Roblox should set a realistic target, or reduce default memory usage so we can hit the performance target specified by the performance statistics. Right now, it’s really hard to know what performance benchmark in terms of memory I should actually be targeting.
Edit: Side note, this has been like this for 3-4 years now, this isn’t a new development.
It is possible to hit the 200 MB memory target on some mobile devices, but some devices run an empty baseplate with 1 player with even higher memory usage (my Pixel 4 was at 350 MB). I think it would be helpful if the targets shown in the performance stats were device specific.
As far as I am aware these numbers have grown and become more disparate all the while with little discussion to boot. A quarter of an hour search only brought me here.
To provide context, I originally filed this as a bug because this seems unintended/not working properly. Either the reporter is wrong, or the memory set is wrong.
It’s odd than this remains a problem as a Roblox developer. The target should had been set to 800 years ago but remains at 200, a value impossible to reach even when playing something like Creating the most optimized Roblox game- runs at 6000+ FPS! which is purely designed for max FPS, and yet hit 440MB. (For what it’s worth, core memory is 256MB, untracked is 200MB)
For developers who haven’t watched RDC talks like from @Aotrou explaining what the actual memory target is for mobile, have no idea how to reach such a target and so try to hit it until they give up. All developers just ignores that target as if it’s complete nonsense.
Roblox should set a realistic target, or reduce default memory usage so we can hit the performance target specified by the performance statistics. Right now, it’s really hard to know what performance benchmark in terms of memory I should actually be targeting.
You have to keep in mind that the target is set this low because if you want to make your game as accessible as possible, you need to cater to low-memory mobile devices (not every kid will have the latest and greatest device, especially if they are not in first-world countries).
It’s not just for PC or console use cases, or for the latest iPhone. If you use these as targets you will miss making a great experience for ~80% of your possible audience.
That’s fair, accessibility is critical, but it is impossible to hit the current set targets of 200 MB. No game on Roblox hits this as far as I can tell. So no one with that low end of a device can even play.
So even something more reasonable, at say, 525 MB, which I believe is achievable today, would be good.
Note that an empty baseplate on my phone uses 500 MB right now.
It seems to me that while Roblox would sure be better if the memory usage was only 200 MB, there’s no way to hit that number, and more importantly, it clearly doesn’t affect current success because every game on Roblox is way way way above the 200 MB mark.
I’d much rather see average memory for 90th percentile players as a reasonable target instead.
Bumping again, this is an important topic, Roblox, please fix.
Edit: Maybe I should add why I find this important, as a developer I’m working on procedural terrain generation and as far as I’m aware I can’t reliably tell how much memory I’m using, even if I could 200 MB is way too low for almost every single use case given that an empty baseplate already surpasses that target.
The display should contain something related to constraints of the type of device, generally:
(see: Device Emulator from Studio, which makes note of “average” device memory capacity)
Adding this would mean these average stats would need to be logged, tracked, and kept up to date as time and Roblox’s support for devices changes. But this isn’t easy to do- since there are lots of devices that are much more obscure than these are, and end up being able to play Roblox. Additionally, this would require a low-level API ‘discovery’ method for how much they have available. That probably just isn’t worth the effort.
If possible, for specific gen. phones (assuming Roblox can detect the model), 512MB is a fine metric. Otherwise, just take things up and onward, changing the indicator as the type of platform changes:
90% of cases will be completely fine in their emulation scenarios, beyond the low-end phones.
We don’t need to know the exact limit we can work with (this is just a high-level indicator, after all), and Roblox allocates memory regardless of this number that goes untracked anyhow. We just need a general ballpark of what makes for a generic, acceptable playing experience, and that can be fit easily.
Even though this nearly 3 years old, for context, Roblox only works on a minimum of Android 5.0 and that OS alone only works on devices with more than 416 MB of RAM just to boot up and do nothing. To do anything more, like Roblox games, just 1GB would be barely enough to get the Roblox app running. Whatever the original reason for the target RAM was probably good intentions but just not realistic today. Cheap $50 tablets/phones at Wal-mart come with 1.5GB or 2.0GB of RAM and have for many years now. Trying to design your game around devices running less than 1GB of RAM is just making it more difficult for you as you’ll greatly limit what your game can do in the 3D world. 2D games, text games, could probably run just fine though, so to each their own!
1 year bump, this problem has increased exponentially, using a gaming laptop (10th gen i9 12 core) and a Nvidia GTX 1660ti+ (overclocked to 4GHZ) i can play the most optimized Roblox game- runs at 6000+ FPS! at 1 graphics setting, and monitor set to 800x600 for lowest pixels. doing all this gives me overkill fps, and my CPU and GPU are chillin, meanwhile my memory is above 1.1Gb, either roblox needs to raise the “target” or improve their engine.
(hint: it aint going to be the engine)
The memory target is completely impossible on any device. An empty baseplate takes over 1gb of ram on pc, and a minimum of 650mb of ram on mobile devices. With some optimizations and disabling any opt-outable features, you may be able to drop the baseline memory usage another 80mb. (still absurdly high for nothing going on in the game)
The introduction of more and more features and background services has bloated the memory usage to the point where low end devices just can’t handle roblox. What even is running?
Especially for mobile devices, the performance drawback to developers from running on the engine gets to the point where the most basic and trivial game is an order of magnitude less memory efficient when compared to any game running natively on the device.
I don’t really mind the target being set so low. I don’t look at it.
Definitely confusing for new devs though, but after some searching they will see it’s an unreasonable target and learn to ignore it.
I would like if the bar would scale so you don’t just see an orange rectangle all the time. Instead you should be able to see an actually useful graph.
