Its gonna take some time before games run great on the Droid, google hasn't done a great job giving developers the tools they need to properly test and develop for the 2.0 firmware.
On Nov 11, 7:21 am, niko20 <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > This is just an observation I had yesterday. I go myself a DROID now, > and last night I was pulling down several different games that have > good ratings to try them out. > > I have to say, Im actually pretty disappointed right now, I know > android should be able to perform better than this, although I will > admit yes, its still quite new in the gaming department. > > I am not ranting or anything here. Yes I know that if I wanted a > better game than I should code one, I'm just making an observation > here. Please bear with me. > > Firstly, several of the games I downloaded were just "slow", or laggy. > Maybe its the touch screen input that messed with them I don't know. > But I wouldn't consider them very fun because they didn't really > "feel" responsive. I'm not sure I should name any games outright so I > don't annoy their developers. But some had touch screen controls, > which I found didn't seem to respond very well. Even some of the word > games where you draw across the letters to make the word didn't really > respond as nicely as they could have (IMO). > > Others worked ok except they would have frequent slowdowns if too much > was going on the screen at once (to be expected). > > Others were sort of ugly, because they combined their own graphics > with android's built in GUI graphics (note to game devs, you want a > hit game? Write all the graphics yourself, even the menu screens, it > just will look better) > > The main reason I post this is because as android devs, we really need > to step up our game a bit here. Looking at a lot of these games, I see > two main problems: 1. The were never tested on a real device. 2. They > have not been optimized in any way that I can tell. > > Ok first problem I'm also guilty of, so I'll let it slide. Not > everyone can afford a real device. But face it, that will be a > roadblock to really making the game perform as well as it could. Maybe > you could write the next hit without one, but I think your chances are > a lot smaller, since you won't be able to test out the touch interface > as well, etc. It does make a difference to try it on a real device, I > learned that myself! > > Second problem: It's sad to me that the Super Nintendo Emulator loaded > with a Metroid ROM performs awesomely, but yet no "native" android > game comes even close to that performance (of games that I have > tried), as far as speed, animation, and overall responsiveness. Now, > I'm sure the devices we have are at least as fast as a super nintendo > was, if not faster. And while I know we are programming in java, not > in machine code, that Super Nintendo Emulator seems to work fine, so > what are they doing behind the scenes to draw the screen?. So that > means if you wrote a game to be optimized, wrote it as though it was > on a lesser platform, it should run great on android. Maybe just use > smaller images, and draw to a smaller bitmap in memory, and stretch > it. Even if it looks a bit pixelized, if the game is fast and has good > response, people will enjoy it. I know I actually like that pixelated > look, it gives games that nice retro feel. For newer games OpenGL > probably has to be used to make it fast enough. > > Also, as a side note, those old school nintendo games - Metroid for > example, would take at least 8 hours or so to complete (maybe not if > doing a speed run), and it was only around 8MB in size, even with all > the sounds and animations. I'm pretty sure if a game came out like > that for android it would still be a big hit (a game that was as fun > and responsive and enjoyable as the metroid series), even if the > graphics weren't "Multi pixel shaded OpenGL god given awesomeness". > Remember gaming experience is all about the feel of the game, not just > how pretty it is (but it better not be ugly either). > > I think what leads into the second problem are two issues: we are > programming mainly in java, and also the "newbieness" of most java > programmers. Honestly I dont think anybody that had to learn java ever > had to take time to optimize. We just throw the code at the computer > and let it chew through it. I mean Java itself doesn't leave a ton of > room for "improvement" in itself. However, as devs we really need to > start thinking as the old-school programmers did, of "how can I make > this faster", or "use less memory". > > Don't come out against me and say I'm wrong about having all these > developers that don't know about optimization because they have never > had to do so in their life - just search the forums for all the devs > that have problems wanting to display a 2048*2048 bitmap and have it > scroll, and they don't know how. To dev's that have been around a > while, that have had to work on less than stellar platforms, they know > how to code that to be fast (chop the bitmap up into tiles, only draw > tiles needed, etc, probably even some ways I dont even know about yet > too). > > What we really need is to refocus on how to write small fast programs. > It's really become a lost art of sorts over that past years, because > computer power has increased so much nobody thinks of it. But on > mobile devices we need to! And having all these Java trained guys > fresh out of school isn't going to solve that problem! Guys, you > really need to go back to basics and focus on the hardcore numbers of > performance. I don't mean that to offend anyone, but only to help > awaken everyone (including myself), that this is really an interesting > field of study and it will be worth the effort! Back in the day (no, > I'm not that old yet), programmers had to work to get things to run as > fast and smooth as possible, but we've been able to take that for > granted for a while now. > > Maybe if some of the games I tried switched to using OpenGL instead of > SurfaceView they might have faster performance, and agreed, that > wasn't available as easily for a while. Also, we don't have native > access to audio yet, so that also can slow us down. I'm sure the > gaming in android will improve over the next year, but I just wanted > to share my current observations on what I see going on right now. I > hope we as devs can overcome java, and android, and work on optimizing > our games to work smoothly, respond quickly, and look great. > > -niko -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
