TLDR: Will using C# increase exported file size?

Hello, I'm working with a team that normally release web and mobile games. Publisher usually have strict limit on file-size. The godot's default export is too big we had to recompile the export template to make it small and even then, we still had to reduce some of the assets.

Currently we only using Godot 3 with gdscript, I wanted to suggest to use C# moving forward since we added more programmer and dynamically typed language started to feel difficult to manage. But I'm afraid we will run into other problems doing it, for example the file size. Will using C# increase exported file size?

We already made a mistake moving to godot 4, shared array buffer kick us in the butt and we had to port the game back to godot 3 and it became a mess. I wanted to avoid another mistake.

Godot 3 C# export is far less in size than Godot 4
though with that said, It's still gonna take up space, it's about 10-20 MB add up to the export without C#, so let's say 40-50 MB

I highly recommend you trying it out yourself if you can, I'm not a professional with the C# workflow
but if you ever needed smaller export size, you should definitely compile the engine from source, and make sure to remove any module that you don't need to squeeze the size as much as you possibly can

That is massive!! If it's that big, I wouldn't use it then.
Perhaps I should try some time later. I am not familiar with how to use C# in godot either, gonna have to learn first.

    pegasusearl godot 4 export just engine garabge weights areound 65mb on linux 55mb.. and aditionally your scripts.. so for a console type application you are looking at 70mb of exported binaries in godot 4.3 atleast..

    EDIT: I was using godot native - gdscript in my case

    • xyz replied to this.

        kuligs2 engine garabge

        I'd be very careful calling this stuff - garbage 🙂

            xyz then what is is? why does it not get optimized to the bare bones functions that needs to be present based on user scripts? It makes no sense if i add a print statement to console, or a complex convoluted sequence, it still the same 60mb package.. i could have written it in .NET and it would have smaller footprint for what it does.

            Either way its way above my paygrade to nitpick. Im happy that its free and it works, and i can compile with no errors 🙂

            • xyz replied to this.

                kuligs2 I think you may be severely underestimating just how much stuff needs to happen under the hood just to render a label that says "Kuligs was here"
                But if that's a real issue you can always recompile the engine and eliminate all the modules you don't need/want to use, including whole of the GDScript.

                    xyz Im talking about console app. without visuals without.. just a console that prints out STDOUT and takes some STDIN parameters... ofc for the visuals its understantable, but it boggles my mind for a simple console app you have 60mb of something..

                        kuligs2 Godot is a game engine, not a general purpose language for writing barebones console apps. If you need that, use python or whatever. The game engine will drag along everything the developers consider to be core functionality.

                        The fact that your code only uses gdscript to print something out, doesn't mean that everything else in gdscript can just be eliminated. By using gdscript you subscribed to all of it. Otherwise the whole feature would fall apart. Similarly, even if you render only a single sprite to a viewport, you subscribed to all (or most) of the engine's core 2d rendering capabilities. There's some modularity there of course, but you can't just slice and dice the functionality into infinitely small modules according to your wishes. Such an engine would be impossible to manage.

                          a month later

                          kuligs2 I think in your case you should use a framework, game engines like Godot is designed to be general purpose and that means adding every feature that's needed to make any kind of game/app, and .NET with C# is bloated anyways, if you're a fan of them, I recommend checking Nez or MonoGame which C# users prefers much more

                            pegasusearl I'm probably late, but I recently found out about a plugin that let's you code in Lua for scripting, it seems very lightweight and with LuaJIT you could really avoid using C# and get somehow easier, faster and lighter scripting language to work with :]