After opening the malloc log, my simulator becomes very choppy. The simulator remains choppy after closing the malloc log and opening another game. It is smooth after restarting the simulator. I'm on a 2020 M1 Mac Mini with Sonoma 14.2.1, and my Playdate simulator is version 2.3.1.
Depending on how much memory it's tracking it can slow down the Simulator. I would suggest disabling Autorefresh and also clearing it whenever possible.
It looks like we don't turn off the refresh timer when the window closes. I'll file that!
Thanks for the recommendation to disable autorefresh! That prevents stuttering after I close the malloc log.
As for memory, it's using about 450-500 KB. PlaydateSDK-2.0.0.zip seems to be a lot smoother.
There was a bug that was fixed post 2.0 which will cause it to take a bit more time. I've optimized that a bit more and fixed the refresh timer for 2.4. Please take a look at it when it comes out.
With SDK 2.4.0, the stuttering stops after closing the malloc log.
I don't know enough about how the malloc log and Simulator work to judge whether or not the stuttering is reasonable. Here is a video that shows the stuttering that occurs when Autorefresh is on with ~450-500 KB of memory in use. In the gif, the Simulator seems to slow down and skip frames. While using the Simulator, it completely freezes for a moment, skips frames, runs a few frames, then continues from freezing again.
This looks about right. Auto refresh is pretty intense.
For what it’s worth, the fixed (but therefore slower) 2.0 memory map is a lot less useful than the way it was last year: I used to be able to run Outside Parties with autorefresh and see in realtime (little stutters don’t matter) where memory spikes and leaks were.
But now the map beachballs for multiple seconds per frame of game action. Probably something unique to what I’m doing. But I mention it because if there were some OPTION to use the old memory map (bugs and all) I would love that! (In fact, even manually refreshing is super slow now for me.)
Follow-up: just click Clear every now and then and the memory map speeds right up!
I experienced the same thing! It was choppy when I opened it, and it smoothed out nicely when I clicked Clear. Thanks for sharing.
I notice though that sometimes clicking Clear kills Simulator audio (even the System Menu sounds and volume clicks don’t play). I’ve seen this happen both with and without Autorefresh. (SDK 2.5.0.)