A HTML5 game that crashes every browser - browser makers, please do better

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3153589

by AshleysBrain • 15 years ago

3 15 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi HN,

Not sure where else to best reach the browser people, but I've made a little space shooter HTML5 game using canvas 2D. Here's the URL:

http://www.scirra.com/labs/spaceblaster-webapp/

Arrow keys to move, hold space to shoot, press shift to fire rockets.

This game crashes every single browser on Windows 7 64-bit. I've had it crash on Chrome 14.0.835.202, Firefox 7.0.1, Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421, Opera 11.51 and even Safari 5.1.1 for Windows. Sometimes it crashes within 30 sec, but it almost always crashes before completing the game.

Please either tell me what I'm doing wrong, or fix your browsers. Everyone loves HTML5, right? So please make sure it works properly, because current browsers just don't seem to be good enough.

unfortunate2• 15 years ago

I keep filling my car with water, my car stops working, they should really fix cars.

If your code crashes every browser, your code is shit. Yes the browsers could do better, but you shouldn't write shit code that crashes them.

AshleysBrain2• 15 years ago

I see what you're getting at, but IMO this is probably one of the better coded HTML5 games out there. It's written to be fast, low memory overhead and conforming to ECMAScript 5 strict mode. It still doesn't work. I genuinely have no idea how I can improve the quality of the code in this.

maushu• 15 years ago

Huh, why are your assets all on different files?

Have you tried to put them into sprite sheets?

ehsanu14• 15 years ago

IMO this is probably one of the better coded HTML5 games out there

I genuinely have no idea how I can improve the quality of the code in this.

I won't jump to conclusions, but this attitude is kind of indicative of the Dunning-Kruger effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect) being at play, especially given that you seem to be blaming browser makers for your game crashing.

Even the very best programmers can think of ways to improve the quality of their code. In fact, they're more likely to find problems in their own code - that's part of why they're the best.

In any case, assuming you aren't suffering from the Dunning–Kruger effect, can you mention what attempts you've made to narrow down the problem?

Have you tried disabling parts of the game (like rendering for example) to see if the browser still crashes? That would be a simple, albeit tedious, way of narrowing down where the problem is. Come up with a minimal crash case.

If you find a legitimate problem across all 4 browsers, then you can use that minimal case to demonstrate the problem and file a bug report. Or, more likely, you'll figure out what's wrong in your code this way and fix it.

unfortunate2• 15 years ago

But, it doesn't work.

Your code can only be as good as the platform you're working with. You can't code features beyond what are supported, and if you're trying to do too much, you need to scale back. If you based a games design on the idea that every computer was quad core with a huge graphics card, it would be pretty amazing, but no-one except a select few could play it.

Short of it is, you're code doesn't work, whatever is wrong with it, it doesn't work. And you can't expect browsers to change to suit you, if you really don't know how to improve it, scrap it and start again but at the moment you can't blame the browsers for not being able to support your, probably brilliant, game.

n00kie• 15 years ago

Mac + Chrome = crash. Memory usage keeps growing. No idea.

ehsanu14• 15 years ago

You'd get a better reaction from people if you assumed you're at fault instead of blaming 4 independent browser makers as all being at fault.

nookie here mentions memory use, so why don't you use the profiler in Chrome's web developer tools to find the memory leak (assuming there is a memory leak, as nookie implies). I believe they have some tools to help you in that regard.

AshleysBrain2• 15 years ago

Chrome's developer tools never show the memory going above 30mb during the entire game. It's using a heavily optimised engine that creates very little garbage and rarely makes allocations in JS. So the issue appears to be in the browser.

dlikhten• 15 years ago

I think this quote said it best. I was told this when I started programming... "Don't blame the JVM immediately, there is a very high probability this is just a bug you made, probably some race condition. After all possibilities are exhausted then blame the JVM, you are not even close to that." And there you go. Modify to suit your needs. If every browser crashes, I bet you either has a major bug or found a flaw in a core mathematical component each browser relies on, in either case that flaw must be worked around. So in both cases its on your shoulders.

manuscreationis3• 15 years ago

On the idea that it's your code, and not your browser, in my samples with Canvas, i've noticed memory is very easy to start "leaking"

One thing I found on StackOverflow (I cannot find the article again, I apologize... I should've bookmarked it) was that if you're drawing lines and not using the "beginPath" call, you'll get a memory leak. No idea why this would be.

I realized I had exactly that problem in my sample canvas app, and making the change actually reduced my memory overhead. In Opera and Chrome, anyways. Firefox still had wild memory fluctuations, but that didn't surprise me.

Moral of the story: There are probably several things you could tweak to reduce your memory usage, as it does seem that a lot of canvas code out there is memory-abusive.

steventruong• 15 years ago

I couldn't replicate the crash. Played a couple games. Died, started off where my points left off. Was over 1000 pts. Browser ran fine even with a bunch of other tabs.

Mac Lion 10.7.2 + Chrome 14.0.835.202 Regular Build

A HTML5 game that crashes every browser - browser makers, please do better

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