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I've been playing around my newly bought Nexus One and one thing I've found is that while graphics and colours when doing most things in general are so vibrant and beautiful to look at, games look decidedly 2nd rate.
Why is that? Is that something to do with the hardware or the APIs provided by Google? It would be nice to see something like Plants vs Zombies on the iPhone. From my limited use I find the graphics on my Nexus One slightly better than the 3GS on everything except when it comes to games, where it is left far behind. I found that really weird.
On a related note, I'm no developer myself, but I'm of the opinion that the success of the platform will depend a lot on 3rd party development, which means a lot of support given by Google to developers. What's the situation like now? How easy/hard is to develop for Android phones and what are the scopes for improvement?
Bump.
Any opinions from Android developers on here?
its because pre nexus one/desire there was only one android phone which could even play good graphics and that was the moto droid .
give the developers some time ... now that more powerful android phones are coming out, we'll see more and more better looking games ... as an example look at raging thunder 2 ... you might not like racing games but that game has exceptional graphics
nothing as good as the iphone yet, because iphone always had a very powerful gpu from the get go so all of iphone game developers have had that much time to play around with them ... android just started getting powerful gpus
hope that answers ... and anyone with more knowledge, feel free to correct me if i'm wrong
alienwolf426 said:
nothing as good as the iphone yet, because iphone always had a very powerful gpu from the get go so all of iphone game developers have had that much time to play around with them ... android just started getting powerful gpus
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Thanks for the explanation, makes sense. Which new Android phones have good GPUs on board?
Watch out here comes the "Droids"
TT1986 said:
Thanks for the explanation, makes sense. Which new Android phones have good GPUs on board?[/QUOTE
Galaxy S doing video game demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpP5QljEqow&feature=related
Galaxy S vs. Iphone 4:
http://3gsiphone.com/jailbreak-and-...-vs-samsung-galaxy-s-video-review-part-1.html
Reading about GPU:
http://androidandme.com/2010/03/new...bird-chip-to-have-3x-gpu-power-of-snapdragon/
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jhnstn00 said:
TT1986 said:
Thanks for the explanation, makes sense. Which new Android phones have good GPUs on board?[/QUOTE
Galaxy S doing video game demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpP5QljEqow&feature=related
Galaxy S vs. Iphone 4:
http://3gsiphone.com/jailbreak-and-...-vs-samsung-galaxy-s-video-review-part-1.html
Reading about GPU:
http://androidandme.com/2010/03/new...bird-chip-to-have-3x-gpu-power-of-snapdragon/
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Whoa! That is good.
Excellent stuff, good times ahead then.
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its mostly due to the fact that a lot of older phones (eg. the htc hero) dont have gpus whatsoever. the moto droid had a gpu, therefore could run good graphics in a 3d game. the samsung galaxy S has a great gpu on the cpu die and will run some really impressive games on it, in fact, it could run much better looking games than on the iphone.
for a art developers view
Ok well I'm a 14+ year vet of games industry on console games, in technical art production, but my view would be the same as a programmer I would suspect. Just like when doing a multi-platform release back in the ps, saturn, n64, dreamcast etc... days, you dont really want to do lots of work for all platforms. Neither do you want to cut your biggest market chunk out by them not getting the experience others get with better hardware. This takes me back to PC days when we have powerVR primary GPU's, or ATI, or Nvidia, or matrox, well the list got big. The graphics capabilities sometimes had to be addressed almost as if they were different platforms (this is b4 HAL abstraction sweetness and todays DX domination). I suppose at the end of the day, I would not choose to dev only on android for the SGS, that cuts some 99% of the market out. What apple has done is have fixed hardware and Development LIBs for that hardware. This makes it very easy to give all iPhone users the same experience. With android, too many variances in hardware and capability, also maybe hits taken from phone operator system additions and services.
So in my opinion, you cant have such and open system that can have lots of variations and get games in numbers and quality that we see on iphone. Not cause android phones cant do it. Cause not all of them can etc, and it's too varied.
Just my opinion
deanwray said:
So in my opinion, you cant have such and open system that can have lots of variations and get games in numbers and quality that we see on iphone. Not cause android phones cant do it. Cause not all of them can etc, and it's too varied.
Just my opinion
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I see what you mean. It's a lot like Console vs PC isn't it? I'm a PC gamer but i can understand why publishers/developers prefer console because they don't have to deal with a large variety of hardware. In other words, optimizing gaming experiences on Android phones could be harder than on iPhones because of the same reason.
Lets hope the difference isn't too big though.
TT1986 said:
I see what you mean. It's a lot like Console vs PC isn't it? I'm a PC gamer but i can understand why publishers/developers prefer console because they don't have to deal with a large variety of hardware. In other words, optimizing gaming experiences on Android phones could be harder than on iPhones because of the same reason.
Lets hope the difference isn't too big though.
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Porting from PC to console and vice-versa is probably easier than iPhone to Android, though.
I remember Valve saying that porting The Orange Box over to the Xbox 360 was very easy. They said something like they put the PC code -- with a few changes like control configuration -- through a 360 compiler and the game was up and running.
Also, with the PC, you have just two major processor brands (Intel and AMD) and two major graphics card brands (NVIDIA and ATI). The APIs and stuff are also far more mature.
google could do what Palm did.
Palms PDK allows porting of iPhone games to the Pre in a matter of hours.
theineffablebob said:
I remember Valve saying that porting The Orange Box over to the Xbox 360 was very easy. They said something like they put the PC code -- with a few changes like control configuration -- through a 360 compiler and the game was up and running.
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That's probably because it's made in XNA or some other cross platform code. That's one of the things pulling me toward WP7 (that and Zune Pass ).
Devs can write one code base, and in a matter of days have it ported to all major Microsoft software. As an Android dev myself, that would be amazingly useful did I also produce desktop software. I mean think about it, write an app for PC, then also target XBOX360, ZuneHD, normal Zunes, and WP7 all with essentially one codebase with very few small changes between them. That's some amazing stuff.
I toyed with XNA before and it is a beautiful way to code. Not to mention that the C# it uses is essentially Java with a few modifications.
just a quick question: WP7 with Xbox live or iPhone or Android, Which among them would u recommend for hardcore gaming on the go considering present and future support and software? i'm having second thoughts about my device and was thinking of maybe switching. please no consoles, pc's, etc.
If you want HARDCORE gaming, neither WP7 nor iPhone will be good enough...PSP/PSP2 is what you'll want
You could wait for the rumored (dc if it's "confirmed" it's still a rumor to me) Sony phone, supposed to be like a psp running android.
i mean, only from those 3, wp7, iOS and android. i was thinking about gaming on the go with the same device making calls, sms, email, movies, music
slighmd said:
i mean, only from those 3, wp7, iOS and android. i was thinking about gaming on the go with the same device making calls, sms, email, movies, music
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for gaming on the go with the best future potential, i'd say wp7 has that crown.
Currently, android. Give it a few months and WP7.
Currently have an HTC Trophy, wife has an iphone. My mom has an Android (really!). So i guess the right thing to do is stick to WP7 and be patient
as much as i know we have emulators for psx and other conosles on android?^^
winmo got a psx emulator too (not wp7)
Cool, a psx emulator! Thats a plus then. Hate this dilemma
Lizzo said:
for gaming on the go with the best future potential, i'd say wp7 has that crown.
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wp7 doesnt have ish for it .. what are u talking about .... only gameloft hd and dungeon defenders are worthwhile games , and theyre for android
that said id reccomend a galaxy s series or psp phone or a tegra2 phone
What screen size do you think you need for hardcore gaming? I can't imagine playing anything in great detail on a screen smaller than a tablet (iPad, Galaxy Tab, etc.)
Any screen size will do i guess or maybe at least 3.5"
Although i will never buy an iPhone, i have to admit that iPhone wins for gaming. Casual gaming, not hardcore. Android sure has WAY morapps then WinMo, but tbh, i was a bit dissapointed at the quantity/quality. iPhone has dedicated officaial game devs, wheras android is open source and there aren't that many blockbusters.
i personally use ny Ipod touch. i don't use my tab for games, there aren't many :/
Android is best for gaming. At CES, lots of new games were demoed for Android.
http://www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/4690-ces-android-other-platforms-see-a-big-gaming-boost
WP7 has the potential to be a big gaming platform, but it's never going to happen if people don't buy it, and so far, they aren't. Of the few who have bought a WP7 phone, fewer people are satisfied with it than people who bought Android phones.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/71041
Are phones carrier subsidized in the Phillippines? If not, then you will get a whole lot more phone for the money going with Android over iPhone.
Android has better hardware for games
iPhone has better optimization. The devs all just focus on one device hardware to build upon. the apps are more stable.
Gangstar on my ipod touch 2g is smoother than on my Samsung Galaxy Tab :/
p.s - I'm not a Apple fanboy.
None for now. WP7 might have a chance with XBox Live integration (and I think we might see some XBox games ported over, maybe not), but nothing much right now. iOS does have a ton of casual games, but not too fond of hardcore gaming on it (I think the screen size is way too small). Android has the advantage in hardware (obviously), but has a lack of drivers and, with the exception of emulators, the game selection is poor (might change).
Windows Mobile 6.x True playstation emulator.
FSpcse on TG01 = Unbeatable
(except hd2)
the new PSP
I would wait for the Atrix to come out, as it will be a powerhouse.
iPhone seems to get more support for games though and they are always released on iOS first.
Play Station Phone
ok!ggggggggg
Ok, I had a Samsung Galaxy S this time last year which I ended up returning within the 14 day "Trial" and went for the iphone 4 instead.
My main concern and the main reason I went back to Apple/ios was because of the fantastic developer support the idevices have, they have pretty much every major big name developer and all the indie developers making games and apps for the platform, this just wasn't the case with Android last year, I was soooo disappointed by the gaming side of things with android.
Anyway, a year has passed and i'm back! this time with an Xperia Play with the latest Android OS and i'm ready to see how much has changed in that year! but wait..... still pretty much how I left the scene a year ago with the exception of gameloft and rovio who now release decent games on the platform.
My questions:
Where are all the big name developers on Android? why aren't they here? will they ever be here? infinitly blade, plants vs zombies, real racing, field runners, we rule etc?
Where are all the great apps and games from the Apple App Store? surely its easy to port them over to Android? and the ones we do get look bad compared to the idevice versions even though our android devices are more powerful, why is this?
Have I backed the wrong horse again? I really hope not......
I love Android as an OS, very cool but I can't help but feel it is lagging so far behind in the app/game/appstore race that it can't ever compete now, am I wrong?
Our Android devices are very powerful, why are no games showing off our hardware? Asphalt 6 looks stunning on my Xperia Play and using the gaming pad is amazing but is that it?
1. Money. Still it's much easier to monetize your work in AppStore than in Android Market. First, Android community likes openness, free software, etc., but iPhone users... they could spend 1000$ for a featureless I'm Rich App ;-) Second, it's much easier to steal/pirate apps on Android.
2. Native development was neglected by Google for long time. Main effort was put into Java development and C didn't have access to many Android APIs. Recently Google has added most of required APIs, but...
3. Android devices are poorly supported by their manufacturers. If you want to use newest features in your app then you have to develop for <6 months old devices. And, as mentioned above, many features which are important for gaming were added recently.
4. Device differences. Even if all Android devices would be perfect and fully compatible with each other, there're still various screen sizes and resolutions, CPU/GPU power, etc. When you develop a game for iOS, you have to buy iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad and iPad 2, test it on these devices and set visual quality specifically for them, so game will run smoothly. If you want to develop for Android, you have to think of potentially every possible screen size, ratio and resolution, you have to test it on as much devices as possible and try to guess proper visual quality on a device or add feature for setting it by the user - as in PC games. It's much more complicated.
But I'm not a game developer, so maybe some of above problems aren't true and maybe there are more of them.
Brut.all said:
1. Money. Still it's much easier to monetize your work in AppStore than in Android Market. First, Android community likes openness, free software, etc., but iPhone users... they could spend 1000$ for a featureless I'm Rich App ;-) Second, it's much easier to steal/pirate apps on Android.
2. Native development was neglected by Google for long time. Main effort was put into Java development and C didn't have access to many Android APIs. Recently Google has added most of required APIs, but...
3. Android devices are poorly supported by their manufacturers. If you want to use newest features in your app then you have to develop for <6 months old devices. And, as mentioned above, many features which are important for gaming were added recently.
4. Device differences. Even if all Android devices would be perfect and fully compatible with each other, there're still various screen sizes and resolutions, CPU/GPU power, etc. When you develop a game for iOS, you have to buy iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad and iPad 2, test it on these devices and set visual quality specifically for them, so game will run smoothly. If you want to develop for Android, you have to think of potentially every possible screen size, ratio and resolution, you have to test it on as much devices as possible and try to guess proper visual quality on a device or add feature for setting it by the user - as in PC games. It's much more complicated.
But I'm not a game developer, so maybe some of above problems aren't true and maybe there are more of them.
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Thanks! I didn't want to sound negative but would love to see Android do well on the gaming side of thing, hopefully this will happen one day?
Plants vs Zombies is due to be released on Android in the next couple months.
technoplunk said:
Plants vs Zombies is due to be released on Android in the next couple months.
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Is that it?!
Has anyone noticed that there a new games popping up in the Tegra Zone that state they are built specifically for Tegra 3 devices?
Are we going to get left behind on the newest games because we have the Tegra 2?
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Considering the market for !iPad and that Tegera 3 isn't going to power that big a precentage of remaining Android devices in general, at worst get the "Normal" version instead of T3HD or w/e bull they are calling it now.
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~Rich~ said:
Has anyone noticed that there a new games popping up in the Tegra Zone that state they are built specifically for Tegra 3 devices?
Are we going to get left behind on the newest games because we have the Tegra 2?
Anyone have thoughts on this?
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It probably says so the TF Prime can utilize it. Im guessing most games should be playable on both, but when it detects quad core, it will increase all the settings. But, im not sure. I know a few games are going to do this, I think Shadowgun.
yea seems that way. but would def be stupid for devs to not make games backward compatible for at least tegra 2 devices.
It will. Look at shadowgun and riptide gp
melcali said:
yea seems that way. but would def be stupid for devs to not make games backward compatible for at least tegra 2 devices.
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It would be stupid for devs not to make games backward compatible with `high definition` systems, as so many people typically seem to name their app.
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games will probably be exclusive for tegra 3 for a month or so then they will release another version unless the game cannot run on slower hardware.
Games should have settings like PC games do. 1 version with graphical sliders. Why isn't this happening in all games?
There simply aren't enough Tegra 3 (or Tegra 2) devices to develop specifically for. Backwards compatibility would be wise. No game should be Tegra 3 only yet aside from a few tech demos.
Plus it would be a way to sell Tegra 3 devices too. Give me a new game with Tegra 3 support and let me enable all the goodies Tegra 3 supports and see how the game runs. This is why I used to purchase video cards all the time growing up. Run a new game at full glory because it looked pretty but ran at 19fps... whoops, gotta go get a new $500 video card to play a $49 game better.
If they separate the versions then non-Tegra users and Tegra 2 users never know what they are missing.
I also want an upgradable GPU IN MY PHONE!!!!
I agree. They should be all backward compatible. I also like the idea of being able to scale back the graphics to run on older devices and to tempt us to upgrade.
I want an upgradable gpu for my transformer! lol Don't think any of that is ever going to happen.
I saw that in the demo of Glow Ball that is in the Tegra Zone it says it was meant for Tegra 3 and only Tegra 3 processors were capable of handling the intense graphics. It even goes as far to show you want it looks like without the Tegra 3 (on non Tegra processor I believe) graphics which pretty much makes the game not worth it.
Blowfish Studios are making a Tegra 2 then Tegra 3 version of Siegecraft THD. The Tegra 3 version will be a pushed update to the previous version, so I'm told.
Somehow I remember reading somewhere that file picker = bad according to some important Android guy at Google. Which is probably while you get nothing out of their stuff but you get OI File Manager out of CyangonMod. I wouldn't be surprised if someone felt the same way about game settings, especially considering that people probably change phones about as fast as AAA+ games have short shelf lives (ala COD sh!t).
Unless you want to make several sales per device, THD and the rest is all bull.
Buying FooGame and installing it on e.g. an Optimus One should give you a modest ARMv6 friendly APK, lower end build with graphics tuned for common devices of it's era. Installing it on a TFP should give you a Tegera 3 optimised version of the APK. Got a Galaxy Nexus? Different APK than the Transformers, plus another "Generic" APK that is OK on any phone powerful enough to run it. If memory serves we either have this ability in the market or are getting it soon(tm).
That takes care of your old handset, your super tablet, and your new handset. Even better is the licensing option, uninstall from the Optimus One and install on the Galaxy Nexus or whatever you want out of the markets settings. Just like buying a new PC you can transfer the game over, but just like a console: it also would mean no matter what they play off, your less techy relatives that don't know crud about tech don't even have to figure out game settings. Ain't that awesome?
But oh wait, if we have to do that much work anyway for maximum market penetration, why not release FooGame, FooGame HD, FooGame T2HD, and FooGame T3HD? That way we have the option for charging customers by the processor type and bloat our stats to look good to share holders? --> follow the money.
If I'm wrong about the last three paragraphs someone correct me, other wise I think it's all bull. Some companies are really nice about it if you buy one version but in the end, there's no reason for it, except to try and make more $$$ if wanted.
If I'm probably right and it is mostly bull, how about hitting the thanks button to let me know I'm not an idiot?
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I'm not complaining or asking anyone to port it, but it just got me thinking: The Shield just got HL2 and Portal, and the Vita is getting Borderlands 2, and by a side-by-side specs comparison the Shield is leaps and bounds more capable than the Vita. So the question is why isn't Borderlands 2 for Shield being made? The only real reasons I can think of are that 1. Android is linux based and BL2 hasn't been ported to linux, which I would imagine would make porting it hard. The reason the Vita got it is because it shares a lot of technical similarities with the PS3. And 2. Nvidia would rather have people only GameStream it so the unfortunate people with AMD cards are forced to go buy Nvidia if they wanna play mobile BL2 so badly. Just some food for thought.
well psvita has a tricore cpu a-9 for gaming(like tegra 3, but one is used for system, its a quad core chip, with the gpu of the ipad , and another thing is if NVidia is partners with the devs, if they are not, and cant make a deal, then it probably wont be ported.
Fun fact: Borderlands 2 for vita runs like a steaming mess.
would love to see this happen though, seeing as Borderlands 2 on Vita runs terribly, was such a disappointment..
I've been playing Borderlands 2 via WiFi. Check out the GRID Beta.
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Borderlands' engine doesn't have a Linux port I believe. Further, the studio isn't interested in a port that won't earn them huge money. FPS on mobile/tablet is a super niche category. They wouldn't spend the money to divert their "AAA" developer team to making what was essentially a tech demo of an old game for a platform that would not make them money.
Valve, on the other hand, embraces Linux as a way forward and another equal platform. Having their main engines be Linux compatible lowers the porting time and cost for porting it to Android, especially if targeted mainly at Tegra4 and above console style devices (Shield, Mojo, etc).
Trine also works on Linux natively, but that team did some extra shader and effects work to show off the K1 when they ported it.
TL;DR -> If it isn't easy, cheap, or going to make big money, only a studio's attitude toward emerging markets will get them to make ports of games.