Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
▪ Low-Power x86 Chips - These are Atom-class processors and are faster than ARM but
still have issues with very taxing graphics and calculations. These devices have similar
resolutions as ARM-based devices.
▪ High-Power x86 and x64 Chips - These are top-of-the-line processors you would find in
full desktops, laptops, and even some Windows 8 tablets, such as the Surface Pro. These
can be paired with integrated graphics chips or full standalone GPUs.
I tend to code for the ARM devices. My goal is that if it doesn't run on ARM then the game
is not shippable. Of course you can simply publish an x86- or x64-based game, but you are
limiting your reach across the full Windows 8 platform. I highly suggest testing on an ARM
device as much as possible while getting your game up and running on Windows 8. If your
game works on ARM, you can probably skip the low-powered processors as long as your
main develop machine has one of the higher-end processors.
Tips and Tricks for Further Optimization
As you already probably know, optimizing JavaScript based games is part trail and error and
part black magic. While I did my best to cover a lot of the common ways to get better per-
formance on Windows 8 here are some addition tips to try out.
Debug Builds Are Slower Than Production Builds
As you end up testing your game on your local computer or on a remote device, you may no-
tice some serious performance slowdowns depending on the hardware running the game. At
first you may get nervous and think your game isn't going to run well in production, but I
have noticed these slowdowns on slower hardware. If you are doing testing and need to use
the debugger, see if you can work through the slowdowns. If you don't need to debug, I sug-
gest exiting the game by stopping the Visual Studio build, closing the game, and reopening it
from the start screen. It will run at full speed and you will hopefully see a dramatic differen-
ce in performance.
Avoid Multiple Draw Calls to the Canvas
You should be keeping track of the number of draw calls you make to Canvas. Every draw
call has the potential of slowing down your game. Unfortunately, there aren't any debug
tools to help optimize rendering performance in your game unless the game framework you
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