Hi everyone,
The stickied threads in this forum talk about optimizing our games so that they do not use up too much memory...but how much is considered too much?
Could anyone give me a ballpark estimate of how much RAM iPad apps can handle? I'm assuming that I would keep track of this by checking the RAM usage when testing my application in Fusion.
Thanks!
Apple generally doesn't give out any public numbers on how much RAM you can use. I believe the general RAM limit for iPhone 3GS is around 20 megabytes MAX but I could remember wrong. It might be more on iPad.
I think you have to test your specific game and see if you get low memory warnings too often.
Btw, the megabyte usage in the PC runtime debugger is not an accurate measure of how much it will use in the iOS runtime.
Andos, just released a game to the iTunes App Store that works fine on the iPhone and iPad, but quits on the iPod Touch. Is there any way to simulate the memory restrictions of that device without the device itself?
Not that I am aware of.
The only tool Apple gives us to test how an application manages memory warnings is to simulate on in the simulator.
Have you followed the sticky guide about how to use less memory?
Will the app use less memory if I change the colors from 16 million to 32k? When I look at the numbers in MMF 2 they do not seem to change when I lower the bit level on game assets.
As a result of some testing Flag Frenzy was just updated to 1.1. It looks like generation 1 iPads, the iPod Touch, and iPhone 3GS struggle a bit with apps that are developed in 960x640. The 256 MB RAM iPad Gen 1s and iPod Touch devices run out of memory and abend. The 3GS is sluggish at best with it's lower quality GPU. As a "fix" I cloned and resized my app from 960x480 down to 480x320 and everything appears now to be working fine on these devices. Not ideal but a solution.
For certain games I really wouldn't want to have to support low end devices at the sacrifice of higher quality for the majority of users, but there is no way to say iPhone 4 and iPad Gen 2 or better. This game doesn't necessitate super high quality graphics so it is not an issue, but it is disappointing that I have to develop for the lowest denominator.
"develop for the lowest denominator" is a standard while creating for mobile devices...
I have sorted this out Chokito by requiring a front-facing camera on my proejct. This means that iPad 2 or iPhone 4 or greater is required.
NB the new iPod touch (4th gen I think) also has a front-facing camera (and retina display) - not sure what GPU it has
Keith,
How do you set the app to require a front-facing camera? Is it set when you upload the app to the appstore?
Thanks,
Steve
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