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I own an old iPhone 2G and most of the games I've tried to play open, and close immediately after launching. They tell me it's because the game doesn't support the older model.

Where can I find a list of game that do run on the older 2G model?

  • Note that you can generally reboot your device to clear the RAM, allowing for most games to be played. As a general rule, most of the big name games will set this apps to not run on devices it can't run on. – Kevin Yap Feb 25 '11 at 16:21
  • What do you mean by: 'will set this apps to not run on devices it can't run on.' - Do you mean they shouldn't even be launched at all? –  Feb 25 '11 at 16:23
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    There's a little section on the App Store page that says "Compatible With" and lists various OSs and devices. As a developer, part of the app submission project is setting which devices your app is compatible with. I believe if you try to download an app onto your device that isn't compatible, it will tell you, and if you try to sync an app on your computer to your device that isn't compatible, it will also give you a warning. – Kevin Yap Feb 25 '11 at 17:52

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For a game to run on the iPhone 2G, it needs to support iOS 3. This can usually be found in the description somewhere. The App Store will not allow you to install it if it requires iOS 4, however, so this is unlikely the cause of your black screen crashes (unless a bad developer forget to set their app iOS 4 only).

A less common problem (that will become more common soon) is that you don't have enough RAM. This happens because some apps try and use the higher RAM amounts of the 3GS and iPhone 4. While this is somewhat rare at the moment as the iPod Touch 2G and iPhone 3G, with the same amount of RAM as the iPhone 2G are still current devices, they will be phased out soon. This can be rectified for some apps by restarting (if unjailbroken) or closing apps like Safari/Music/Mail with processes in sbsettings (if jailbroken), but it won't help for apps that need more RAM than is physically on the device.

Sadly, I can't find an authoritative list of games that run on the older devices. In general however, games like Angry Birds and other similar simple casual games should run, and games like Call of Duty: Zombies and other similarly graphically complex games will not (even if you did manage to run them, you would probably find them unacceptably slow).

Macha
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