Add game speed controls to the embedded game window

[DexterFstone]

closes godotengine/godot-proposals#12555

preview.mp4

[AdriaandeJongh]

Love this functionality! But the UX of this needs work – because if the user wants to slow down a lot to see a specific thing in slow motion and then resume normally, it needs a LOT of clicks with this interface.

Perhaps a dropdown (probably), a small slider, or a small field where one can enter a percentage.

[DexterFstone]

Perhaps a dropdown (probably)

[AdriaandeJongh]

Cool! Without the << and >> buttons, I think the UX is a lot better.

[DexterFstone]

Cool! Without the << and >> buttons, I think the UX is a lot better.

Do you think the speed reset button is needed?

2025-06-08.05-49-17.mp4

[AdriaandeJongh]

Arguably it would be great to be able to reset to 1.0x using a little reset button (like the one used to reset variables to their default in the inspector!), but we wouldn’t want the bar to grow or shrink in width. maybe there’s a clean solution to this?

[DexterFstone]

maybe there’s a clean solution to this?

I have two solutions, the first is to reset the value by right-clicking on the menu button, the second is to add a button to reset it, when the value is one, the button is not hidden and only disabled.

[AdriaandeJongh]

as right clicking is hidden, the button is probably a better idea?

[YeldhamDev]

The current implementation changes several values directly. Instead, they should override those temporarily (and add up to those that have been changed in the game itself) and go back to their original values once done.

[YeldhamDev]

Let me give you a example:

• The user's game overrides the game speed (set_time_scale()) manually for some gameplay reason. Lets say a value of 1.2.
• With the current implementation of your PR, the current value set by the user is erased in favor of the one chosen in the UI.
• The correct implementation would be to temporally override it, and to also add up to it. So if the user picks 0.5 in the UI, it will still remember that the original ingame value was 1.2, and change the speed internally to 0.6. And setting it in the UI back to 1, will set it back to 1.2.

This is how it's done for the mouse mode behavior as well.

[Calinou]

Cool! Without the << and >> buttons, I think the UX is a lot better.

The reason I wanted those buttons is to have keyboard shortcuts for them, but we can replace it with a toggle that enables the speed override instead. This means you could toggle between slow motion and full speed, or full speed and fast-forward. It would use remember the last selected speed to toggle back to every time you press the shortcut (on startup, it'd default to 2×).

Emulators generally have a key you can press (or hold, like in Dolphin) to enable turbo mode. They sometimes have a separate slow motion key though (as well as frame advance).

[DexterFstone]

Let me give you a example:

• The user's game overrides the game speed (set_time_scale()) manually for some gameplay reason. Lets say a value of 1.2.
• With the current implementation of your PR, the current value set by the user is erased in favor of the one chosen in the UI.
• The correct implementation would be to temporally override it, and to also add up to it. So if the user picks 0.5 in the UI, it will still remember that the original ingame value was 1.2, and change the speed internally to 0.6. And setting it in the UI back to 1, will set it back to 1.2.

This is how it's done for the mouse mode behavior as well.

I updated the code so that time_scale can be changed both by code and the UI at the same time.
Should I do this for physics_ticks_per_second and max_physics_steps_per_frame as well?

[YeldhamDev]

Should I do this for physics_ticks_per_second and max_physics_steps_per_frame as well?

They can also be changed by the user, so yes.

[DexterFstone]

2025-06-11.05-48-48.mp4

There's a problem, don't I?

[DexterFstone]

Will it also effective for movie writer?

I haven't tested yet, but this should be effecte.

[Calinou]

Tested locally, it works as expected (including with run-time time speed controls coming from the project itself, using godotengine/godot-demo-projects#1234). Great work 🙂

I've made some review comments that improve the display of the time speed control to look like this:

Notice the Unicode multiplication symbol and rounding being improved to show the correct game speed for the slowest setting.

[DexterFstone]

Tested locally, it works as expected (including with run-time time speed controls coming from the project itself, using godotengine/godot-demo-projects#1234). Great work 🙂

I've made some review comments that improve the display of the time speed control to look like this:

Notice the Unicode multiplication symbol and rounding being improved to show the correct game speed for the slowest setting.

Do I need to set a minimum size because different size values will cause the controls to move?

[Calinou]

Do I need to set a minimum size because different size values will cause the controls to move?

Yes, it's a good idea to increase the minimum width of the MenuButton to cater for its longest possible string 0.0625×.

Alternatively, you could display speeds lower than 1× as fractions to be shorter, e.g. 1/16×.

[DexterFstone]

Alternatively, you could display speeds lower than 1× as fractions to be shorter, e.g. 1/16×.

it's not appear well for 0.75

[Calinou]

it's not appear well for 0.75

You could display that one as 3/4× 🙂

[DexterFstone]

You could display that one as 3/4× 🙂

Yeah I know, but I mean inside for loop to do math stuff

[llama-nl]

I have a suggestion :
It would be great to add a slider to control the speed, along with an option in editor settings to choose which one to use.

[DexterFstone]

I have a suggestion : It would be great to add a slider to control the speed, along with an option in editor settings to choose which one to use.

I tested the slider previously; the UI became weird.

[Calinou]

Works great now 🙂

[arkology]

Works great now 🙂

BTW, could we detect width of the widest label before drawing it and set custom minimum size to this value? Setting custom minimum size to some specific value may work not very well if, for example, font size is set to very small or big value

[Calinou]

BTW, could we detect width of the widest label before drawing it and set custom minimum size to this value? Setting custom minimum size to some specific value may work not very well if, for example, font size is set to very small or big value

Yes, this can be done using TextLine::get_line_width() on the longest string (1/16×).

[arkology]

There is also get_minimum_size_for_text_and_icon(), maybe this could be used.

[arkology]

Ok, looks like I found a solution.
@DexterFstone please try to place the following code into NOTIFICATION_THEME_CHANGED and NOTIFICATION_POST_ENTER_TREE:

	float min_size = 0;
	for (String lbl : time_scale_label) {
		min_size = MAX(speed_state_button->get_minimum_size_for_text_and_icon(vformat(U"%s×", lbl), Ref<Texture2D>()).x, min_size);
	}
	speed_state_button->set_custom_minimum_size(Vector2(min_size, 0));

With this you don't need unreliable speed_state_button->set_custom_minimum_size(Vector2(48, 0) * EDSCALE);

[DexterFstone]

Ok, looks like I found a solution. @DexterFstone please try to place the following code into NOTIFICATION_THEME_CHANGED and NOTIFICATION_POST_ENTER_TREE:

	float min_size = 0;
	for (String lbl : time_scale_label) {
		min_size = MAX(speed_state_button->get_minimum_size_for_text_and_icon(vformat(U"%s×", lbl), Ref<Texture2D>()).x, min_size);
	}
	speed_state_button->set_custom_minimum_size(Vector2(min_size, 0));

With this you don't need unreliable speed_state_button->set_custom_minimum_size(Vector2(48, 0) * EDSCALE);

Done