3
\$\begingroup\$

Good evening. We've been developing quite a huge game for android on the basis of AndEngine. So we have a lot of assets to load, especially textures.

At the moment everything (sound, textures etc) for every screen (menu, shop, etc etc) is loaded when the app starts (while showing a progress bar). This way the user only has to wait once about 16 seconds at the start of the game. We think that this is a pretty pleasant solution from the users perspective but might it be bad in terms of battery usage / memory usage or any other reasons?

What arguments speak for a solution where we unload all the screen specific assets of the active screen and load the assets needed for the next screen? Thank you for your opinion!

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KromStern: Thank you for providing the link :)! It is a similar question but in my opinion what is missing there are clear arguments that speak for/against the two approaches. A list of pro and cons would be great so we can balance them. Thank you \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 10:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ @sjkm That sounds like a problem with the answers rather than with the question. You could start a bounty to attract more attention to the existing question. You can specify in the bounty text what you'd like to see more detail on. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 22, 2015 at 13:59

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0
\$\begingroup\$

The only argument for the solution you propose is so there is less memory usage at a specific time, which might be good for a mobile device with a relatively small amount of memory vs a PC. However, it is a double edged sword. For you to unload and load assets as your game is running, you might need to introduce multiple loading screens because of the overhead from processing this.

It is probably a better experience for your players if there is a single loading screen at the start, and they don't need to wait for anything later on. There might even be less load on the battery life from loading everything at the start, rather than loading and unloading multiple times.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ Hey thank you for your response :)! I agree with your opinion. As long as the loading time at the beginning is appropriate I will keep doing it like now. Thanks! \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 22, 2015 at 16:50

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.