Code for Concinnity

I have been evaluating several 3D frameworks for cross-platform mobile game development lately. Here’s my findings. To stay objective, I am just going to state a couple of hard facts as conclusion:

• Irrlicht is smaller than Ogre. I did an actual experiment using both. I compiled both into static libraries (required for an iPhone deployment). A “Hello World” app with just one line of irr::createDevice (to get stuff statically linked) results in an 4MB executable; the same app with one line of new Ogre::Root results in an 6.5MB executable. The Ogre one is already heavily optimized by disabling FreeImage and some other components. (For the record, Cocos3D’s “Hello World” app demo is 2.5MB, but it is not cross platform at the moment).

• The Ogre-iPhone “branch” is official; the Irrlicht OGL-ES branch is not official (yet).

• Ogre-iPhone can do shader programming (OpenGL ES 2.0). There are OpenGL ES 2.0 files in the Irrlicht OGL-ES branch but I have not played with it and don’t know how mature it is.

That’s it. The size point might not be that relevant for desktop development but definitely is when it comes to small game developments. I actually prefer Ogre’s “more complicated” “syntax” (a much touted disadvantage by Irrlicht’s community) better but for this one I think I’m going with Irrlicht.