Mac M1 Silicon performance

Community
1

Hi everyone,
I have experienced that GDevelop lags on my new Macbook Pro M1 (late 2021 version). For example, when I scroll on the events page, the movement chops. Also opening and closing actions windows sometimes has a delay for a second or two. Has anybody else had those problems? Are there plans on making an M1 optimized version of GDevelop?

Cheers

Farid

2

There won’t be any optimized version for any brand/model of computer.
Regarding your issues, I don’t know what could be the source. Can you reproduce the issues after a fresh start of the computer, with no other software opened?

3

Ok, but since GDevelop is built with Electron, that won’t require any extra work, since Electron will support native M1 builds. Or maybe it’s already possible?

4

Sorry, I wasn’t aware this model has a different CPU architecture or whatnot.
My guess is that if you’re able to open GDevelop, it’s not related to that… but I might be wrong.
Taking a peek on the GitHub, I see:

    "electron": "8.2.5",
    "electron-builder": "22.11.11",
    "electron-notarize": "^0.2.1",

and
"electron-is": "^2.4.0"

We seem to run v8 and I can’t see any mention of “universal” on our GitHub…
@4ian Could you confirm we’re supporting this Apple Silicon architecture?

5

Well, the new CPU (M1 arm) can still run older Intel apps using some kind of emulator called Rosetta on a Mac. That means you can still run GDevelop without any big issues, but it has poor performance. Compiling an app for native M1 makes it a lot faster.
//Farid

6

@alexandresi is developing on a M1, so it definitely “works” and we’ve judged that it works fine enough, though it’s also definitely not optimal (because of the emulation layer).

We would need to update Electron to a newer version but there were a few things to look at to ensure it works well, so this was not a priority so far (though we welcome anyone that would want to contribute with a PR so we can test more broadly :)).
Would be great to have this done though, this will probably bring perf improvement to other platforms too.

1 Like
7

I don’t know much about programming except developing in GDevelop, so I’m not sure if I can contribute, but if there is anything you think I can do, such as testing and stuff I would be happy join the team.

Cheers

Farid