Resolution independence question(s)

design219

1. If we do this, will the full resolution version download to older devices, or will there be an option? I'm trying to keep my next app under the 20meg AT&T data limit if possible and doubling the resolution of graphics will be a 4x size increase for each.

2. Will the files maintain their png bit settings? (8 or 24 bit)

3. When an image is resampled down, how is the downsampling done? Is every other pixel just tossed out, or is it sampled and smoothed?

4. Does this mean the iPad will/can utilize the extra pixels instead of having to pixel double at full screen size?

design219

Also, even though the iPhone 4 is more powerful, will we take performance hits pushing 4x pixels with GameSalad. We've had to keep things trim to maintain decent fps as it is, with 4x pixels I'm worried we will get back into trouble here.

Head Chefs?

jonmulcahy

I've got an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 3GS. I'll be testing this out today i think, so I'll post my results.

design219

Thanks mulcahy, I'll look forward to what you can report.

I'm especially interested in the iPad question. I think I'm going to put in a question to GS for that.

chosenonestudios

1. Im pretty sure all the images get downloaded to all the devices...

4. Resolution Independence is just for iPhone... They have the same screen sizes, just different resolutions... iPad wouldn't work with this because, what if you wanted to add other things besides high resolutions images.. You couldn't because they don't have the same screen sizes... This is a step in the right direction, but still wanting full universal app support...

design219

That's what I was afraid of. I'm not seeing a great advantage to this feature at this point.

Bummer.

design219

chosenonestudios said:
4. Resolution Independence is just for iPhone... They have the same screen sizes, just different resolutions... iPad wouldn't work with this because, what if you wanted to add other things besides high resolutions images.. You couldn't because they don't have the same screen sizes... This is a step in the right direction, but still wanting full universal app support...

Just a second, I'm not sure I follow about why it wouldn't work. I'm just talking about using the extra pixels in the enlarged mode of the iPad. If the pixels are delivered to the device anyway, why would the iPad not access them?

synthesis

1. Yes the images will be larger. The 20 Meg limit was raised because of the higher app res demands for 4G devices and iPad..so its a lot like having a 10MB cap for a low res game. I wouldn't worry too much about the cap. I am seeing most popular games well over 20MB. Just make a great game and people will wi-fi it down if they want it.

2. If I'm not mistaken...I would assume there won't be any Bit changes...if the original is 8 bit...then the new clone will be 8 bit...I have both in my current game...will be testing later today. If this isn't true...I'll let you know. But I assume you could to the compile for your app and then look inside the .app file at the images and see whats in there.

3. More than likely it will just be a scale down. Since pngs are vector...There won't be any compression/smoothing on the graphic. If you want to see what it will look like...open the high res image in Photos and reduce the size (pixel dimensions) by 50% and then save it to the same file.

chosenonestudios

The iPad cant access these images because... For whatever reason it will only read the 320 x 480 res..

design219

synthesis said:
Since pngs are vector...There won't be any compression/smoothing on the graphic. If you want to see what it will look like...open the high res image in Photos and reduce the size (pixel dimensions) by 50% and then save it to the same file.

Whoa, pngs are not vector, they are bitmaps. And there are different methods of sampling down in Photoshop, which is sort of what I'm wondering about. Nearest Neighbor, Bilinear, Bicubic, Bicubic Sharper. Since it is exactly half, it should be alright, but the method will make a slight difference.

Khakionion

Hi there!

1. Both versions will be packaged together into one app. This is Standard Operating Procedure for developers wanting to support both iPhone 4 and earlier iPhones. If you don't use Resolution Independence support, only the full-resolution graphics will be used. This will work fine on iPhone 3GS and below, but the larger images will occupy more texture memory. If your app, at iPhone 4 resolution, is less than 20MB *total*, I doubt you'll run into runtime memory problems.

2. The image assets are run through pngcrush, using Apple's "-iphone" preset. The output's bit depth is 8-bit per channel BGR with premultiplied alpha, as recommended by Apple.

3. We use high-quality interpolation when shrinking the images, as specified by the NSImageInterpolationHigh constant in Cocoa. I'll add a good example of this to our wiki page.

4. I may be misunderstanding your question, but you can't package an iPhone game as an iPad game. If you run the iPhone app itself on the iPad, it will only run at 480x320 resolution. Pressing the "2x" button will only pixel-double that original resolution.

Cheers!

./Khakionion

Rob2

crop circles

design219

Thanks Khakionion! Very helpful info. Do you work for GS?

Khakionion said:
4. I may be misunderstanding your question, but you can't package an iPhone game as an iPad game. If you run the iPhone app itself on the iPad, it will only run at 480x320 resolution. Pressing the "2x" button will only pixel-double that original resolution.

Yes, I know about different packaging, but since iPad plays iPhone games, I didn't know if the new resolution could be utilized by an iPad. I guess you are saying it will not?

design219

Ah, I see you are a senior developer. Nice to hear from you!

Khakionion

That's right, the new resolution will not be used by the iPad. This may change whenever the iPad gets an iOS update, but we'll all just have to wait and see.

Also, yes! I'm a relatively new developer at Gendai. (Although my posts aren't yellow...hmm, I need to bug someone about that. ) Hope you enjoy using GS, I'm excited to bring you guys some awesome releases in the future!

design219

Khakionion said:
If you don't use Resolution Independence support, only the full-resolution graphics will be used.

Whoa, wait a minute. ONLY FULL-RESOLUTION... you mean we can't use the standard (480x320) resolution with this release?

Khakionion

design219 said:
...you mean we can't use the standard (480x320) resolution with this release?

No, it will run at the standard resolution, what I mean is that it will load the full-resolution *assets*. They will simply be more detailed than the iPhone 3GS and below are capable of displaying, so you'll be using more texture memory for no appreciable benefit.

design219

But can we still build at the old resolution?

And welcome to the GS community!

design219

Okay, I think what you are saying is IF you use the high-res graphics, you MUST (should) select the resolution independent option or else you will be wasting overhead on older devices. Is that what you mean?

Khakionion

Yes. You can still build a pure 480x320 resolution game, and it will run just fine on any iPhone/iPod touch. Just select the iPhone platform, don't select "Enable Resolution Independence," and use your old resolution assets.

Khakionion

design219 said:
Okay, I think what you are saying is IF you use the high-res graphics, you MUST (should) select the resolution independent option or else you will be wasting overhead on older devices. Is that what you mean?

That is exactly what I mean.

design219

Excellent, thank you for your help.

So do you guys have any idea how the performance will compare with 4x graphics on the iPhone 4 to standard resolution graphics on the older devices?

For instance, if a game has a number of actors and is getting 50 fps on a 3gs, will the iPhone 4 do as well with the larger graphics?

Khakionion

Well, the iPhone 4 has the new A4 processor in it, albeit slightly underclocked relative to the iPad. I don't have benchmarks, but I would expect the iPhone 4 to perform better than the iPhone 3GS, even considering the higher resolution.

design219

Thanks again Khakionion.

If anyone is testing on an iPhone 4, I'd love to hear some results on fps performance at the higher resolution.

chosenonestudios

the 3gs is around 600 mghz

the iPad is 1000 mghz or 1ghz

and 4 is slightly underclocked to 800 mghz so less than the iPad and other mobile phones, but still packs a punch

synthesis

@ Khakionion...
would you please visit this thread????

http://gamesalad.com/forums/topic.php?id=8390

I would appreciate some insight in how to interpret our independent findings on Resolution Independence.

Thanks!

joemauke

ok, Im totally confused by this post. So, are we still building our games 480x320, same coordinates with larger art that is downscaled in our scenes or are we building 960x640, with art to match and its all just made X2 smaller via code like the ipad does with iphone apps only in reverse?

UtopianGames

The way i see it is check the resolution button..if you have an actor thats 64x64 upload an image thats 128x128 pop it in the actor job done.

However it's not a perfect workflow for me as i normally add new actor then pop the image in (this changes the size of the actor to match sprite) so then i would have to reduce the size of the actor manually?

Darren.

FranzKeller

Khakionion said:
That's right, the new resolution will not be used by the iPad. This may change whenever the iPad gets an iOS update, but we'll all just have to wait and see.

Gee... Thanks for this info. I guess I won't bother dealing with resolution independence yet on my next game, then

I'm an iPad user, but I realize that there are so many more iPhone 3GS out there, it just makes sense to keep them in mind