How is the creator performing for you right now?
birdboy
Member Posts: 284
Hey everybody,
I wanna hear about your experience with the latest stable releases because GameSalad has become close to unusable for me. I'm using a late 2011 macbook pro which of course isn't the newest of all devices but I don't have any problems working with Photoshop or even with Unity (not talking about empty projects or .psds here but really working with lots of objects or layers).
In GameSalad I'm primarily working on universal games which means my latest projects are mostly 1024x768. All of them are really small games with only 2-3 scenes and only 10-20 actors per scene but switching scenes/working on actor logic/switching between play and working mode result in loading times of 10 seconds or more after just a few minutes (a few months ago I had to restart the creator every 15-30 minutes, now it's like every 2-5 minutes).
While making a demo project for a thread about the broken scene wrap the other day I realized that just starting GameSalad, creating a new empty project with a few scenes with wrap x and wrap y (each with only one actor with only one move behavior) and switching between these scenes and actors resulted in loading times of 5 seconds or more not even 2 minutes after starting the software.
But the most annoying thing for me is how slow the behavior editor gets. That's the core of what I'm doing if I'm making a game - setting up the logic - and combined with all the other slowdowns just a few different rules and behaviors are enough to make scrolling a pain.
I'm really sad about all of this because first and foremost I like the GameSalad Creator. Secondly because I don't think that's a state a 300$/year software can be allowed to be in. I know this software is somehow still in beta after half a decade but seriously - think of the first impression people get of this tool or the company when they download it now. I've never seen software with a performance this bad.
Personally I've never been so close to just switching away from GameSalad (after so many years of using it and the third year of my pro subscription) because it has reached a point were all the pros of its wonderfully quick workflow are completely destroyed by the performance of the Creator.
How is it for you guys? Is the performance a lot better on newer devices? What are you experiencing right now?
Comments
Reverted back to 12.20, it runs a lot smoother.
Fortuna Infortuna Forti Una
Thanks @Lovejoy, I'll try that release. I hope with forthcoming releases we will at least see a return to the performance we once had (which wasn't great to begin with).
If I was a bug submitter...which I aint...because I would just keep adding to the list and then asking everyone to vote for it to be a priority...here is my list of issues...most have been around since Oct of 2013...
Creator for Mac...
Images not showing after adding them into image inspector...or crashes Creator upon doing so.
Not being able to change the location of an image in the inspector...and it stay there.
Coding disappears if mouse arrow glides over it in the expression box.
Extreme lagging of Creator after 5-10-15 minites of usage...slow scrolling and production as a result.
Not being able to have a comma in any value after 1,000 automatically inserted...if "score" display is centered in actor...this is immpsossible to code...for me.
Not being able to have a score above 10 million...for a game like slots this is cery common score.
Creator crashing at will...even on the click of "save" project...and it doesnt save project.
Previewer and actual adhoc does not always match. Case in point is the score of 10 million...any value can be displayed in previewer...actual display of value cannot exceed 10 million...(you get 1.063243e+).
Not able to delete code in the "otherwise" portion of a rule.
Publisher
I myself...am not in agreement of being a bug submitter for things that continue "stable release" after "release". I have made a few things known...and in some cases pretty assertively...sometimes to much so. Sometimes it has come back to me directly form GS and quite frankly was embarrasing to have made certain comments in the forums and "behind the scenes" in support tickets.
Over all I feel...I FEEL...that the nightly, RC and stable release procedure is not working correctly. I even did some research to back my feelings about it and a purchaser shoukd not be using a beta version of anything...that purchaser if "pro" can have available features such as nightly buikds and RC's...for the most part a purchaser should have available to them a nearly flawless version to work with...that at least what the websites I read about versioning said. I now...do understand via the forums and GS's comments some of the issues and realize they are working on some of them...as well as new features...and making new forums for those...and working hotfixes for those new features...and providing what appears to be excellent support for thos new features...making sure they work.
So...for now I just let GS do what they can and make changes to my game to compensate for those issues if possible.
I do like using GameSalad.
That is all.
Complete Guide to iOS Publishing {} Complete Guide to Mac Publishing
running 12.20. generally have to reboot every 30 minutes. continuous saving. overall it's working well compared to some past versions.
The lagging issue in creator 13.7 is definitely worse than 12.20. Using the back button and the dreaded spinning ball happens after 5 minutes of usage. I have got 12GB RAM 2011 iMac.
However I found out if you use the scene button instead of the back button, it kinda loads quicker? Or maybe I am just used to the spinning ball...