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Disapointed by lack of new retina games

M

macguy360

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 23, 2011
836
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Anyone else disappointed by the lack of new retina games on the app store?

So far, all we have is sky gamblers that is considered an actual new game built on retina display. The other games like infinity blade 2, real racing 2 etc are all upgraded to have retina resolution but aren't built to take advantage of the retina display and the new iPad's hardware. They also aren't exactly optimized for the new iPad as there have been many forum posts detailing the slow downs and hitches that occur in the games.

You would think that with the huge number of new iPads sold since launch that game companies would be jumping all over the opportunity to be one of the few who have new retina games on the app store.
 
I was just literally making a thread about this but not necessarily for games, but for apps in general.
 
The lack of games probably isn't the devs being lazy, it just takes quite a while to make a game period. In a month or 2 we will start seeing much more.
 
It really is quite disappointing, it's like buying HD cable television and only getting 6 channels.
 
Or like buying an expensive 3D TV, only to find out there are only a few true 3D movies out there...
 
Which, pretty much is how technology works in general. It has only been about a couple of months since the new iPad came out. Developers are just starting to get their hands on these devices and are in the process of making or adapting their current projects to take advantage of the hardware.

These things take time. That’s just the way the game works.
 
pdjudd said:
Which, pretty much is how technology works in general. It has only been about a couple of months since the new iPad came out. Developers are just starting to get their hands on these devices and are in the process of making or adapting their current projects to take advantage of the hardware.

These things take time. That’s just the way the game works.
Click to expand...

That isn't true. If that were the case, Namco wouldn't have had skygamblers available at day 1 and the other company that has the new dungeon game coming out soon wouldnt have already been in development.
 
macguy360 said:
That isn't true. If that were the case, Namco wouldn't have had skygamblers available at day 1 and the other company that has the new dungeon game coming out soon wouldnt have already been in development.
Click to expand...
Those are exceptions. We know that some people get early access to stuff that Apple is working on. Some developers have admitted that much on stage at Apple events. And even when they demo things on stage they are still not done yet.

The vast majority of developers get Apple hardware the same day as the rest of us.
 
macguy360 said:
They also aren't exactly optimized for the new iPad as there have been many forum posts detailing the slow downs and hitches that occur in the games.
Click to expand...
Actually, that's a good sign that the games are taking full advantage of the new iPad. To truly max out the display, a game must have textures 4x larger, but the system's GPU is only twice as powerful, so the game would run at a worse framerate than on iPad 2.
 
DreamPod said:
Actually, that's a good sign that the games are taking full advantage of the new iPad. To truly max out the display, a game must have textures 4x larger, but the system's GPU is only twice as powerful, so the game would run at a worse framerate than on iPad 2.
Click to expand...

That is incorrect. Considering the iPad 2 had a dual core graphics chip and also 512mb of ram, any and all games that were designed to be optimized to run on the iPad 2 will not be properly optimized to run on the new iPad. The game would have to be redesigned from the ground up to utilize 4 graphics processing cores. The games that have been updated to utilize retina display have more than likely just had the resolution increased while still being designed to only run on 2 cores and 512mb of ram.
 
Give it 3-5 months for developers to update their games, until then if its really unbearable just return the device and repurchase later on.
 
As a developer, the problem is simple. We knew about the retina iPad the same time as everyone else. Retina apps will eventually be the norm, just give it more than a month...

And note, some developers do get early access to new hardware. But that is less than a handful as Apple only let's these companies test on locked down hardware that can never leave the room.
 
I await more Retina created games too. Thankfully on Appshopper everyday now, I see apps/games with Retina updates
 
I'm not too concerned. The display resolution matters less in motion games; our ability to perceive detail is spatiotemporal in nature, which is why few people actually see '1080p' detail in a fast pan.

I think more static games like PvZ would look fantastic with uplifted graphics. Those games aside, however, I don't much expect the higher resolution display to actually improve the gaming experience much.
 
The iPad hasn't even been out a month yet. Developing those types of high quality 3D games requires a great deal of time. We probably won't start seeing games that fully embrace the new iPad until summer.
 
I am surprised more aren't out, but there are enough to keep me busy.
 
I keep thinking about making a video of how long it can take to make one nice game asset...and I keep not doing it.

This thread makes me think I should do it....

That being said I mean no offense to the OP, most people genuinely do not know what it really takes to make a video game or even do something like upgrade the graphics to a new resolution. Anything game related is always a ton of work.
 
macguy360 said:
That is incorrect. Considering the iPad 2 had a dual core graphics chip and also 512mb of ram, any and all games that were designed to be optimized to run on the iPad 2 will not be properly optimized to run on the new iPad. The game would have to be redesigned from the ground up to utilize 4 graphics processing cores. The games that have been updated to utilize retina display have more than likely just had the resolution increased while still being designed to only run on 2 cores and 512mb of ram.
Click to expand...
How exactly are you going to redesign a game to use 4 cores, considering Apple handles all of that automatically and doesn't give developers the level of control to choose what each core is doing? There really is little you can do to optimize for it, except to cut down on effects or use simpler shaders on the new iPad. I mean, do you really think every PC is rewritten from scratch whenever a new video card comes out that has more cores?
 
macguy360 said:
That is incorrect. Considering the iPad 2 had a dual core graphics chip and also 512mb of ram, any and all games that were designed to be optimized to run on the iPad 2 will not be properly optimized to run on the new iPad. The game would have to be redesigned from the ground up to utilize 4 graphics processing cores. The games that have been updated to utilize retina display have more than likely just had the resolution increased while still being designed to only run on 2 cores and 512mb of ram.
Click to expand...

Actually, the new iPad has 1GB of onboard RAM, not 512, so all else being equal the older apps should run a tick faster than on the iPad 2. The GPU cores have also been redesigned for the new iPad, so the difference is more than just tacking on two additional cores for graphics.
 
People need to be more patient. Whenever an updated technology is released it takes time for developers to create software that makes full use of the hardware. I mean PS3 has been out since 2006 and it wan't until about 2008 or 09 that games for the console really started taking full advantage of the PS3's internals. So, give it time folks.
 
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