HWA (Wikipedia) (Clickteam)

Last edited 2026-02-21


HWA (Hardware Acceleration) is the use of specialized hardware (e.g., Graphics Processing Unit / GPU) to perform selected operations faster and more efficiently than a general-purpose processor (CPU).

In games, projects and applications, HWA mainly involves transferring graphics calculations (2D/3D rendering, shading, visual effects, video processing) from the CPU to the GPU.

Thanks to HWA, we have:

  • Increases performance and frames per second (FPS).
  • Rereduces latency.
  • Graphics can be made more beautiful through post-processing.


In practice, HWA is standard in modern game engines and multimedia applications.

Details

Multimedia Fusion 2 (MMF2) introduced Hardware Acceleration for the first time, these features are still included in Fusion 2.5.


HWA introduces the following features in Fusion:

  • Graphic display is faster, especially in full screen mode. 
  • You can use shaders (Pixel/Fragment and Vertex*). 
  • You can apply a blending coefficient and a RGB coefficient at the same time as an effect. 
  • You can apply an shaders to frames and layers. 
  • Angles now support floating point values. 
  • There are some limitations though, expecially the fact that child windows (buttons, edit boxes, etc) are not displayed in full screen mode.
  • When you run or build the application, Clickteam Fusion 2.5 uses the HWA runtime, which is the runtime used by the previous HWA version. 

Note: the frame editor by default uses Direct3D to display frames of Direct3D applications. You can force the frame editor to use standard graphic display by unchecking the "Use Direct3D" option in the preferences of the frame editor.

  • "Anti-aliasing when resizing" - this option in the properties of the application allows you to anti-alias resized graphics when the "Resize to fill window size" option is selected. 
  • Storyboard object -> Display Mode expression: returns 1 (standard graphic mode), 2 (DirectDraw), 4 (Direct3D 8), 8 (Direct3D 9) or 16 (Direct3D 11). 
  • Storyboard object -> Pixel Shader Version expression: returns the maximum version of the pixel shaders supported by the video card.

Returns major version * 100 + minor version, for example 104 if the video card supports shaders 1.4. 

  • Active Picture object -> "Software mode" option: this option allows you to create the Active Picture object in software mode, useful for example if your Active Picture is an hidden object used to create a level with Create Backdrop actions (if the object is optimized for HWA, then creating backdrops from it can be very slow). 


Additionally to accelerated graphics, HWA allow you to apply special effects to pictures, via pixel and vertex* shaders.

A pixel shader is a function that is applied to each pixel of your images.

The pixel shader function is executed directly by the graphic card, saving time for the CPU of the machine.


Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is provided with a few build-in shaders (More details here).

You can also create your own shaders with an Effect Editor (More details here).

You can also download shaders created by others. You can get them on Darkwire (More details here).


Using HWA

Depending on which exporter you use, different graphics APIs are used (more info here).

In HWA mode, the Clickteam Fusion 2.5 engine uses the acceleration capabilities of your graphics card to display 2D graphics.

This applies to Windows: In full-screen mode, the engine switches between multiple screens to speed up display and avoid the tearing issues that occur in standard software or windowed modes.


To use HWA (Windows), set the display mode to Direct3D 11 (if you have DLC+), Direct3D 9, or Direct3D 8 in the application properties.

Note: If Direct3D 9 (11 or 8) is not installed on the user's computer, the application will automatically run in software mode, using DirectDraw for drawing, which is performed by the CPU.


To use the HWA (Android), set the display mode to OpenGL ES 3.0 (or 2.0) in the "Android Options" properties.

For iOS and MacOS, HWA is enabled by default and cannot be disabled.

Limitations in Direct 3D mode

Options that don't work 

  • Frame properties: "Grab desktop" and "Keep display from previous frame" don't work. 
  • Edit box object / Button object: the "Transparent" option doesn't work. 
  • XOR, AND, OR effects: they are not supported in HWA. 
  • The underline & strike-out font attributes are not supported in HWA.


Objects that don't work or are not optimised 

  • Important: in Direct3D full screen mode (when you select the Change resolution mode option, or when you use the Set Full Screen mode action), windowed objects like buttons, edit boxes, list boxes, or sub-applications are not displayed. You can use Active System Box objects instead of buttons, and the sub-application object contains a new "Display as sprite" option that allows it to work in full screen mode (with limitations). 
  • The Animation object works but is not optimized. 
  • The Ellipse shape of the Quick Backdrop object is not optimized, it's very slow in HWA mode.


Important : Image size 

In Direct3D mode, images are displayed faster when they are stored in the video card. You should estimate the size of the images of each frame and try to keep their size below 4MB/32Mb, 8MB/64Mb, 16MiB/128Mb, 32MB/256Mb or 64MB/512Mb (depending on the minimum specifications of your application).

Also, in Direct3D mode, images are stored as textures. Usually texture sizes are a power of 2. For example if a 100x50 image is stored in a texture, the size of the texture will be 128x64 (128 is the nearest power of 2 above 100, and 64 is the nearest power of 2 above 50). To avoid losing space try using images whose dimensions are a power of 2.

Last thing, video cards can't display textures larger than a maximum dimension. You should avoid using textures larger than 1024 pixels unless you only target recent graphic cards (recent graphic cards may support at least 2048x2048 pixel textures). If an image is larger than the maximum size, it won't be displayed.


Known issues 

  • Multi-line string objects sometimes don't wrap correctly. 
  • Rotating an object with a background-accessing shader will mess up the shader. 
  • You may experience incorrect transparency effect with objects having an alpha channel or a blending coefficient if their layer has an effect itself. 
  • Clickteam Fusion 2.5 supports pixel shaders version 3.0 only partly. 


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