If you’re a developer, you’ll probably know why performance testing is critical. It helps to check the behaviour of an application in various situations so it can work effectively across multiple platforms. Games that don’t perform well are a turn off to users, and if the performance issues reoccur a few times, your gaming app will likely be uninstalled for another that performs better. To prevent this from happening, your mobile game needs to be thoroughly tested before you release it into the market.
One of the first things to do when a user complains that a game is slow is to check for device performance issues. This is usually influenced by the following:
- Game start-up: How long does it take for the game to load? The standard time for the first screen of the game to load after it is tapped is 1-2 seconds.
- Battery time while playing the game: Some games consume more battery juice than others because they use more resources. When that happens, it’s only a matter of time before the phone heats up and this can affect performance.
- Memory consumption: Generally, apps with more functionality consume memory than apps with less. For instance, if the memory usage of the OS is mere 18 percent and the game requires 14 percent, there might be performance issues.
- Hardware/software variation: Confirm that the game works well on different devices from different brands as well as devices with different RAM and processor specifications.
- Usage with other apps: A game should not interfere with other apps running in parallel during testing and there’s no better way to test for this than by switching between different apps during testing.
- Apps in the ground: The game should be in the same state when it is retrieved from the background. In other words, there should be no data loss that necessitates the app starting afresh.
When the app is interacting with the server via API, the response time becomes critical to performance. In this department, here are few things to check:
- Data to and from server: The game should be able to interact efficiently with the server without taking too much time to receive the data, convert it to the appropriate format and load it on the screen.
- API calls generated from games: The number of calls from the game under test to the server should be minimal otherwise there might be performance issues.
- Server downtime: The game should be able to save data in the native database in the event of a server downtime so there is something to display.
Sometimes, the performance of an app on a network differs to another, and a game should be tested o different networks.
- Jitters: The game should be able to receive and handle scrambled data caused by a delay in receiving information on the network.
- Packet loss: Packet loss is a common occurrence. The game should be able to handle the loss of data by displaying a suitable message or asking the user to try again.
- Network speed: The game should be tested on different networks including 2.5G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks. Both Wi-Fi and mobile networks should also be included.
Testing a mobile game for performance can be a demanding task but if you want your app to deliver a seamless user experience, the above tests are necessary. Should you need any help, contact us!