Game is running slow on iPod touch. How to only create onscreen actors?

I have several levels that are very large and have a lot of actors. My biggest scene is 50x50 tiles at 64x64 pixels per tile (3200x3200 pixels). levels that are about this size are running very choppy on the iPod touch.

Most of this large level is filled with actors, as you can see from the screenshot (It's a kind of maze game). is there an easy way to improve the performance without making the level smaller or eliminating a whole bunch of actors?

I'm not sure if recycling actors would help, since I don't really know how that works and I need the actors to still be there if and when the player returns.

Any suggestions for improving performance?

Hello,

"I'm not sure if recycling actors would help, since I don't really know how that works and I need the actors to still be there if and when the player returns."

No this isn't working right at the moment and will slow things down more.

What generation ipod Touch are you on by the way.

Your post caught my eye as I'm struggling with frame rate at the moment due to a large number of actors. On a 2G ipod touch. I'm seriously thinking about developing for 3 up though as not many people are on 2gen any more.

I have the lateds iPod touch. It has the retina screen and i think it has the A4 processor.

Hmmm... that should be powerful enough.

And have you tried de-activating all the behaviours and running a test? I'm sure you've done this but the number of times I've found a problem in my game slowing stuff down this way...

Tom

i tried that, it didn't seem to have much of affect, if any. Any other suggestions?