SKLabelNode delays app start

Question

at the moment I'm coding a little app with SpriteKit, which works perfectly fine, but the only problem is an SKLabelNode, which I initialize with the following normal piece of code:

​self.scoreLabel = [SKLabelNode labelNodeWithFontNamed:@"Futura"];
self.scoreLabel.fontSize = 190.0f;
self.scoreLabel.color = [SKColor whiteColor];
self.scoreLabel.alpha = .2;
self.scoreLabel.text = @"00";
self.scoreLabel.position = CGPointMake(screenWidth/2,self.scoreLabel.frame.size.height/2);
[self addChild:self.scoreLabel];

There a many more things to initialize, but they doesn't affect anything. If I comment out the code above, the app loads in the usual time. With the SKLabelNode it delays the loading by few seconds...

Hope anyone can help me.

Answer 1

Actually, you don't need to preload the font for an SKLabelNode. The delay is caused by the fact that you're using the wrong font name. There's no "Futura" font on iOS - what you probably mean is "Futura-Medium". Replace "Futura" with "Futura-Medium", and you should see the load time drastically fall.

(You can still preload your fonts, but it's not necessary; lazy loading is pretty fast provided you use a correct font name.)

Answer 2

Be careful you aren't loading the entire font family. If I load "Chalkboard SE" it will take 4-6 seconds, and appear to work.

But if I load ChalkboardSE-Regular , it's virtually instantaneous ~100ms or less.

If you want to know more, I've got various links and timings on my humble blog. https://gilesey.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/ios-spritekit-font-loading-times-of-sklabelnodes/