Sprite Kit, Box2D, Performance and LiveCode's Approach to Game Coding

[John Craig]

I'm also interested in creating games with LiveCode and looking forward 
to box2d integration.  I've been checking out Corona and (more recently) 
- Unity (3D), to familiarize myself with physics stuff.  It makes a 
massive difference having a physics engine taking care of collisions, 
gravity, etc.  I assume that box2d performance with LiveCode will be on 
a par with other platforms using the same engine, so it will really open 
up a lot of possibilities :D

The following Unity demo only required a couple of hundred lines of 
code, since all the physics was taken care of, so I'm really looking 
forward to seeing what LiveCode is capable of in the coming months.
http://youtu.be/XuA5xbsdx_M

Since Unity has a web player, you can have a play around with the demo here;
http://splash21.com/Buggy/



On 21/08/2013 03:13, Ender Nafi Elekçioğlu wrote:
> Yes, I'm aware of Box2D integration and I'm very excited about it.
> I can't wait to see the possibilities.
>
> But, I'm not sure how much performance boost it will give us.
>
> I've stumbled on an article tonight about algorithm optimizations.
> It's kind of a case study.
> *Spots* finds the wifi hotspots nearby showing on a map and should react user's pinch&zoom act with a 60fps speed.
> { http://www.savoysoftware.com/blog/my-iphone-is-not-a-mac-pro/ }
> Nikolai managed to achieve a whopping 200x performance increase by optimization.
>
> I tried the unoptimized code in LiveCode.
> After seeing the results, I didn't bother to code the binary-search.
> Here it is:
> ----------------- Cocoa & C++ --- LiveCode
> iPod Touch---  194ms ----------- ~2600ms
> Mac Pro-------- 4ms ------------- ~ 210ms
>
> These are both unoptimized algorithms
> but even if I'd use the binary-search in LiveCode,
> I wonder that I could achieve 0.883ms on my iPod Touch or 0.016ms on my brand-new desktop.
> So, an app like *Spots* can never be realized in LiveCode. Achieving a speed like 60fps seems impossible.
> Isn't this kinda frustrating?
>
>
> I can hear some of you saying:
> "Well, get over it pal, LiveCode is a RAD tool.
> this is the price you have to pay in exchange of ease-of-use."
>
> Are these features really contradicting?
> Can't a coding platform be blazing-fast yet having an excellent IDE, built on an event-driven foundation and supporting multiple platforms?
>
> I'm not ungrateful, here. Just questioning…
> After all, LiveCode's paying my rent for nearly 2 years now.
>
>
> Best,
>
> ~ Ender Nafi
> ~… together, we're smarter …~
>
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