iOS/Android game dev claims Tegra2 surpasses iPad 2 tech

[Piggie]

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes developers to really start pushing this new graphics hardware; my money is on it being a while. The selling price of phone and tablet games has already been established at a level a lot lower than either living room or mobile consoles. I think developers will try to make up for this with quantity and to do this they will have to keep their baseline hardware low. If they create a game that only works well on Tegra2 or iPad2 level hardware then currently they'll have a tiny market. Even in a year's time I doubt this sort of hardware will be in the majority if you look at both phones and tablets.

I don't know.

Tell me, if you were a developer, would you like to release the 1st game that fully took advantage of all the power in the iPad2 ?

Meaning your app would be THE essential download for everyone who bought an iPad2 as it was the only one that really showed people what could be done.

I'd like to be that dev

 

[blackNBUK]

I don't know.

Tell me, if you were a developer, would you like to release the 1st game that fully took advantage of all the power in the iPad2 ?

Meaning your app would be THE essential download for everyone who bought an iPad2 as it was the only one that really showed people what could be done.

I'd like to be that dev

I'm sure that there is some space for the type of game you're talking about and if you're the first to that particular niche it would be profitable. The success of Infinity Blade and Rage shows that people care about game graphics on phones, however it should also be remembered that both of these games were backwards compatible (back to the original iPhone in the case of Rage)

I suppose it comes down to who you target your games at; if you're aiming at the mainstream/casual gaming crowd(i.e. Angry Birds, Planets vs Zombies) then covering as many devices as possible seems sensible. Conversely if you're aiming at the hardcore crowd who are happy to upgrade often to play games then targeting high-end hardware makes sense. The argument then becomes how big the two camps are in phone/tablet gaming.

As I said it'll be interesting how this shakes out...

 

[JordanNZ]

Funny how wrong people were...

 

[BergerFan]

"Power is nothing without control."
"It's what you do with it, that counts."
Dual-core, Tegra 2, 1GB of RAM... Those are all good things...
Etc.

Seriously, though. Who else could get away with having only 256MB of RAM, like Apple have with the first iPad?

If more companies optimised there software, instead of chucking OMGCPU at the problem, they'd be in better shape. It could be a reason why Android still lags on many high-end devices.

 

[Piggie]

I would like to try a Honeycomb tablet now to complement my iPad, however, the one thing that's stopping me, is that Tegra2 is soon to be replaced by Tegra3, which should give a pretty hefty speed/power/quality bump up.

Given that Honeycomb tablets are out there now for sale from a few different makes, in theory, all that's needed is the new Tegra3 fitting with of course other tweaks and then we should have these models out before the end of the year.

Of course, I don't know if this will happen, but it should

 

[clyde2801]

"Power is nothing without control."
"It's what you do with it, that counts."
Dual-core, Tegra 2, 1GB of RAM... Those are all good things...
Etc.

Seriously, though. Who else could get away with having only 256MB of RAM, like Apple have with the first iPad?

If more companies optimised there software, instead of chucking OMGCPU at the problem, they'd be in better shape. It could be a reason why Android still lags on many high-end devices.

Agreed. But the ram in the original ipad still reeks of forced obsolescence, considering its cost in 2010.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Funny how wrong people were...

Not only they were wrong with the 3d hardware speed, most of never mentioned the most important thing: developers.

My Android phone has the fastest GPU in its generation and it still stacks up decently well against even Tegra2(then again, Tegra2's GPU has been thoroughly underwhelming considering its early hype) yet I have nothing that comes close to Rage or Infinity Blade in graphic quality on it. It is one thing to make claims about hardware power but unless there is software to utilize it fully, it is not very useful.

Right now Apple has both the fastest mobile GPU by far and most developers. But some people just cannot admit Apple has the best hardware because it contradicts their belief - Apple puts underpowered systems and charges more even though the fact says Apple mobile hardware always had some of fastest processors available - so they won't say anything particularly good about the iPad 2 GPU.

But more importantly, it matters when an iOS gets a fast GPU more than another mobile platform because developers are more likely to utilize the full power with other platforms, not as much. My Android phone could've had a GPU twice as slow and I probably would have never noticed it, even in games.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

Interesting tidbit from the CEO of Trendy (makers of Dungeon Defenders) regarding Xoom versus iPad and iPad2:



http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379264,00.asp


Comments regarding the current iPad are a given, but the second part is what caught my eye. Is he just speculating? Or is it conceivable that a relatively high profile iOS developer might have knowledge of - or even access to - the iPad 2 technology at this stage?

Join me in pointless speculation. You know you want to.

Uh huh, and the Xbox 360 is more powerful than a PS3 too... where do they come up with this stuff?