First-Gen iPad acceptable FPS

[DemonJim]

As a side note to those reading this thinking of dropping iPad 1 support - I imagine anyone struggling to hit 60fps on iPad 1 will be on iPhone 4 as well.

(note I mean the iPhone 4 not the 4S - the 4 is pretty much the exact same hardware as an iPad 1 but with ~22% fewer pixels*).

So while it is a totally valid point about the iPad 1 being phased out with iOS 6, the thing is the iPhone 4 won't be, and will be a fair proportion of users for a while yet. So if you have to optimise for iPhone 4 anyway, then iPad 1 won't really need that much extra work to run nicely too.


* and twice the RAM - very good point Justin (next post)!

[Justin@PhykenMedia]

Originally Posted by DemonJim

As a side note to those reading this thinking of dropping iPad 1 support - I imagine anyone struggling to hit 60fps on iPad 1 will be on iPhone 4 as well.

(note I mean the iPhone 4 not the 4S - the 4 is pretty much the exact same hardware as an iPad 1 but with ~22% fewer pixels).

So while it is a totally valid point about the iPad 1 being phased out with iOS 6, the thing is the iPhone 4 won't be, and will be a fair proportion of users for a while yet. So if you have to optimise for iPhone 4 anyway, then iPad 1 won't really need that much extra work to run nicely too.

The biggest difference between the iPad 1 and the iPhone 4 is that the iPhone 4 has twice the RAM (512 MB). We tend to come across a lot of performance issues with the iPad 1 that don't show up on the iPhone 4 but those are mostly related to memory usage which the additional RAM helps a lot.

I really wish Apple would not have put iOS 6 on the iPhone 3GS. That would have allowed developers to drop the iPad 1 and iPhone 3GS by just making their apps iOS 6 compatible only (which may not be the best idea but at least the option would have been there).

In the end, support for the iPad 1 is quickly slowing down and if Apple does release a 7" iPad in September you can pretty much kiss the iPad 1 goodbye.

[u2elan]

Yeah, I have been getting slightly better performance on iPhone 4 in terms of FPS.

It has been a bit of a time-suck trying to optimize, as I have been splitting assets into smaller chunks in order to use smaller sprites, and this has been a big help.

Also: glClearColor was a new little trick I learned that gave me a little bump as well.

[DemonJim]

Good point Justin about the RAM - that can definitely help things a lot.

I always think from a consumer's point of view even though I'm a dev. I want to keep supporting the iPad 1 because it was still being sold brand new until not much longer than a year ago. Just because it won't get iOS 6 doesn't mean we need to be so keen to drop it quite yet. All those iPad 1s don't cease to exist - most get sold or handed down but there must still be a considerable market for games that run on it. People might think "oh it's only 5% of the market" (for example), so think it's not worth bothering with. But 5% of <total number of iOS devices> is still a big number

I honestly think the life cycle is far too short for iOS devices. I think hardware updates every 2 or 3 years would actually be better all round. Conversely, I think console life cycles are too long (eg the Xbox 360 is really showing its age now compared to even very modest PCs). I'd say Nintendo have it just right with their handhelds. I'm proper old skool though, grew up in the 8 and 16-bit era - it were all down to me we'd probably all still be using Amiga 500s and using acoustic couplers (Google it kids ;-) )

[Moonjump]

My game ShootStorm runs at 60 FPS (the iOS screen refresh rate, so no point going higher). When I tried it at 30 FPS, it was noticeably jerky because objects are moving so quickly.

It ran at 60 FPS easily on iPhone 4, but was struggling on iPad 1. Dropping to 30 happened a lot more on an iPod Touch 1st gen, but was more noticeable on the iPad because of the screen size. I worked to get a smooth 60 FPS on iPad 1.

I am currently working on a board game / puzzle project. Most of the time 30 FPS or even less would be fine, but it looks better at 60 FPS when doing full-screen scrolling, and when the larger objects are rotating. So I have gone for 60 FPS on that game also.

As has previously been said, go for what your game needs.

[Hercule]

If you need to choose between 30 and 60 fps don't forget that you can put twice much things in 30fps that you can do in 60fps. It's less smooth but you double your resource...
If it's not a game with fast movement (like wipeout) target 30fps.

[DemonJim]

Personally I think 60fps should be the target no matter what the game. Even if it's just sliding tiles around a Scrabble board it all looks and feels so much nicer at 60fps.

Admittedly some people don't mind 30fps, I mean it didn't do Mario 64 any harm (in PAL territories that ran at 25fps). But I'm one of those that really appreciates it when a game manages 60. Trials Evolution on Xbox 360 is a great example of a dev that really understands why 60 is so important. RedLynx could SO easily have just accepted 30 and could have drawn more stuff AND released it earlier, but they wanted perfection.

To be honest though the truth is (speaking as a professional AAA PC+console developer for 11 years) aiming for 30fps means you simply need to do less optimisation to hit your target. Not being cynical or offensive with that, it's just how it is - optimisation costs time and money, it's down to the dev to decide whether they think it's worth it.