May 2024 survey

The May 2024 survey was a survey held by the Resonite Team in early 2024 to help decide on the direction of the next major update.

Background

The initial next step after implementing the long-awaited settings UI update, was originally to fully rework the IK, but after some consideration, it was decided to let the community decide what should be the next focus, with a new option.

The Vote

The voting lasted two weeks, from 21st May 2024 to 4th June 2024 with the following choices of prioritization:

• A full rework of the IK system
• Major performance improvements

A variety of questions about financial support and playability were also asked during the survey.

Results

The results of the survey were announced at the 7th June 2024 Resonite Recap Stream

A total of 2579 Responses were recorded.

Results Summary

The results were very supportive of performance being our next priority.

Pie Charts

Some artistic license was applied to the wording of responses and questions in order for rendering, theming and translations. The exact numbers displayed might be different from the number of total responses due to some questions being optional or unanswered.

The rendering of pie charts here is better on our dark theme, see this issue for more information.

Answers by groups

We asked how often people play Resonite and what do they use it most for to determine if preferences between IK and Performance differ significantly between these groups. However the results were very uniform across categories, showing only minor deviations. For completeness, this section includes the aggregate data.

Preferences by play frequency

• I play regularly: 86 % performance vs 14 % IK
• I play semi-frequently: 80 % performance vs 20 % IK
• I check Resonite occasionally: 83% performance vs 17% IK
• I don't play, I'm only watching development from afar: 81 % performance vs 19 % IK

Preferences by type of use

• To socialize and have fun with friends: 83 % performance vs 17 % IK
• To build and create: 90 % performance vs 10 % IK

FAQ

• Does this mean work on IK is cancelled?
  • No. It just means we're not doing it right now, but we'll pick it up later.
• Will all the work be performance only?
  • No. Performance will be our major focus - the biggest task we're currently working on, but we'll still make smaller updates, improvements and additions along the way.
• How will the performance improvements be measured?
  • Our primary goal is to increase the overall framerate and reduce stutters and lag spikes as much as possible. Our broad goal is to make Resonite feel better and smoother to use, rather than focus on any specific metric - that said we'll be using a range of tools to profile and benchmark as we work.
• How will performance be optimized?
  • We'll determine that based on the research and benchmarking. Currently based on past tests we are most strongly leaning towards switch to process based architecture and use of modern .NET runtime, which has much higher quality codegen, high performance features and much better garbage collector, but this is subject to change.
• Will there be test builds?
  • For major changes yes, we'll announce and run public testing.
• Why not just do both at same time?
  • Splitting our focus between two major tasks makes both of them take longer as a result. We get things done faster if we focus on one first, then the other.
• Where can I ask more questions?
  • Here: https://github.com/Yellow-Dog-Man/Resonite-Issues/discussions/2346 or at our office hours!