Posted August 26, 2022 by BlueKeyGames
Looks like the update didn't quite resolve the performance issues for everyone who was having them, so I'll have to go back to the drawing board. Sometimes it can be difficult to really troubleshoot what the issue is, especially when it's as inconsistent as what's being experienced. I have been experiencing smooth 60FPS in They Came From Dimension X running on a Ryzen 7. Prior to release we tested it on a little over 10 PCs of varying quality, with no issues save one that ended up being a system issue rather than the game.
Nothing can prepare you for an actual release it seems. I've been reading up on reports spread throughout the itch.io page, the Steam Community Hub, Twitter, and multiple Discord servers. While some machines I wouldn't expect much from (sorry guys!), others using more powerful PCs than mine ended up chugging at 15FPS too. The curious thing was that the reported CPU and RAM usage from users with superior rigs were about what I expected for this game, and in line with my own.
My current working theory is that the requirements for They Came From Dimension X's mechanics have hit the limits of what GDScript is reasonably capable of. Fortunately, Godot supports C++ through GDNative, which is orders of magnitude faster.
All that is to say, as I've already announced on Twitter I'll be porting the Actor class and all associated sub-classes (Player, monsters, the frightened husky in E1M1) to GDNative/C++. I've actually already started work on it. I do not have a current ETA on the C++ update, so unfortunately all I can ask of those of you currently having performance issues is to please be patient. I promise the game will be great when you can finally play it.
<3 Tim