Old Device

[CoffeeCup]

I’m very excited to be in a position where I can start testing on an iOS device for the first time but I have a question:

In the iOS exporter documentation it says you need at least iOS4. I have a first generation iTouch that I should like to test on but it does not support iOS4. Which of the following are true?

1) MMF apps will not work on earlier versions of iOS under any circumstances.
2) MMF apps do work on earlier versions of iOS.
3) MMF apps may or may not work on earlier versions of iOS depending on which objects/events/extensions/etc. the app uses.
4) Other.

I would just try putting the app on and see if it works but I don’t want to if it might damage the iTouch.

Many thanks,
CoffeeCup

[CoffeeCup]

I just tried provisioning the iTouch for development and it seems first generation devices aren't even supported by xcode anymore so I may have just answered my question but it wasn't the answer I was expecting.

[Pineapple]

If it's any consolation, a first gen device would run way too slow with just about any app made with MMF2.

[CoffeeCup]

Well, it is some consolation; thank you. However, my game is very simple both graphically and in terms of gameplay so I was holding out hope for first generation support but I guess that dream is over.

[loglady]

The XCode "blocks" older devices trought the iOS version installed on device. If, by any chance, you can find and install an earlier version of XCode, you can compile to earlier versions of iOS. But, as Pineapple said, even simple games will run slow on first generation iPod touch / iPhone. Some games can run fine on 2nd gen devices but the lowest that runs games flawlessly is the iPod Touch 3GS. Keep in mind that everything is up to you to save on memory and processing power so follow all good practices about game programing (it's specially true for mobile devices and an iDevice is not all that almighty that some people often boasts) and you should be fine. Do a little test: load a frame that is the same size of the screen resolution of your device (320x240 if I'm correct) and put one active object (the diamond will do) and put a counter attached to the frame rate and see if it can keep up to 50/60 fps. If so, try to add things and see what happens. If you can make your game and keep a good frame rate (anything constantly above 30fps is ok but depends of the genre of your game) then go ahead.

I hope this helps.

[CoffeeCup]

Thanks loglady; that is helpful and interesting. My ‘dream’ of first generation support was somewhat tongue in cheek as it doesn't seem to be a big market. My main reasons for wanting to test on such an old device was that I don’t have access to a range of devices and I thought “If it works on a first generation iTouch it will probably work on anything” although this is perhaps flawed logic. I don’t want to hunt down an old version of xcode from a third party site so, unless Apple still provide old versions of xcode, I think I’ll abandon these plans.

Just a couple of things I’ve wondered:

1) I’ve used a screen resolution that is less than 320x240; will this speed things up?

2) When it is recommended to use graphics with dimensions equal to powers of two; presumably something that is, say, 50x24 pixels is no worse than something that is 64x32 pixels it’s just it’s no better or am I wrong about this and 50x24 is actually worse than 64x32?

Many thanks,
CoffeeCup

[loglady]

1) I don't know for sure. I think that you want the screen to be resized during runtime, right?

2) Everytime (unless you are just doing art for something that is not a game or it will not be running during the game (splash screen or something like that). The thing about the "power of two" is that your sprites will occupy an space in memory equals to a power of two so, if you use something out of this rule, the computer will occupy the next power of two memory space available. You end up wasting precious memory (it's really precious on mobile devices). For processing, I think it makes no difference until you run out of memory. ^^

Cheers!