.js are like and truck on the ever optimist.

zenox I have the steam license, I'm not sure what NW.js version I have but I'm using r216 at the moment

Thanks guys

Chrome is is updated to fix the issues.

NW is still using very outdated Chromium builds that are plagued with problems. The latest NW 0.13 alpha 6 and 7 are on recent Chromium.

You're probably using NW 0.12 which stil has the awful jank issues. I recommend updating to r218 beta, download NW 0.13 alpha 7 http://dl.nwjs.io/live-build/12-01-2015 ... 3.0-alpha7 ( last two files, respectively for 32 and 64) and place in the respective 32/64 folders on the NW.js installation for C2 you have in your program files.

Newer NW.js fixes the jank for me and reduces CPU usage by ~20%. My game is massively large and it's running well on my mid/low end system. Some users still have issues though, as html5/C2 isn't the perfect combo for large games, but nowadays systems should handle them anyway, especially considering Html5 is an evolving technology.

Danwood , I was having issues too, I downloaded the alpha from scirra's page plus using r218 beta as well. I have some performance issues here and there yet its only a prototype. I didn't have this issue before. Also I had to delete AJAX plugin to be able to test.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong in the way I'm installing nw ?

Thanks

— which version of NW were you using prior of 0.13 alpha?

Danwood, I think 0.12. I saw around the forums and several users are talking about similar issues.

I don't know about AJAX as i dont use it, but 0.13 is a performance improvements for me, alpha 5 & 6 still had issue, but 7 so far is good. If you still have performance problem the cause may be difficult to isolate, maybe it's your system? Do you have a laptop with integrated graphics? do yo uuse your graphics card for nw.exe?

0.13 seems to have worse webgl performance than 0.12, my intel iris could handle 0.12 fine but now there's stutter.

No Ajax for me with v13 as well. I'll have to wait a while...

I have 4th gen i5 integrated gpu, so I'm looking forward to do some tests when stable nw will be released.