Timers - To use them or not to use them

mysticjim

Hey everyone. It's been over 24 hours since my last question so I thought it was high time to ask another!

So, timers. I'm a GS newbie, and following the early tutorials, probably like most other newbies, I discovered timers and began using them in my game creation experiments. Whilst searching this forum for some guidance on a particular use of a timer that I was struggling with I came by this forum post from a little while back;

forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/44707/timers-are-for-chumps-gs-optimization-tips

So, extensive use of timers causes lag, have I got that right? If so, when would this be apparent - would the developer notice it on preview, or when uploaded to the Arcade, or is this more of a matter for when running it on a mobile device?

And is it a question of the number of timers utilised - presumably it's a problem if multiple timers are running at once? I'm sure other factors will contribute to poor game performance, probably poor design on the whole, but as a ball aprk figure, does anyone know how many timers you could have before problems set in?

If the advice in that post is still relevant (and it's an older thread so for all I know timers in GS may have been streamlined and it might not be a problem any more?) - is it now common practice to replace timers altogether using the methods described?

Just for reference, I don't have an exact count, but the prototype game I'm working on I reckon must have about 15 timers so far, admittedly not all firing off at once, but potentially when I get to the next stage of development I could envisage between 20 and 30 all going at once under the right circumstances. Obviously, I'm a bit worried!

AJaymz

It's not as big of an issue as it used to be. Not with all the faster devices now. But I'm sure if you use a lot of timers at once especially the Every timers then may get some lag, but it depends on what devices you're targeting.