What resolution should I make all my iPhone games in?

LuMa Games

I'm a little confused on what resolution I should create my games in for iPhone devices

Here is a chart of some iPhone resolutions to refer back to:

iPhone 4/4s - 960 x 640

iPhone 5/5c/5s - 1136 x 640

iPhone 6 - 1334 x 750

iPhone 6 Plus - 1920 x 1080

Alright, so if I were to design with my scene resolution being 1136 x 640 (iPhone 5/5c/5s dimensions) would people that were playing the game on the iPhone 6/6+ lose quality because the graphics have to be scaled up?

It seems to me that the best option is to simply make your game in the current highest resolution (1920 x 1080) and allow your game to be scaled down for previous devices. But don't you also lose quality when you scale down because you then have fewer pixels to work with? Could someone please explain the best option.

joshiwu

Hmm... I'm probably not the best person to answer this. But you can use fractions instead of exact locations(I.e.= if x position >= screenwidth/3). But that doesn't answer the question of dpi. . . Maybe an average of the dif screen sizes?

I think IOS downsizes pretty well, but then the file size of your game is huge.

colander

Download the "Universal Binary Template Instructions" in my signature below they explain it all.

Socks

@Luma said:
I were to design with my scene resolution being 1136 x 640 (iPhone 5/5c/5s dimensions) would people that were playing the game on the iPhone 6/6+ lose quality because the graphics have to be scaled up?

Yes, images (particularly more 'graphic' elements, lines, type and so on) will be softened as they will need to be interpolated (and not in any neatly divisible way) - although how noticeable this is will be dependent on the game, I doubt you'd notice at all with a photograph for instance, also the physical size of the screen (the fact that phone screens are relatively small) might also mitigate the issue a little too.

There is a technical answer, yes there will be quality loss, and there is a real-world answer which is you need to check how your particular project looks scaled up, some might look fine.

@Luma said:
It seems to me that the best option is to simply make your game in the current highest resolution (1920 x 1080) and allow your game to be scaled down for previous devices. But don't you also lose quality when you scale down because you then have fewer pixels to work with? Could someone please explain the best option.

Yes, scaling (up or down) will always introduce some quality loss (much less when scaling down, most probably not even noticeable), but this is not because you have fewer pixels to work with - a 64 x 64 pixel phone screen (if such a thing existed) can have as much clarity, colour separation, sharpness (etc) as a 64 x 64 pixel area on a 1920 x 1080 pixel phone screen - the quality loss comes from the interpolation process, which smears pixels.

The best option is - like you say - to work at 1920 x 1080 and scale down.

gyroscope

Hope you don't mind me jumping in on your thread, @Luma - it is on the same subject...

So if we want to make a binary just for iPhones, (4,5, 6 & 6+) - not all the other devices, what then? Still use Overscan and Universal Binary option? If not, can we use the largest size - 6+ to "under scan" i.e for it to fit the other devices below it?

(On this note, I'm still confused about supplying 3 different resolutions for iPad apps - for a start - which resolution do you use for making the master game?

colander

Also the iPhone 6+ resolution is 2.3x making it 2208x1242 not 1920x1080.

I am updating the second game I wrote in Phone 5 while I was still learning about UB's. All graphics are 2x and it looks good on both iPhone 6+ and iPad 5. However like @Socks says going up is not ideal I am going to rewrite it next year in 720p HD and overscan down to all other devices except iPad which will overscan up to it 720 to 1024. I can not write it in iPad because overscan chops the tops off as it overscans to wide screen devices which doesn't suit this type of game.

It all depends on the type of game whether you write in widescreen or iPad, iPad is the first choice because it is the largest resolution. You may want to consider a smaller device if file size is an issue when you publish to the stores. Obviously a large platform with larger images is going to be a larger file.

@gyroscope‌ just 2x your images and you will be fine. I just did a test using my iPhone 5 game with 2x images on iPad 1 and iPad 5 side by side with Resolution Independence checked in the project file and on the Publishing server. There is a difference between the two but not a lot which makes me wonder of Resolution Independence is actually working.

It used to look really bad in the older versions of Creator so I stopped using it. I am pretty impressed so I will start using it again which will allow my game work on some older devices.

Socks

@colander said:
Also the iPhone 6+ resolution is 2.3x making it 2208x1242 not 1920x108.

That's an internal factoring process, the end user never gets to see or is aware of the 2208 stage, nor is the artwork, nothing is ever resolved or displayed at 2208.

@colander said:
It all depends on the type of game whether you write in widescreen or iPad, iPad is the first choice because it is the largest resolution.

Yep, that's petty much the central question, is the project widescreen or iPad (16:9 or 4:3).

gyroscope

Thanks guys, but both @Luma and I are talking about iPhone only, leaving iPad, etc out of the equation all together.

I remember reading a thread by someone from GS HQ about needing to supply 3 sizes for every image - though this was with reference to universal apps.

So if designing just for iPhones, double rez. as usual before iPhone6 and 6+ came on the scene is still OK, then it'll stretch to fit (or letterbox) for 6 and 6+, yes?

LuMa Games

@Socks, @colander, thanks for the help guys. But what is this talk about "binary" and "universal binary"? I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

gyroscope

I can help there, @Luma - the binary is the made app when you publish, the one you upload to Apple. Universal Binary is an app bundle that covers all and every device, not just iPhones - which you've indicated you don't require. (i.e not worried that it's needed for iPad, for instance).

LuMa Games

@gyroscope, ah so when I have my finished project in GS, then it gets converted into binary so I can actually put it on the App Store?

colander

@Socks said: That's an internal factoring process, the end user never gets to see or is aware of the 2208 stage, nor is the artwork, nothing is ever resolved or displayed at 2208.

Ahh! ok got it. So just to be clear images created specifically for iPhone 6+ PROJECT would be 1920x1080 correct?

@Luma It is a very confusing topic along with image sizes when you are new to it. Do you eventually want to publish to iPads? If you are going to publish to iPhone 4 you may as well include iPads. What type of game are you making is it a non scroller, map, vertical or side scroller?

LuMa Games

@colander said:
Luma It is a very confusing topic along with image sizes when you are new to it. Do you eventually want to publish to iPads? If you are going to publish to iPhone 4 you may as well include iPads. What type of game are you making is it a non scroller, map, vertical or side scroller?

For the past month or so, I've been making a vertical scroller. This whole project has been made in 1332 x 750 resolution.

colander

iPad suits vertical scrollers perfectly. I have just completed a rewrite in iPad of my first game which is a vertical scroller originally written in iPhone 4. If you feel up to it change over iPad now to get the best result but it can be done in any platform.

If you use my template you can put the code into your existing project now or start from scratch and use the iPad template. I just inserted the code in my iPhone 5 game I mentioned earlier, it took me 1.5 hours but I know what I am doing it would take you maybe a day to read the instructions and put the code in your game if you have an average understanding of Creator. You can then decide if you want to change to iPad.

There are other options in the forums that won't cost you $30 but it will take a lot more time to do which will make the $30 look cheap. There is even an earlier version of mine which has older code and doesn't have code for grouped controls. It also doesn't have map, vertical or side scrollers in it or the game play and screen size markers but if you don't mind spending the time to figure it out you can adapt it to do what you want.

LuMa Games

@colander said:
iPad suits vertical scrollers perfectly. I have just completed a rewrite in iPad of my first game which is a vertical scroller originally written in iPhone 4. If you feel up to it change over iPad now to get the best result but it can be done in any platform.

If you use my template you can put the code into your existing project now or start from scratch and use the iPad template. I just inserted the code in my iPhone 5 game I mentioned earlier, it took me 1.5 hours but I know what I am doing it would take you maybe a day to read the instructions and put the code in your game if you have an average understanding of Creator. You can then decide if you want to change to iPad.

There are other options in the forums that won't cost you $30 but it will take a lot more time to do which will make the $30 look cheap. There is even an earlier version of mine which has older code and doesn't have code for grouped controls. It also doesn't have map, vertical or side scrollers in it or the game play and screen size markers but if you don't mind spending the time to figure it out you can adapt it to do what you want.

I think I'm just going to stick to iPhones/iPods. The game was originally planned for those devices, and they are definitely the biggest market. If one of my games becomes popular, than I would most likely convert it to iPad.