What to do about iPhone4 limited performance

The fillrate on iPhone4 is horrible, so horrible that it is not possible to have a full screen backdrop and more than 40fps.
It doesn't matter how you make the backdrop, any solution gives you the same result.
Here is what I have tried in case you are curious:

- Using an active 256x256 with 8 frames, and create 8 duplicates runtime and set the frame depending on their position, plus scale x 1.2
- Using 8 unique 256x256 active images, each with their unique frame and scale x 1.2
- Using one big active picture, or one big quick backdrop
- Using many small 128x128 background images
- No movement, no transparency, no collision no nothing
- Reduce colors

All of them gives me the exact same result, about 35-40fps. The minute I lose the backdrop, I get a solid 60fps

I thought I had too many rotating objects, scaling objects or maybe objects too big in size.
If i disable all of these actions/objects, nothing happens to the fps.

So it looks as if it is not possible to make games for the iphone4 that runs more than 35fps at best.
If someone can disprove this, please, please do.

Here is the weird thing.
This was made when the plugin came out, running on iphone4. I had to cancel this project due to low performance, I'm doing much simple stuff today with a simple static backdrop, but still I'm having horrible performance issues on the iphone4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWOyqgFtN3o
If you see a slight stutter it is because it's running at 50fps. But this is not even remotely possible todayl.

If it is due to iOS updates or Fusion updates, I don't know, but I saw the same thing on OYUA so I have to point fingers at Fusion. Sorry guys.
I was hoping for Fusion 2.5 to be the solution, but the performance is dead on with Fusion 2.

So question is!
If you develop for Apple, you can't exclude the iPhone4? So how do you guys handle the horrible performance and the angry customers?
Will Apple disapprove your app if performance is lower than 35fps?

Just to comment on the performance issue, it first occurred when the change from build 256 to 257 was made. With build 256.xx everything was OK performance wise, but after that it has been a struggle to get things rolling smoothly on iDevices that feature single-core processor, like iPhone 4 or iPad 1. I have also been sort of forced to abandon or delay projects due to this problem. Luckily, this starts to be less of a problem now after 6 months as fewer and fewer iPad 1's or iPhone 4's are in the use anymore (of course there sill is a massive install base of iPhone 4's and even 3GS).

I don't think Apple disapproves the game if it runs slower than 35 FPS. If I have understood correctly, you don't have the means of excluding iPhone 4 as iOS7 is provided still to that generation of devices. When iOS8 is released, support for iPhone 4 is very likely dropped, and at that point you could target iOS8 only and in this way exclude also these older devices (as you can today exclude 3GS). Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Yeah iPad 1 is even worse, thank god for iOS7....I just wished it left iPhone4 dead in the water too.

iPhone4s is not that bad, I can get decent performance on it, but not more than 50fps. But iPhone4 makes me super nerveus, I'm really worried that Apple will kill my submission when the time comes, and I can't wait for iOS 8, I have to launch in February as I am running out of money.

I know I'm not the only one, cause there has been many treads on this topic but still no good answer or what could be a solution.

I just played Odd Planet and MANOS on my iPhone 4, and they do pretty well, which gives me hope. Maybe those developers can spread some light on this, but I fear the answer is that they used an old exporter.

Profiling tells me that I'm using 12mb memory or 2.4%, so in the super green area of the chart. CPU is at 37%, but still fps 38.
Here is what it suggest:

- Reduce the lenght of your fragment shaders
- Use a simpler algorithm. For example, use textures as lookup tables to replace complex functions.
- Avoid using higher precision levels than necessary. For example, you only need to use lowp for RGB565 texture data.
- Move work that can be linearly interpolated to vertex shader.
- Missing target framerate. You are missing your target framerate by 9.6ms (36.5%). Reduce the amount of drawing in order to achieve your desired framerate.

Not useful for an artist like me, but maybe someone else a few ideas?

What screen resolution are you using?

Is there a difference between using:
480x320
Vs
960x640
Vs
1920x1280

Resolution is 640x960, so is the canvas for all frames. So I'm not even using parallax or any form of scrolling.

But 430x320 might be why the game MANOS runs well. A shame it's not a solution for me.

I just had a friend over with an iPhone4S, and boy did that give me hope. All of my games runs a steady 60fps on that device, even the cancelled TIMO projects I linked to above, so I'll have to take that up again.

I wonder if iPad3 is as bad as the iPhone4, I need to get a hold on one of these. But then, very few have that device too.

I don't know about iPad3, but iPad2 is very good performance wice. Alot better than iPhone4. I would assume that iPad3 is even better.

Yeah the iPad2 is on pair with the iphone4s, so no worries there.

I hope that I can borrow an iPad3 next week. It was the first one with retina display and was quickly discontinued because of it's low performance. But since I'm using stretch to fit, I hope there shouldn't be a problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Popcorn

I don't know about iPad3, but iPad2 is very good performance wice. Alot better than iPhone4. I would assume that iPad3 is even better.

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Exporter in iPad 3 and iPhone 5 is going great! :)

The exporter brutally low performance on iPhone 4 when I go on stage the famous mode of screen that appeared first on Android:

Fit to screen, stretch to fill...

The exporter iOS on iPhone 4 performance is now comparable to the version of Android on a Galaxy S4 or a Nexus 7 2013. Not is because the exporter of Android is so slow, I assume because of iOS is programmed in C + and Android in Java. :(

Sorry my english...

Ohh....You broke my Android dreams there, but happy to hear that performance on iPad3 is good.

As far as I have testet, the screen mode has no effect on the iphone4, it is slow no matter what you do. Skip the background and you are good.