Droid DNA - Display issue

[Mark K]

Just re-installed STE on my new Droid DNA phone. The main map display is screwed up on this device (it was fine on my LG Vortex for a long time). While the ships and planets and such appear fine, the nav markers and the status font (top left corner) appear extremely shrunken down - like the font setting is too small for this size screen, and the nav markers are tied to the font. Makes it impossible to navigate! Please fix soon, this is my favorite game.

[Cory Trese]

We are always working to support as many Android devices as possible -- Star Traders runs on more than 2000 devices.

Thanks for the report, we'll look into improving the Droid DNA support in Star Traders RPG.

Can't make any promises that it will be "soon" because everyone has a different definition of what that means!

Android OS doesn't allow developers to tie Font size to Screen resolution. It is definitely possible that you're just not accustomed to the different ways that ST RPG displays on various resolution devices.

How does it make it impossible to navigate? Does the screen not respond to touches? Does the ship not animate while moving?

The application definitely looks different on different devices and resolutions (that's just how Android OS works) so I wouldn't expect it to look the same on an LG Vortex and a Droid DNA.

Obviously, we cannot afford to buy every new phone that comes out -- we barely break even as it is, so it will be some time before we can pick up a used Droid DNA to test your report.

If you post a screenshot, that may help us respond with an explanation or possibly even make a code change to fix it.

I'll try to find some time to find a Verizon store and test on a display device if they let me. A bit of a drive but I'll do it if it helps out.

[mnkittel]

Thanks Cory!

I'll try to post a screen shot - that should make it pretty clear what's happening here. In words, one single planet graphic now covers 3 to 4 nav beacons, stars cover 4 or more, because the nav beacons are incredibly tiny. As soon as I get my screen capture app installed and running I'll send it on your way.

The ship does animate (very slowly) and I can touch the nav beacons - they're just so small I can't quite tell which ones I'm hitting!

[Cory Trese]

Just looking at the Droid DNA specs, it is 441 DPI which is way above XHDPI, but isn't differentiated in the Google API and XXHDPI.

We'll have to see if it can be supported. If it isn't possible until Google adds XXHDPI to the OS (4.3? no clue about when) we'll have to device filter on Google Play and I can offer you a refund.

[mnkittel]

Here's what it looks like.

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[Cory Trese]

Ugly. Looks like I was (sadly) correct. The Droid DNA is something above an XHDPI device which is the highest device resolution currently supported in the common Android SDK.

I will try to come up with some type of hack to detect this and manage my own copy of XXHDPI resources but I cannot guarantee it will work.

Google quietly added XXHDPI in API16 but didn't document it or explain how it interacts with previous versions.

It is too bad Google's documentation doesn't actual document the platform. XXHDPI isn't mentioned at all here: developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html

However, we'll figure out a way to support the Droid DNA, by hook or by crook

[Cory Trese]

Next release should provide some helpful updates for the Droid DNA.

Thanks for your patience

[Cory Trese]

Please try v4.8.3 and see if that helps.

I'll head over to the Verizon store on my lunch break tomorrow (if they let me have one) and see how it looks on the display DNA

If you have any more time to post a screenshot, that would be super great

[mnkittel]

Excellent!

It just auto-downloaded to my phone. Initially it looks like the problem is completely solved though I haven't completely tested it out yet. Both the zoom map and the regular map look proportionately spaced relative to the planet/ship graphics. The ship movement is still pretty slow, but that's very minor compared to simply not being able to know what nav beacon I was trying to hit. Thanks! This kind of quick response is why I love the Trese Brothers games.

[fallen]

mnkittel - thanks for the quick feedback. I am glad Cory could help fix your issue. Let us know if you hit any more snags. Of course, we will keep working on the ship movement... Android's new XXHDPI is throwing curve balls.

[mnkittel]

Okay, finally managed to get my phone to save another shot AND in a location I could find again. Here's what the screen looks like now. As noted above, this makes the game playable again on the DNA (and it looks really, really lovely on the larger screen!). The movement of the ship is still really slow from one beacon to the next. I've gotten the speed up a fair bit by turning off the backgrounds and auto-scroll, and enabling full-screen mode. Still slower than it was on the LG, but not bad. Must be something about how the DNA manages graphics memory, because I have problems with some other games that are FAR worse. One of them (Neuroshima Hex) wigs out completely, starts making game tiles blink and change their graphics randomly, eventually slowing the game to a crawl and then making it unplayable because you can't see what pieces are yours vs. your opponent's. I had to stop playing it altogether and hope the makers put out a fix someday.

Regardless, the fixes let me play my favorite RPG again. Looking forward to more and more updates!

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[Cory Trese]

I would really like to kick Google in the teeth over this new resolution issue.

The performance problems you are seeing in Android applications is the direct result of Google releasing a new and undocumented screen specification.

Here they say that they have four screens (ldpi, mdpi, hdpi and xhdpi)
developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html#range

However, your device is actually something else, it is 'xxhdpi' and that causes your CPU to scale every single graphic from xhdpi to xxhdpi -- this is very tiresome for your graphics memory.

By removing the background and auto-scrolling there is less scaling so faster performance. When I was coding ST RPG I was pretty fanatical about protecting compatibility which is why we were able to make it playable.

We also had this issue with tvdpi (another Google surprise for developers) and were able, after some time, to produce a set of resources and resolution specific artwork to support the resolution. We'll do the same for XXHDPI ASAP