I'm developing a game that requires a decent amount of memory. I've optimized it for basically every iOS device that can run 8.0+, except for the iPads with 512MB of RAM. Do I have to support the iPad mini, or could I write a disclaimer stating that it won't run that device. Or is there some way that I can half the size of every image that is loaded by code? What is the best way to go about this?
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iPad Pro simulators are so slow that they become practically useless when running my cocos2dx game. Theoretical FPS displayed is 60, but all animations take minutes instead of seconds (e.g. 30 seconds instead of a fraction of a second).
I made sure 100 times that Slow Animations are turned off on my simulator.
I've found this topic: iOS Simulator games run very slow (low fps) where the reasons for possible poor simulator performance are explained, but:
First, I can't deduce HOW slow their simulators are (they complain about bad FPS, my theoretical fps is good (???)). I'm getting the impression that they are able to test something while I am not
Second, I need a solution to this problem as I need to test my stuff on an ipad pro 12.9 inch and I don't have the funds to buy one for tests now :) . However, I am thinking on getting a better macbook.
I am using Macbook Air 2014 with 4GB RAM. Do you think this might be the reason? Can anyone tell me whether they are using ipad pro simulators when testing their games (Cocos, Unity, SpriteKit?), and if you get decent speed, then what are your Mac specs that might affect performance (processor, RAM?)
The simulator is not a device and it's performance varies depending on the machine you're running it on, but also the type of device you're simulating.
The iPad Pro devices are both large and have a retina display. The simulator has to process 2732 x 2048 (12.9" 5.6M pixels) and 2048 x 1536 (9.7" 3M pixels). The iPhone 6/6plus and later models have similarly high pixel counts. This takes a lot of CPU+GPU power to render all those pixels.
Your Macbook Air is decent, but it's screen has a much smaller resolution than the simulator and its GPU was chosen with its smaller screen-size in mind. The integrated intel graphics aren't that performant.
If you can test out running the same game/app as a Mac application instead you should see better performance.
My advice:
Use 30fps during daily testing (or when in debug mode) director->setAnimationInterval(1.f/30.f);, if your game requires 60fps for its gameplay then you may want to look into other options.
You can also add one of the non-retina iPad simulators for testing. iPad Mini or iPad 2. Test on the Pro simulators periodically only to check for any positioning/scaling issues.
Render to a small(er) frame buffer and then render the frame buffer scaled up into the final screen buffer.
It is always recommended to get an actual device when doing mobile development as the simulators/emulators don't provide real world performance characteristics.
Even though it's not what you're asking I'd still repeat the key point in the linked answer: Only worry about performance when running on an actual device, and find a way to not have it affect.
I'm fairly new to developing. My app is graphic heavy with some animation using timers. I am testing on a 4th gen iPad retina. In simulator (Xcode 5) the timers I have going for animations run slower than on the iPad, and some other graphic features (like things fading in and out) don't work the same in simulator as the iPad build. Should I trust the iPad's build and not the simulator? Should I also test on different iPad models to check if the graphic animations run correctly on different models or are they likely to run the same?
I focus on UI art & have experience with making graphics rather than dealing with the Xcode environment itself, so any info about how programmed animation views display on different devices or different environments would be really helpful.
Rule one of developing apps: Always test on a hardware device
The hardware device has a ARM CPU for dealing with normal stuff like calculations and a GPU to accelerate the graphics. The GPU's on iOS devices are pretty powerful and comparable with GPU's of desktop computers a few generations back. Your simulator does not have that and will have problems rendering some of the more heavy stuff because it simulates the device and does not run directly on actual hardware.
I would also suggest that you check out the slowest device possible for the iOS generation you will be targeting in hardware. For instance an iPhone 3GS will still run iOS 6 applications. So if you are targeting iOS 6 or better and it runs well on that device, it will be doing fine on all others in terms of performance.
The program I am developing perform relatively well in the Simulator (I have a MBPR/15" with 4xcpu, 16GB Ram&500G SSD) but is awfully slow on my iPad3.
Xcode doesn't show some huge CPU activity and Memory usage stays at ~25MB.
What could cause this problem?
Thanks in advance for any help
Simulator, is a simulator, that means that your application will run with the hardware of your mac, and your mac is pretty on steroids :-) . Simulator behave very differently for the actual devices just few exaple:
sim is case insensitive
sim is not GPU accelerated (games performs better on device)
it lacks some hardware: camera, motion sensors, GPS
To check why your app is performing slow on iPad you have a lot of tools in instruments.
Time Profile
Allocations
Core animation performance
You've got also some tools on the simulator, like checking blending, not aligned pixels, off screen rendering... thay can make difference in general graphic performace
It may seem like you would always want to test your app on all devices that Apple offers: the iPad 2, iPad mini, and iPad 4. But its expensive or difficult to obtain all three devices and keep them around just for testing.
The iPad 2 and mini both have 512MB DDR2, use the 1GHz dual core A9, a Dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 and have the same screen resolution. It seems like its the same hardware all together.
Is there likely to be any difference between these two devices that could cause a problem with an app, other than the obvious physically smaller screen size?
Honestly it depends on what the app is. Like you said, screen size is different, but that may have a small effect on the usability of the app.
Other than that, I don't know. Sorry.
I have an app that works on iPad 1st gen. This is a game, made using cocos2d framework.
The first iPad does have 256mb ram and using instruments(the memory monitor tool) i was able to determine that the app works at around ~90-110mb ram on the device (well lets just trust "Physical Memory Used" chart though the "Physical Memory Free" at the very beginning shows it is ~128mb free and then gets to ~3-4mb free after playing several levels and never gets higher)
So while it does have enough memory it caches the assets and when it runs out of ram the cached assets get released.
What i did is added the high res graphics to it. Almost all of the assets are loaded as 4bit assets so say if i have an asset 100x100 pix it will consume 100x100x4 = 40000 bytes ram; the same hd image will be 200x200 pix and will consume 200x200x4 = 16000 bytes ram; which is 4 times bigger!
So the question is - will it work fine on iPad 2 hd screen which has 512mb ram?
See if i multiply ~110mb*4 it will be ~440mb, what means it will be 512 - ~440 = ~72mb left for system. So i do not know if that is enough for system and it won't close the app. I am not sure but i think the 1st gen iPad may give around ~120-130mb ram for the app and then will close it. So that makes me think this won't work on the iPad2. Am i likely correct?
ps: i've tested the app on the 3d gen iPad which has 1gb ram and it runs just fine
The iPad 2 has the same screen resolution as the original iPad, so it will not use the new retina artwork that you are adding to the app. This means it should run fine on the iPad 2 if its already running original iPad.
The iPad 2 does not have a retina screen, so the physical resolution of the iPad 2 is the same as on the iPad 1. Only do the retina style images on a device that supports it, this way you keep memory low on device that can't handle the retina resolution.