Will the downsampling harm the iPhone 6+?

[vgamedude]

With rumors of 2gb of RAM on the larger iphone and a measly 1gb on the smaller one I'm starting to think that if I get an iphone at all it will be the larger one. I am fed up with reloads and the like.

I have a worry however. I knew when I heard 1080p resolution for the big screen when apple usually uses weird resolutions that something was up. Now I hear all this talk of downsampling.

I've read the commonly linked articles but I'm near hopeless currently when it comes to understanding these things. Will hardware downsampling have a negative impact on performance? Will the screen look like right old poo?

Basically what does this mean in terms of quality and performance, and is it something to consider?


P.S. will the difference in contrast ratio be noticeable? I.E. the difference in sharpness from the retina mini to Air, or not noticeable?

 

[TJ82]

The only way to know is on the day when people actually put it under stress. For now all we have are the 'hands-on' shills that touched it for a few minutes.

Theory-bashing is one thing, but it won't tell you how the 6+ will perform in real world conditions.

Few days to go

 

[Zwhaler]

First of all we expect both devices to come with 1GB RAM, not 1 and 2 and certainly not 2 and 2. Downsampling does affect performance. You won't get perfectly smooth everything all of the time, I'll put it that way. Also expect to reload Safari tabs often. Does it ruin the experience? No. But it would have been better with 2GB RAM.

 

[Dreamliner330]

I've started to worry about the exact opposite. My concern is that iPhone apps will be optimized for the 1080 resolution and the 'scaling' being applied to the 6 devices, which sound like might have less capability to process it.

 

[recklesslife85]

I've started to worry about the exact opposite. My concern is that iPhone apps will be optimized for the 1080 resolution and the 'scaling' being applied to the 6 devices, which sound like might have less capability to process it.

That could happen, makes more sense than the other way around. Time will tell, not long now.

 

[Fzang]

Optimizing for 1080p should be easy because Android has had 1080p phones for a long time, and therefore many well-established apps would already have been optimized for this resolution and the developers would know exactly what to do (unless the Android UI is slightly different such as different in-app icons, in which case it's back to the drawing board). Some unoptimized elements will appear smaller if ported directly, so many buttons and small elements will probably need to be redrawn to reach a suitable size again.

Optimizing for iPhone 6 is easy because it's the exact same pixel density as the 5 and 5S screen. Everything will be the same size, just have more wiggle room. This wasn't a problem from 4S to 5 and most likely won't be from 5S to 6.

Just my personal prediction.

 

[vgamedude]

Optimizing for 1080p should be easy because Android has had 1080p phones for a long time, and therefore many well-established apps would already have been optimized for this resolution and the developers would know exactly what to do (unless the Android UI is slightly different such as different in-app icons, in which case it's back to the drawing board). Some unoptimized elements will appear smaller if ported directly, so many buttons and small elements will probably need to be redrawn to reach a suitable size again.

Optimizing for iPhone 6 is easy because it's the exact same pixel density as the 5 and 5S screen. Everything will be the same size, just have more wiggle room. This wasn't a problem from 4S to 5 and most likely won't be from 5S to 6.

Just my personal prediction.

Apps aren't written in 1920x1080 they're going to be made at some weird res (higher) then the hardware on the phone will down sample the stuff to 1920x1080. I'm asking if that process will have an affect on performance or visual fidelity, you misunderstood.

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I've started to worry about the exact opposite. My concern is that iPhone apps will be optimized for the 1080 resolution and the 'scaling' being applied to the 6 devices, which sound like might have less capability to process it.

I don't understand what you're saying really, but again, for those who don't know the apps aren't going to be 1920x1080 they will be a higher resolution and then the hardware on the phone down samples it to 1920x1080.

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First of all we expect both devices to come with 1GB RAM, not 1 and 2 and certainly not 2 and 2. Downsampling does affect performance. You won't get perfectly smooth everything all of the time, I'll put it that way. Also expect to reload Safari tabs often. Does it ruin the experience? No. But it would have been better with 2GB RAM.

It does ruin the experience, and if they don't add 2gb to the plus I will strongly consider not even getting a new iphone. We shall see though. It's possible that they might have 2 SoCs, one for the plus and one for the 6, although I'm sure it would raise costs.

 

[jamets515]

Don't forget all the decent devs will be using Metal from now on. That will give the SoC a lot less work to do on high performance/resource intensive apps.

 

[vgamedude]

Don't forget all the decent devs will be using Metal from now on. That will give the SoC a lot less work to do on high performance/resource intensive apps.

Maybe, but it still might be significantly less powerful than the iphone 6 if down sampling is an issue, plus higher resolution, the iphone 6 will have the same SoC (maybe less RAM) and not have to downsample.

 

[Brian Y]

I'd guess, personally, that the CPU/GPU will clock marginally higher in the 6+. Same as the retina mini/ipad air.

 

[recoil80]

Apps aren't written in 1920x1080 they're going to be made at some weird res (higher) then the hardware on the phone will down sample the stuff to 1920x1080. I'm asking if that process will have an affect on performance or visual fidelity, you misunderstood.

Of course it will but I guess A8 GPU is powerful enough to handle the downsampling.
If 5.5 and 4.7 have the same GPU iPhone 6 will be slightly faster due to the lower resolution, but I don't expect the 6 plus to lag

 

[KenAFSPC]

Maybe, but it still might be significantly less powerful than the iphone 6 if down sampling is an issue, plus higher resolution, the iphone 6 will have the same SoC (maybe less RAM) and not have to downsample.

Downsampling itself is a non-issue.

There is no performance penalty associated with downsampling in modern GPUs. However, all else being equal, a device that renders at 2208x1242 (before downsampling to 1920x1080) will be slower than a device that renders at 1920x1080. For that reason, the setup isn't optimal.

That said, keep in mind that the difference between 2208x1242 and 1920x1080 pales in comparison to the difference between 1334x750 and those resolutions. All else being equal, GPU-wise (and MHz-wise), a device that renders at 1920x1080 or 2208x1242 will be slower than a device that renders at 1334x750. On the other hand, there is only a small performance penalty for upscaling, so I wouldn't expect to see much if any difference between a game rendered and output at 1334x750 on an IP6 and a game rendered at 1334x750 and upscaled to 1920x1080 on the IP6+. Rendering and scaling are different chip functions, and there is a negligible performance penalty associated with scaling.

 

[CiccioAtSea]

First of all we expect both devices to come with 1GB RAM, not 1 and 2 and certainly not 2 and 2. Downsampling does affect performance. You won't get perfectly smooth everything all of the time, I'll put it that way. Also expect to reload Safari tabs often. Does it ruin the experience? No. But it would have been better with 2GB RAM.

Give credit to this guy, he's actually one of the few people in the entire world that had ''quality hands on time with both of the new iPhones''

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1778398/

 

[chrise2]

I think it might be like my Retina MB Pro 13". When it first came out, things were kind of stuttery and stuff because the low end graphics card couldn't handle the crazy resolution. Then after a few updates, things got MUCH better and very smooth. We may just need to give Apple some time to work on performance issues. Hopefully if there are any, they get resolved before iOS 9

 

[Djentleman]

Give credit to this guy, he's actually one of the few people in the entire world that had ''quality hands on time with both of the new iPhones''

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1778398/

LMFAO! Had a good laugh at that thread. Uncomfortable heat emitted, constantly crashing and refreshing apps and browser, poor contrast and camera, laggy and 1gb of RAM. Basically everything a fAndroid is hoping for.

Apple placing 2GB in the Plus and 1GB in the 6 wouldn't be entirely unbelievable because the Plus has had a good number of upgrades warranting some extra push. If it does't, however, I'd like to think Apple know what they're doing and have tested the hardware enough before releasing it to the masses.

Just think. It's a whole year we're going put up with these phones before the next upgrade - which we shouldn't be thinking of yet - and they just cannot afford to have that much lash back. They're learnt their lesson with the 4s' antenna issue.

 

[vgamedude]

I think it might be like my Retina MB Pro 13". When it first came out, things were kind of stuttery and stuff because the low end graphics card couldn't handle the crazy resolution. Then after a few updates, things got MUCH better and very smooth. We may just need to give Apple some time to work on performance issues. Hopefully if there are any, they get resolved before iOS 9

What if the iphone 6+ is the new ipad 3 lmao

 

[TroyBoy30]

I had no issues with my iPad 3 so

 

[vgamedude]

I had no issues with my iPad 3 so

Well plenty of people did. The hardware wasn't ready for that kind of screen res.