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Gaming on Android is getting good!

B

braj

Android Enthusiast
I've been on a big game shopping spree, I don't know really how it compares to the iPhone releases, but now I have enough good 3D games to fill out my library. I just finished my first tournament in Pro Evolution Soccer, am at the last boss level in NOVA, am struggling through Modern Combat 2, and just started Brothers in Arms 2 yesterday. I unlocked a new track in NFS Shift, and am having a blast with Krazy Kart Racing. I fly the skies in X-Plane, do online dogfights in Skies of Glory, and am trying to get into HAWX. I have Angry Birds of course, a bunch of other mobile-type games similar to what I've been playing on Palms for years so that is nothing new, but the console-level 3D games are really getting good. I'm waiting for NOVA 2 to come out, even more like Halo on your phone.
 
Here here! lol. Android is finally starting to catch up in this department. If the news is accurate, this year is supposed to be THE year for android gaming. Developers can't ignore the Android market share. That being said, it'd be nice to see more $0.99 games with quality similar to the iPhone. It doesn't seem like people mind spending a buck on a game that is fun, addictive, and has no ads.
 
Android gaming is getting better, but the games are still lacking and will never catch up with the apple app store IMO. I am satisfied with my favorite android games like hex defense, radiant, everlands, angry birds, and guns n glory, I honestly believe only a handful of developers are devoted to bringing new, high quality native android games, like the developer hexage for instance. Have you guys seen the new game tiny wings for the iphone? I hope to see more high quality games like that for android, but with the fragmentation of the android platform, I doubt it will happen.
 
It's starting to improve, but with the arrival of nvidia things could take a turn for the worse, they are great at paying off developers so games only work there their hardware.

We currently have two Tegra 2 only games but I fear that's going to increase allot in the future, there are no hardware limitations stopping these from running on the latest phones from Samsung, HTC or Motorola. :mad:
 
tegra 2 is an asset to the android platform and it is important that games are optimized to benefit from all of the gpu's features. For example, tegra 2 has anisotropic filtering, just like a desktop gpu. Other chipmakers won't even think about features from the 'other world' of gaming.

Android should not be a 'me too' platform where all of last years iphone games are simply ported to work on a mytouch.
 
mttfrog13 said:
Android gaming is getting better, but the games are still lacking and will never catch up with the apple app store IMO. I am satisfied with my favorite android games like hex defense, radiant, everlands, angry birds, and guns n glory, I honestly believe only a handful of developers are devoted to bringing new, high quality native android games, like the developer hexage for instance. Have you guys seen the new game tiny wings for the iphone? I hope to see more high quality games like that for android, but with the fragmentation of the android platform, I doubt it will happen.
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iPhone needs these simple cheap 2D games because they won't have Flash.
 
Tegra 2 is a very gigantic leap forward in 3D performance compared to anything else that is out on a phone. It's a very good thing for Android gaming.
 
tegra 2 is good and all but i'm just worried that with the fragmentation, not many developers will make games for the tegra for a while until many phones. On top of that, atleast for now, I think tegra 2 is overkill for what I and many people are looking for in android games. All of the best games still don't use it and I don't see any games coming in the future that will be that good. The issue with 3d games on a phone is the amount of control you can get. I have dungeon defenders and need for speed shift, and while they run well, controlling a 3d game is cumbersome. I would like a side scrolling 3d/2d game for android, kind of like shadow complex on xbox live arcade.
 
dguy said:
Tegra 2 is a very gigantic leap forward in 3D performance compared to anything else that is out on a phone. It's a very good thing for Android gaming.
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No it's not, go over to Anandtech and look at benchmarks vs the Power VR GSX540 GPU, it's faster but not by allot.

ari-free said:
tegra 2 is an asset to the android platform and it is important that games are optimized to benefit from all of the gpu's features. For example, tegra 2 has anisotropic filtering, just like a desktop gpu. Other chipmakers won't even think about features from the 'other world' of gaming.

Android should not be a 'me too' platform where all of last years iphone games are simply ported to work on a mytouch.
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Bullcrap, it's just another GPU, it's not more important just because it's from nvidia.

There are two tegra 2 only games, one is available on the iPhone 3G ffs and the other uses the same engine as Dungeon Defenders.

There’s is no reason these can't run on other phones, nvidia are very anti competition, if you think it good for nvidia to line developers pockets with money and make games tegra 2 exclusive then you very short sighted or very naive.
 
Shocky said:
No it's not, go over to Anandtech and look at benchmarks vs the Power VR GSX540 GPU, it's faster but not by allot.
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You're looking at benchmarks but it's features that are important. We need more complex geometries and richer textures and better quality filtering. Another analogy: you'd rather be able to play Crysis at 40 fps than Quake at 900 fps. So what if Quake is super fast if it won't look any better?
The other guys (qualcomm, TI, Samsung, etc) are smart and they will push out the fps with every release. But I don't think they will push for more complex gpu's because they don't have much experience with 3D gaming on consoles and desktop.
 
Shocky said:
No it's not, go over to Anandtech and look at benchmarks vs the Power VR GSX540 GPU, it's faster but not by allot.



Bullcrap, it's just another GPU, it's not more important just because it's from nvidia.

There are two tegra 2 only games, one is available on the iPhone 3G ffs and the other uses the same engine as Dungeon Defenders.

There
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ari-free said:
You're looking at benchmarks but it's features that are important. .
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What features? both support OpenGL ES 2.0, that's like trying to say another DX11 graphics card has more features than another DX11 card, your being silly.

ari-free said:
Galaxy of Fire 2 is also for ios but Fishlabs says:
"Galaxy on Fire 2 has been heavily overworked to utilize the double core rendering power of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 3D graphics accelerator
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Yes I've seen the shader vs no shader version, it might shock you but mobile chips have supported shader effects for years. It's just marketing and your falling for it hook, line and sinker.
 
Shocky said:
Yes there are some optional extentions you don't need to meet the v2.0 standard but do you have any proof at all that the latest PowerVR or Adreno GPU's don't support extentions supported by tegra 2 and that these are required for the effects in all of these games? :rolleyes:
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I undertand what you are saying indeed.
Is not like Tegra is not more powerful..it is but is not a giant leap some people think it is of course most people seem to be comparing it to a G1 then yes it is a huge jump but so is a Galaxy S for example.
The issue here is, no game currently is able to max out the capability of the Galaxy S power vr...so its kind of lame to now have games tailored made for Tegra when our GPU has not even been tested yet.
 
shaolin95 said:
I undertand what you are saying indeed.
Is not like Tegra is not more powerful..it is but is not a giant leap some people think it is of course most people seem to be comparing it to a G1 then yes it is a huge jump but so is a Galaxy S for example.
The issue here is, no game currently is able to max out the capability of the Galaxy S power vr...so its kind of lame to now have games tailored made for Tegra when our GPU has not even been tested yet.
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If Android users don't complain about this now you can guarantee within the year we will have no choice but to buy phones with the latest tegra GPU if you want to play the latest games.

I could understand if tegra 2 was allot more powerful but it's just not, I just don't see how anyone can defend a game being made tegra 2 only that's also available for the iPhone 3G, doesnt that use the PowerVR SGX530? :eek:
 
Shocky said:
If Android users don't complain about this now you can guarantee within the year we will have no choice but to buy phones with the latest tegra GPU if you want to play the latest games.
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That's going to be the case simply because Tegra is going to always be ahead of everybody else in performance, not because of your FUD about Nvidia paying everybody off.
 
I'm glad other people are excited about gaming on mobile. For a while it thought I was the only one. It's really exciting to see company's like EA step in and make/port some high profile games in this market, soon others will follow. Even Gameloft is stepping up their game, Assassin's Creed looks pretty good.
 
ari-free said:
Galaxy of Fire 2 is also for ios but Fishlabs says:
"Galaxy on Fire 2 has been heavily overworked to utilize the double core rendering power of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 3D graphics accelerator. Compared to the iPad version, the game features a four times higher texture size and a six times higher poly count on its spaceships as well as OpenGL ES 2.0 specular and bump shaders on all in-game assets, running fluidly even at up to 1280 x 800 pixels resolution on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets."

4x texture size and 6x poly count are big things that won't show up in any benchmark.
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For a comparison between a game for iPhone, iPad and one optimized for Tegra 2 device:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NfNhYbp9hY

From the 2:36 mark I think thats why some ppl are excited about Tegra 2 gpu's. That level of detail with that performance. (watch for when he does iPad Mode)

Will other upcoming gpu's be as good? They better be.:) Like ari said, sometime it isnt just about benchmarks. After I learned a higher screen resolution can make benchmarks lower, sometimes you have to look past benchmarks.
 
dguy said:
That's going to be the case simply because Tegra is going to always be ahead of everybody else in performance, not because of your FUD about Nvidia paying everybody off.
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They werent ahead for very long, Mali 400 chip in the new Galaxy S2 is ment to be faster and so is the omap 4430 in the LG Optimus 3D, which uses a higher clocked SGX540 I beleive.

I'd like to say we will find out after launch, but even if they are faster it won't matter because all the best games will be tegra 2 only, but you seem quite happy with this. ;)
 
I truly recommend Galactic Blast. It just came out and is only $0.99 and very addicting. Its the next best game I've played after Angry Birds.
 
Nvidia has a comparison of the same game backbreaker on ios vs tegra:
backbreaker_575px.jpg

backbreaker2_575px.jpg
 
jroc said:
From the 2:36 mark I think thats why some ppl are excited about Tegra 2 gpu's. That level of detail with that performance. (watch for when he does iPad Mode)

Will other upcoming gpu's be as good? They better be.:) Like ari said, sometime it isnt just about benchmarks. After I learned a higher screen resolution can make benchmarks lower, sometimes you have to look past benchmarks.
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you're not going to get that level of detail just by taking the ipad gpu and bumping up the performance. You're just going to get the same old graphics, but faster and sharper (if you can bump up the resolution).
 
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