Optimizing performance in Spriter

[Retrotation]

I'm getting really sluggish performance on a Lenovo laptop: 2.9quadcore i7 processor, 8gigs of ram, Geforce GT 630M.

When I load up a project with 15 pieces at an average resolution of 100x100px (with a comparable amount of bones and links for a human animation), I get an FPS of about 5 or less per second along with up to a 2 second delay when performing actions. I love what Spriter is trying to accomplish as a toolkit, and it runs perfectly great inside an engine - it's just very rough still on the artist/workflow end.

My company is producing two titles using Spriter. While I can't reveal who we are at the moment, here are some things that could really benefit us:

-snapping art pieces to a grid.

-nearest-neighbor resampling while zooming (one of the projects our company is attempting to utilize Spriter for is pixel art... difficult to work with when your pixels are all blurry!)

-transparency mask/alpha mask support. Would be great to be able to load up a black/white image to obscure other layers during animation.

[Retrotation]

Oops: so the main point of this topic - are there any small tricks or tips to speed up performance? I double-checked to make sure that Spriter is utilizing the Nvidia card versus the integrated Intel chip. Not sure if there is anything else I can do.

Any suggestions?

[Udo]

Hi,

i dont know much about Laptop-Specific Graphic preferences. But because no one replies until now, i'll do my best :-)

Your problems may have to do with the fact that Spriter uses OpenGL instead of DirectX (?) Maybe you find something about that in your Nvidia-Panel.

You could also deactivate the Onboard-Intel-Chip and hence force the Nvidia to show up - just for testing.

Greetings

(Sorry, my English may be a little crappy)

[Retrotation]

Cool tip!

Nvidia Control Panel ---> Manage 3D Options ---> Program Settings ---> (add Spriter.exe to the list)

I forced all the available options to provide extra performance. I now get about 1 second or less delay inbetween actions, but my FPS is still generally around 5...

If anyone else has input on how to improve Spriter performance, it'd be very helpful to many people!

[lucid]

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Would you mind sending me the project this is happening on? (lucid@brashmonkey.com) I never get performance like that, and your system specs aren't that far behind mine.

[Udo]

@Retrotation

... I now get about 1 second or less delay inbetween actions,...

Ok, one Step to the right direction :-)

I still wonder about your problem a little bit. Does other software running in good/normal speed?

..maybe a stupid question, but do you have installed the newest Nvidia-Driver?

Check every point in the control-panel. Some settings only affect OpenGL. Carefully read everything and swap options step by step. Some Options may need a restart of the software or the whole system.

I also have the suspicion that everything is rendered by software instead of hardware. Is it possible for you to test another OpenGl-Software? Or an OpenGl-Benchmark?

[Retrotation]

Hey Lucid, sent you an email!

@Udo - My drivers were out of date by about 6 months! Oops :P I went ahead and updated, but I didn't get really any improvement. Undo/Redoing takes about 3+ seconds also, which seems to be the slowest action I experience. It can be frustrating when you do the wrong action due to low frame-rate, and it takes even longer to undo it heh

Spriter is a great animation solution in progress though - anyone looking at this thread, please don't be deterred! I look forward to seeing all the improvements and additions coming in the future :]