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What is the fastest way to port an finished game project written in C++ to iPad. Is there any good way to do it without buying a Mac?

runnydead
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  • What technologies do you use in the game? DirectDraw? OpenGL? What versions of each? Did you use a framework? Raw win32 APIs? What kind of input? Is your game even suitable for multitouch? So much more information is needed. – Lexi Feb 12 '12 at 16:13
  • OpenGL ES 2.0 for rendering, RAW Input for HID input, PhysFS as an Filesystem abstraction... the rest is my own engine – runnydead Feb 12 '12 at 16:49

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Marmalade (formerly Airplay SDK) is a cross-platform SDK that is well-suited to games. You can write your code in Visual C++ and run it in Windows in a simulator. Using a PC, you will not be able to debug (stepping, breakpoints, etc) your game while running on an iPhone. Deploying to an iPhone for testing (from Windows) seems rather tedious, compared to how it's done with XCode.

If you need to use iOS native API features that are not supported in Marmalade, you can build wrappers to them with the EDK (Extension Development Kit), but you'll need a Mac with XCode to build the wrapper library once.

If you decide to get a Mac for development, the cheapest route is probably a Mac Mini and a KVM switch that will let you use your existing keyboard, monitor, and mouse. It's cheaper to upgrade the Mac Mini's memory yourself than to buy a Mac Mini with more memory pre-installed. You can order Mac memory upgrades from online computer retailers cheaper than from the Apple store.

See also:

ADDENDUM

I forgot to mention that iOS already has native support for OpenGL ES, and that XCode can compile C++ code. It's also possible to mix Objective-C with C++. So you can keep your C++ engine more or less intact, and write wrappers around iOS-specific facilities, such as detecting user touches.

Community
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Emile Cormier
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    I went for the cheapest possible Mac Mini and did my own memory upgrade. I'm happy with that setup. You'll need at least 4GB to run XCode comfortably. With only 2GB, XCode chugs quite a bit. You'll find that an 8GB memory upgrade is not much more expensive than 4GB. If you go the Mac Mini route, make sure you get the late 2011 model and not leftovers from the previous model. – Emile Cormier Feb 12 '12 at 16:57
  • I would like to mention that while not officially sanctioned routes, it is also possible to build a hackintosh or run an emulator on a suitably powerful machine as cheaper solutions – Lexi Feb 12 '12 at 18:03
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I don't think you can. I do believe you have to have a mac! If you don't want to buy one, I suggest to just borrow it from a friend!

Ben Thomson
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