2D Fantasy Character Pack

#1 The characters come in two sizes, but they're "big" and "gigantic" ;)

They scale OK to somewhat smaller sizes. You might have some luck converting them to PVR too. At least tests I did had them looking decent to my eye. Note that I have a 2nd generation iPod touch, which probably doesn't have the best screen. But that is also true for many users.

#2 Ronny, thanks for your feedback. I'll probably purchase it and take a look. BTW, I also have a 2nd gen iPod touch, and I use that one as my main device for testing. I think that is the one that most users will have right now.

#3 I'm not sure which one is most popular, but the first generations were not sold outside the US for long before the second arrived (and the first gen of phones were not officially imported).

#4 iPhone 3GS followed by iPhone 3G followed by a strange mix of itouch is likely the order of most being used.

the ipod touch is a 3G with a 25% faster cpu basically.

#5 Justin posted some very interesting stats about his game War Evolved. Check out the stats in this thread:

http://www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/116213

According to his numbers, the ist gen devices are not very popular, and the 2nd gen ones are the most widely used.

#6 @Marc: Don't forget the +33% bus speed, which accounts for a doubling in loading speed :)
(Bus speed has more to do with performance than a tiny 20% CPU upgrade in this case, actually.)

@Mark: Yes, Justin's numbers are about what I've seen elsewhere. I've pretty much ignored the first gen phone already, since it was never in stores here ;)

#7 Interesting to hear that the 1st gen wasn't available outside of the US. I'm from Europe myself, originally, and when I first got here I was amazed at how poor the mobile phone services were in the US.

Apple have an old fashioned sense of attitude, and they will need to change in the coming years if they want to stay competitive.

#8 The phone service in the US is legendary, but that's what you get when you spread your cities all over the place like that ;)

There are probably 50000+ iPhones of the first generation in my country. If I was to make some utility for that market specifically, including them would probably still be smart. But for a worldwide audience you gain more by including the other countries than you lose from dropping the first generation.

I'll have to get an additional iPod touch soon, but my 2nd gen is still usable as a development device to ensure backward compatibility.

#9 Bus Speed is one factor, though the major one is that the 2nd gen itouch finally got acceptable flash chips.
The first gen + 3G have a unbelievable slow storage (my 4 year old USB stick has a 2+ times as high data throughput)

[OT]I would have said that the phone services in the USA are that crappy because they are totally incapable in communicating with each other those phone providers.

3 or 4 distinct, incompatible network standards is nicely put "brainfart from hell"
We have two dozen countries in europe and one standard (Dual-Tri Band GSM, though most phones today have quad band for south america support)!
That allows you to easily switch your provider at any time if you are unhappy as you can take your handset with you (all have SIM cards, all are GSM), you are not bound through hardware boundaries that would force you to fork out cash for a new phone

But one potentially also has to blame the US governement for letting in providers that offer own distinct standards instead of enforcing that they find a compromise thats customer friendly. With day night differences from GSM to CDMA, its close to granted that the USA will never work out as a representative market on the mobile end, due to the "extra tidbits" the phone manufacturers do for the different providers in their "provider specific device releases"[/OT]

#10 I agree with you guys about the US mobile phone services. It's improved a lot though, and it's actually not that bad now, but 10 yrs ago when I moved here I was shocked at how backwards their services were. Roaming was a problem, and things that were very common back then such as texting, and the ability to d/l some simple things like new ring tones and simple games, they didn't have that here. They had their own TDMA systems that were very limited compared to GSM.

#11 Just in case people are still interested in this information: The most recent informations on the OS and device share I found is http://www.gsmarena.com/stats_on_iphone_and_android_show_device_and_os_distributions-news-1614.php

According to this, the 3GS iphone is infront of the 2nd gen itouch, then iphone 3G then itouch 3GS.
First gen makes a whooping nothing of 4%, so ignore them for more than being your personal test device (itouch 1st gen) for 3G performance if you don't have a real one ;)

The to me more interesting part was the OS share, that iOS 2.x basically is dead finally

#12 Thanks Marc, that's very useful info. I think this confirms there is little point in optimising things for the 1st gen devices.

#13 out of my experience the 3G isn't anything else than a 1st gen device actually (its technically equal just less RAM available than itouch first gen on average)

what though does not make that much sense is going for 2.x just for the sake of share as it is hardly used any longer. likely only a dying amount of 1st gen itouch who were like me pissed about paying for 3.0 update after paying $30 for 1.1.4 + 2.0 already (itouch users really were milked in the early idevice days). by now apple has understood that and has gotten the iOs updates to $5 for os 3 from its original $10. that helped the final adoption step

happily apple isn't all that smart too thus I didn't pay for OS3 actually as the GM versions can freely upgrade to the final os and its later incarnations (or could for os3)

#14 It's a relief to not really have to think about 2.x. You can skip right to minimum deployment = 3.1.3, and guarantee CADisplayLink support and a more recent compiler :)

No significant 1st gen userbase (percentagewise out of 100 million devices sold) also means a little more processing power for game engines.

#15 Ronny, does Torque use the CADisplayLink? Is this something we should all be doing to obtain (the appearance) of a smoother game on the older devices?

#16 Yes, CADisplayLink is used when availability is detected in the 1.4 beta. Not sure about any earlier, but possibly also 1.3. Luma added that, so it might have happened in 1.3.

Apple reps keep saying it's The Way. When their APIs change, you'd better learn them ;)