Phones required for testing a game

[greatape]

I've got a game I'm developing for S60 phones, currently I'm aiming only at ones with OpenGL ES built in, so v8.0 onwards. The question is what is a good set of phones to test it on, current development machine is a 6630.

So far I figure I want:

One of 6680/6681/6682 although it's similair to a 6630 it has a different colour depth which could significantly impact on graphics performance and look.

Selection from
N90 v8.1 with 352x416
N80 v9.1 with 352x416
N71 v9.1 with 240x320
5500 v9.1 with 208x208
N91 v9.1 with 176x208 (possibly skip this as screen size least stressed on graphics and already tested on 6630)
E61 Maybe, not really a games phone, but 320x240 pixel size is unique

Are there any particular phones that are likely to be troublesome having any unique features/problems?

Where possible I'd prefer the cheaper simpler phones, assuming that has no impact on the any relevant factors for testing.

Ideally I would do thorough testing by joing Nokia Forum Pro and getting access to devices that way, but had my application to join has been declined as they only want companys with a proven track record and existing applications in international distribution. Seems a mad decision as Forum Pro seems the ideal way to get the company into the position where it has applications in international distribution, but that's Nokia for you.

Also, what's the best way of buying devices, it's obviously not going to be cheap, best I can come up with is a mixture of froogle.co.uk for newer phones, and ebay for older ones.

Thanks, Steve

[Rafe]

You seem to have a good list there.

Rather than the 6680 you might consider the N70. If you use scalable UI this should do for the N90 too.

Symbian 8 (S60 2nd Edition) is not binary compatiable with Symbian 9 (S60 3rd Edition). There are difference so it might be worth developing for one then the other.

Screen resolutions may be less of an issue that you think. I'm not an expert in this area, but there should be some documentation on Forum Nokia on the scalable UI stuff.

Cheaper phone - generally the cheapest are ones with a contract but that doesn't apply to you. You can pick up phones more cheaply overseas but these are harder to return if you have problems. You don't say where you are based so that's a factor too.

[greatape]

Originally Posted by Rafe

You seem to have a good list there.
Rather than the 6680 you might consider the N70. If you use scalable UI this should do for the N90 too.

Thanks, does seem a reasonable suggestion, although big advantage for 6680 is I can get one on ebay for around £70~£80.

Originally Posted by Rafe

Symbian 8 (S60 2nd Edition) is not binary compatiable with Symbian 9 (S60 3rd Edition). There are difference so it might be worth developing for one then the other.

Yup, I've already got the two SDK's running in parallel, mainly developing on 2nd Edition, occasionally building on 3rd just to check it all still works, but never done a hardware build on it.

Originally Posted by Rafe

Screen resolutions may be less of an issue that you think. I'm not an expert in this area, but there should be some documentation on Forum Nokia on the scalable UI stuff.

One of the main issues I have is with performance for the game graphics, as it's OpenGL stuff that's pushing the limits as far as it can. I'm already aware I won't get as good performance on most other phones than I've got on the 6630, so have built in a number of options to automatically dumb down the graphic detail. Plus got auto calibration of the graphics detail so hopefully will sensibly adapt to all phones, but it's one of those things that has a fair bit of scope to not work out quite as expected.

So obviously screen size will have big implications on this with upto 4 times as many pixels to draw, plus the extra colour depth to deal with.

I don't actually use the scaleable UI, I've got a custom built UI for the game, hopefully fairly well coded already to deal with the screen size change, that should all be easy to test on the emulator, I hope, last time I tried I couldn't get the emulator screen size changing to work, will have to look into that again.

Another issue here is do any of the phones use different powered processors, that could have a significant performance impact, is there any where that gives an overview of the hardware used in different phones?

Originally Posted by Rafe

Cheaper phone - generally the cheapest are ones with a contract but that doesn't apply to you. You can pick up phones more cheaply overseas but these are harder to return if you have problems. You don't say where you are based so that's a factor too.

I'm in the UK. Another issue is with locked phones, if I get a 2nd hand locked phone can I use it enough to test applications? Just not be able to make phone calls, or will it block even booting up until a compatible sim is used? Also do pay as you go sims from the locked network work? As I won't actually be using it to make calls that would be a handy solution.

[Rafe]

Interesting stuff.

I think I'm right in saying PAYG sims should work when locked. Hopefully someone else can confirm this. Also the more modern phones - N70 onwards I think work without sim cards.

Processors - I think the issue might be varying amount of RAM (especially on the earlier phones - the 6680 is bad in this respect). I don't think there's much difference within a platform version (although there is going to be some in 3rd edition - the N93 has a faster processor for example).

If you're careful you can get cheap phone off eBay. Or for new ones try the Nokia Shop or one of the many webstores - e.g. phones2udirect.com for example.

I'm sure you might also find some testers willing to help.

[greatape]

Originally Posted by Rafe

Interesting stuff.

I think I'm right in saying PAYG sims should work when locked. Hopefully someone else can confirm this. Also the more modern phones - N70 onwards I think work without sim cards.

That's handy, will make things simpler, locked phones seem a fair bit cheaper on ebay.

Originally Posted by Rafe

Processors - I think the issue might be varying amount of RAM (especially on the earlier phones - the 6680 is bad in this respect). I don't think there's much difference within a platform version (although there is going to be some in 3rd edition - the N93 has a faster processor for example).

Yes, could be a termainal problem if I run short of RAM, but in general I've been pretty lean on my usage compared to most 3D games. Glad to hear the N93's faster, the games designed to make the most of more powerful graphics than the 6630 can handle, so may start to look quite spectacular as phone specs go up.

Originally Posted by Rafe

I'm sure you might also find some testers willing to help.

I'm hoping to have something I'm prepared to release as a beta, well maybe alpha, within a week. It's working with a registration code so I should be able to make the demo version public, and let a limited number of testers have unlock codes to properly put it through it's paces.

Thanks for the help.

[greatape]

So far got a 6680 from ebay, with an N90 from ebay as well on the way. Think I'll get an N80 on an upgrade to my main phone account to get started on S60 3rd edition debugging.

For a sneak preview of what they're for have a peek at http://www.oval-racer.com still under construction and no release up yet, but coming soon, and got a neat video clip of the game in action.