Android - does it work for you?

[Millerszone]

I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Tab GT-P1000 on eBay today, should have next week.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/galaxy-tab

I was going to buy the Archos 101, but for $75.00 more the Samsung Galaxy Tab
seemed to be a lot better.

What is the most popular screen size to develop games on the Android, 800x480?
The TAB has a screen resolution of 1024x600, hopefully it'll run games 800x480.

This will be my first Android device, will be asking a lot of questions.

[Dabz]

What is the most popular screen size to develop games on the Android, 800x480?

Android is quite PC'ey in that respect, there's quite a few, the general consensus is that you should let your app run at it's native resolution and then scale it to suit.

I've been playing with monkey and this works across HTML5, iOS and Android:-

Code (glbasic) Select Expand


Strict

Import mojo

' Store the device width and height
Global SCREEN_WIDTH%
Global SCREEN_HEIGHT%

' Game Width and Height
Const WIDTH#=320
Const HEIGHT#=240

Global game:MyGame

Function Main:Int()
game = New MyGame()
Return 0
End Function

Class MyGame Extends App
Field FPS% = 60
Field mx%
Field my%

Method OnCreate:Int()
SetUpdateRate FPS

' Store the device width and height
SCREEN_WIDTH = DeviceWidth()
SCREEN_HEIGHT = DeviceHeight()

Return 0
End Method

Method OnUpdate:Int()
If TouchHit()
mx = TouchX() / (SCREEN_WIDTH/WIDTH)
my = TouchY() / (SCREEN_HEIGHT/HEIGHT)
Endif

Return 0
End Method

Method OnRender:Int()
Cls
PushMatrix
Scale SCREEN_WIDTH/WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT/HEIGHT
SetColor 255,255,255
DrawRect 100,100,32,32
SetColor 255,0,255
DrawRect mx,my,1,1
DrawText mx+":"+my,0,0
PopMatrix
Return 0
End Method
End Class


Dabz

[Crivens]

That's why I asked about loadsprite (and possibly loadfont and savesprite) having a ratio percentage for x and y. That way you can work out the x and y ratio at the start based on the resolution you based the graphics on and the resolution you actually have. Then the graphics will take up less memory if the resolution is lower and therefore should be faster especially compared with scaling on the fly (eg stretchsprite). I posted some code to do this before but I don't know how to get it to work for different levels of opacity (varying levels of transparency most obviously seen with alphamode -1)

Hopefully Gernot will provide this functionality and then worrying about the resolution is greatly reduced. Handling the rest of it is simple really.

Cheers

[MrTAToad]

Got mine today.  Unfortunately its not working well at all

Incorrect and multiple keypresses, a lot of pressure is needed for it to detect anything and calibration fails ...

Hopefully will be able to get a replacement quickly.

[Crivens]

My tablet was like that. Turned out to be a corroded cable connected to the screen. I sent mine back and the new one was fine (you didn't purchase from a Scottish company by any chance?). Although the callibration was much better with a stylus (I used an old iPaq one) as the screens are normally the older types on the cheaper tablets rather than the newer type used by iPhone/iPad/expensive Android etc (capacitive vs resistive I believe). I can use my fingers on it, but it is much better with a stylus.

Cheers

[MrTAToad]

No, got mine from the place previously mentioned (that is in London).

Hopefully, I'll be able to do an RMA soon...

I couldn't even get to this site due to incorrect key presses, which was annoying...

[Kitty Hello]

Yes, that's what mine does too. When you hold on a list that can scroll you see how badly it jitters.

[Crivens]

My replacement seems a lot better now. Especially when used with a stylus and after using the stylus to get through the calibration routine. It may not be iPad or iPhone smooth but it's a lot closer now to my wife's Android phone which uses the better touch technology. Just a shame that it is 2.1 Apparently I can upgrade to 2.2 but it all looks very dubious and very chinese. I think I'll leave it for now and just use my wife's phone for GLB when required (although that white square rather than red is a little worrying). I do have 3 iDevices though so best not be greedy...

Cheers

[MrTAToad]

According to Facebook posts, it does look like I went with the wrong company - hopefully tomorrow I'll get a support email reply and then send it back.

If not, it'll time to get the money back through my bank and contact Trading Standards...

[Ian Price]

Ouch! looks like buying a good, working Android device is very hit and miss.

[Millerszone]

Ouch! looks like buying a good, working Android device is very hit and miss.

I hope the Galaxy Tab works out o.k., I paid a lot of money for a device that I probably won't be using to much.

One good thing, someone already has Android 3.0(honeycomb) partially running on the tab.

[Dabz]

Ouch! looks like buying a good, working Android device is very hit and miss.

Yep, it's a bit of a mine field really, I know of two people now that have Android device's and have needed to rip into it to enable hardware acceleration, the devices are quite adequate to run OpenGL ES, but, it seems when a manufacturer makes a phone £50 cheaper, they automatically dumb the guts of it down... Which is plain stupid really!

Reminds me when I had a little bit of a ding dong in PC World, I was just browsing and stopped to look at a laptop, one of the hawks must of seen my interest and was over in a shot... He give all the usual guff, and proceeded to tell me it was "Vista Ready", so I said "Oh really, so that's what that 'Vista Ready' sticker means then.", with a little smirk...

Anyway, I asked him what are the new features of Windows Vista [Which I knew anyway], he give me it all, and as expected "DirectX 10 gaming", so I asked if the laptop could play DirectX 10 games (It had an Intel GMA, so I knew it couldnt), he said "No", so then I said "But you said its Vista Ready, and there's a sticker on it saying its Vista Ready, but if I cannot play new games on it, then its obviously not ready is it?"

He then proceeded to tell me "Yes, but the machine is capable of running all other features of Vista", I replied "I know, but your advertising it as Vista Ready, which in my mind, it should run all features of Vista, not a subset, why is there no sticker or information saying that?"

I finished off saying it was a bit of a con, said I'd lost interest and walked out of the store!

I'm a bugger for that I really am!

Dabz

[erico]

car mechanincs are similar to computer sellers when you walk in their place...
I understand jack s..t about car/engines but whenever I walk into a comp store and ask stuff I hear the ultimate bulls...

...and me too, enjoy putting this people on a short skirt.

[matchy]

The app runs on Android 2.2 (FroYo) On HTC (Touch HD/BlackStone) [03 Sep 2010] (V1.6 xda). The result is a white square in the upper left and full screen cross-hairs that track the input.

[Millerszone]

The app runs on Android 2.2 (FroYo) On HTC (Touch HD/BlackStone) [03 Sep 2010] (V1.6 xda). The result is a white square in the upper left and full screen cross-hairs that track the input.

That's good to hear. The TAB comes with Android 2.2 (FroYo) installed. I should have by Wednesday to test.