Optimisation

The logic and assets in your Experience impact how it performs when played.

Assets

Assets can have a big cumulative impact on game performance depending on:

  • the amount of nodes in an Asset

  • the number of faces in an Asset

  • the size of an Asset

  • the number of times a complex Asset has been placed in an Experience

  • the total number of Assets used in an Experience

ASSET QUALITY & PERFORMANCE

Follow VoxEdit's Quality Guidelines to make the best version of your Assets.

Single Player Experiences

Performance Impact

Behaviours and components marked as [MP] have zero impact on single player Experience performance because there is no network demand to synchronise them between many players.

Logic Layers

Behaviours and components will only communicate on the same layer, whether [SP] or [MP]. Quests will only communicate with [SP] behaviours or components since they track the player's individual progression. Build layers of logic that will result in a cohesive feel for players and communicate properly on each layer.

Multiplayer Experiences

Performance Impact

Game Maker's behaviours and components are separated in three categories based on performance impact: Null, Low, Medium, and High.

This grouping guides you to wisely choose logic for your Experience so it will be exciting and play well on many devices without reduced quality, such as loss of frame rate, due to multiplayer synchronisations.

Maximum Amounts

Hover your mouse over a behaviour or component in the selection window for tool tips with more details. The maximum amounts noted in the tool tips are maximum possible uses calculated from testing with nothing else in an Experience.

This information is provided to help you understand the degree of impact certain behaviours and components have. Just as with designing quality assets, maximum limits are not recommended for the best quality creations.

Test Thoroughly

If you use a lot of medium or high impact logic, test your game thoroughly for performance and make adjustments. To ensure it'll be enjoyable for more players, test it on devices that meet minimum requirements to play. See Testing for more information.

Logic Layers

Behaviours and components will only communicate on the same layer, whether [SP] or [MP]. Quests will only communicate with [SP] behaviours or components since they track the player's individual progression. Build layers of logic that will result in a cohesive feel for players and communicate properly on each layer.

COLLABORATIVE GOALS

Crowd Event behaviour can be used for collaborative goals. Quests are only used to track individual player progression in an Experience.

Efficiency

MAXIMISE [SP] AND MINIMISE [MP] LOGIC

For optimal performance, choose [MP] behaviours or components mainly when they must be synchronised to all players. Multiplayer Experiences will perform better and may even allow for more assets and gameplay if [SP] logic is used instead of [MP] wherever possible.

You can often create interactive logic that feels identical for players with [SP] or [MP] behaviours or components. If it doesn't need to be synchronised [MP] for all players, use client-only [SP] logic instead for higher performance in Multiplayer games.

If most of your Experience logic is [SP] for improved performance in Multiplayer games, it will be easier to manage communications between layers, and more objects will be able to communicate with Quests.

See Multiplayer Logic for more information.

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