ios app maximum memory budget

Question

I'm working on an ios game that's targeting as a minimum the 3gs. We are using HD assets for retina display devices (iphone 4, ipod touch 4th gen).

Memory wise, Ipod Touch 4th gen seems to be the most constraint device for us since it has the same amount of RAM (256 compared to Iphone 4's 512) as 3gs but we're using HD assets on it. The app used to crash when trying to load 100-110mb of ram but now that we're down to 70MB, we've never had loading crash.

After lots of searching around, there seems to be no official hard limit so how should we go about knowing what memory budget to use to be safe? We want to be able to give the artists a budget they can use without memory worries for each map.

Answer 1

Results of testing with the utility Split wrote (link is in his answer):

device: (crash amount/total amount/percentage of total)

• iPad1: 127MB/256MB/49%
• iPad2: 275MB/512MB/53%
• iPad3: 645MB/1024MB/62%
• iPad4: 585MB/1024MB/57% (iOS 8.1)
• iPad Mini 1st Generation: 297MB/512MB/58%
• iPad Mini retina: 696MB/1024MB/68% (iOS 7.1)
• iPad Air: 697MB/1024MB/68%
• iPad Air 2: 1383MB/2048MB/68% (iOS 10.2.1)
• iPad Pro 9.7": 1395MB/1971MB/71% (iOS 10.0.2 (14A456))
• iPad Pro 10.5”: 3057/4000/76% (iOS 11 beta4)
• iPad Pro 12.9” (2015): 3058/3999/76% (iOS 11.2.1)
• iPad Pro 12.9” (2017): 3057/3974/77% (iOS 11 beta4)
• iPad Pro 11.0” (2018): 2858/3769/76% (iOS 12.1)
• iPad Pro 12.9” (2018, 1TB): 4598/5650/81% (iOS 12.1)
• iPad 10.2: 1844/2998/62% (iOS 13.2.3)
• iPod touch 4th gen: 130MB/256MB/51% (iOS 6.1.1)
• iPod touch 5th gen: 286MB/512MB/56% (iOS 7.0)
• iPhone4: 325MB/512MB/63%
• iPhone4s: 286MB/512MB/56%
• iPhone5: 645MB/1024MB/62%
• iPhone5s: 646MB/1024MB/63%
• iPhone6: 645MB/1024MB/62% (iOS 8.x)
• iPhone6+: 645MB/1024MB/62% (iOS 8.x)
• iPhone6s: 1396MB/2048MB/68% (iOS 9.2)
• iPhone6s+: 1392MB/2048MB/68% (iOS 10.2.1)
• iPhoneSE: 1395MB/2048MB/69% (iOS 9.3)
• iPhone7: 1395/2048MB/68% (iOS 10.2)
• iPhone7+: 2040MB/3072MB/66% (iOS 10.2.1)
• iPhone8: 1364/1990MB/70% (iOS 12.1)
• iPhone X: 1392/2785/50% (iOS 11.2.1)
• iPhone XS: 2040/3754/54% (iOS 12.1)
• iPhone XS Max: 2039/3735/55% (iOS 12.1)
• iPhone XR: 1792/2813/63% (iOS 12.1)
• iPhone 11: 2068/3844/54% (iOS 13.1.3)
• iPhone 11 Pro Max: 2067/3740/55% (iOS 13.2.3)