Mobile games best resolution ?

Hi guys,

I want to make a game for iOS devices such iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and maybe Android devices too,

so i was wondering what is the the best resolution for mobile devices game ?

Also can iPhone and iPad handle 720P or 1080P resolution ?

Thank you ...

othmanal . Based on my experience making Construct 2 games is that 1280px x 720px will be a great resolution for the future. 720px is playable and acceptable in high specs for example Apple Products and PC's but for Android, it is only playable in Android 4.4 and above depending in the game design. This is because the bigger the resolution of your game, the bigger your images are.

But that is only one part of the factor.

Another one is the Mobile GPU capability. A Phone might be new or is the latest android version or has a high cpu spec but if it's capability to render videos is only limited to 640x360 then your game performance will be a disaster in that phone. The reason is that the resolution of your game is higher than the specs of your phone and the images are also bigger than the resolution of the phone. Then the phone's Cpu will be rendering it all in compensation called Software rendering, and fps will surely drop below 30 (if lucky), below 10 more likely. Either way is bad.

Summary:

1280px * 720px will be acceptable if you publish only for Apple Products or PC's and etc but certainly "Not Android". Actually it is still playable and good performance in Android 4.4 (Kitkat) and above if it is high in specs.

But the Safe bet will be 854px & 480px: You won't be having problem in your optimized game even in Android 4.2

Safest bet: 640x360. This is actually recommended more for Pixel Games only. But assurance that it will work even on Android 4.0 devices.

1980px x 1080px : Trust me don't try it. It will be very hard even for Apple Products and Android Phones can't render 1080px games without fps drop.

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Based on your needs to work on Apple Devices and Android Devices :

I recommend : 854px & 480px

othmanal - Here is a tutorial I made for this: https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/5021/b ... es-pc-2016

— When i set screen size to 854px & 480px my sprites look like crap. How do i fix that? Screen size used to be 1280x720.

Arclight - Migrating to another Screen Resolution requires re-sizing and re-designing the entire game. If you already made your game in 1280x720 then don't waste your time in changing it because it will just lead to problems depending on your skills on using Construct 2. But in your next game if you are planning to make a new mobile game then I suggest using 854px*480px.

i'd stay with 720p.

Resolution itself is not that important. Ratio is important. If you build a game you want it to look well on ALL possible devices. So you have to do it responsive. I use Scale Outer with screenAdjuster/safeZone and use ViewPort's to set objects on the border of the screen. It fits perfectly any mobile device.

The same goes for desktop apps. My game I made for AirConsole was also done the same way. I have 16:9 screen, but I saw AirConsole team played my game on very wide screen (don't exactly know the ratio - but was a weird one) and it fit as well.

Haven't read your tutorial yet —, Maybe I'm just repeating what you have written there. Just saw you're talking about resolutions and it's the ratio which is important.

Regarding resolution it's not really important because if you pick a bit bigger then engine will downscale it anyway. The same goes for small resolutions, engine will upscale it for bigger screens. Just remember to use bigger images for sprites if you pick low rez, so they could scale with good quality.

I personally pick an average resolution (1200x800) and use images of the 1.5x sprite object size. It scales nicely both ways.

— - Yes I agree scaling is very important and having a small resolution will just upscale the game and lose a bit performance but downscaling a game especially on a 4.0 ~ 4.2 on my test is very bad for performance compare to upscaling. The only resolution I found that can run from 4.0 to Lollipop are the resolutions within 854x480. That's just based on my test, I haven't found others so I just assumed it's right.

Well first of all I think there is no game made in C2 that should be considered to run on such an old device which still has Android 4.0. Those oldies are simply not strong enough to run even an easy game smoothly.

Regarding resolution. If you set up your layout and window to 854x480. You will cover only 16:9 devices. 21:9 will have blanks on the sides. 16:10 will have blanks on top or bottom.

I had a customer with exactly this resolution and he had problems that the game was alright on most of mobiles but not on some tablets.

— oh boy >.< looks i have alot of re-tweaking to do as my current resolution is set at 1920 x 1080

Interesting info, I've been wondering about the best settings to ensure maximum compatibility with different devices. — , is there a tutorial or example capx available on ratio/scalability?

I wrote about that in my first e-book. Anyway just rewritten this chapter into my blog. You can find it here: What is the best resolution for mobile game?

— Thank you for the guide and for answering my question. Could you explain when to choose scale inner versus scale outer?

It feels like scale outer is safer. ( since scale inner might cut something important) .. but on the other hand scale outer can do it too, right? Some people say that you should place objects only in safe zone, so they wont be cut. But how do i know where is safe zone? It is very confusing. Could you please explain this? Thank you

Arclight - Scale Outer and Scale Inner are both good full screen mode when it comes to Mobile Devices. But the design of your game determines which type you are going to use. The question is which is more important to the game designer, to not show more or to not show less. If it is important to your game not to reveal hidden parts at all cost then use scale inner and if it is important for your game to not cut some parts then use scale outer. Either way is fine, just don't use the other fullscreen modes like letterboxscales.