I've just emailed the folks at Rubicon development complaining that their Great Little War Game (which is a great game btw) is laggy on my ASUS EEE Pad Transformer which is powered by the Tegra 2 SOC when you set the detail to high or ultra. Setting it to medium plays the game smoothly. Some folk posted a review of the game in the Android market praising the game runs smoothly even on his Incredible S which runs on the Adreno 205 GPU. Running the game on high / ultra adds in an excellent water effect which causes the game to slowdown on the Transformer.
I highlighted this to the Rubicon developers and one of them said that while the Tegra 2 CPU is powerful, the GPU isn't as powerful as the Adreno 205 GPU on the Incredible S. I seriously find that really really hard to believe because the benchmark figures here shows that Tegra 2 even beats the PowerVR GPU in Nexus S which is more powerful than the Adreno 205:
http://androidandme.com/2011/03/news/tegra-2-benchmarks-motorola-atrix-4g-vs-lg-optimus-2x/
So I emailed them to see if they can actually optimize it for Tegra 2 because as I understand it, you have to optimize your game for Tegra 2 chipsets in order to make full use of the GPU much like in games such as RipTide GP which has excellent graphics and I dont believe the Adreno 205 could render the water effect that brilliantly.
Could someone shed some light on this?
Update:
Here's what the developers of "Great little war game" have to say about tegra 2 tablets:
We've done just that with v1.0.4 - have a play in the new settings screen.
We've kind done all we can do now tbh, of the 4 different GPU's in Android phones, Tegra 2 comes bottom and its in most of the devices with the biggest screens.
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Can you believe that? Sounds to me they are getting lazy rather than trying to optimize it for Tegra 2 because right now, they have two modes in the game with the new update - a fast graphics and a best graphics mode. Fast graphics mode appears to set the game resolution at a horrible 640x480 to speed things up but makes things very very ugly with heavy pixelation on tablets. while best graphics uses the native resolution, everything is sharp but slows down on certain larger levels of the game.
I suggested to them to change this to 800x600 when toggling to fast graphics which i believe will reduce the pixelation effect while still maintaining a decent graphics for the player. What do you guys think?
Nexus S should be right about the same hardware as the Galaxy Tab, and I do run RipTide GP at full quality equally smooth on that thing. Tegra 2 is a kinda all around lame chipset, but you really notice the single core when a mail comes in, and the TF keeps you splashing around while the Galaxy stutters badly for a moment... Also no choice on the chipset at the moment if you want a tablet.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
AlexTheStampede said:
Nexus S should be right about the same hardware as the Galaxy Tab, and I do run RipTide GP at full quality equally smooth on that thing. Tegra 2 is a kinda all around lame chipset, but you really notice the single core when a mail comes in, and the TF keeps you splashing around while the Galaxy stutters badly for a moment... Also no choice on the chipset at the moment if you want a tablet.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
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Nexus S is powered by the PowerVR GPU - its not the same as the Galaxy Tab at all (i'm referring to the Galaxy Tab 10.1).
And I'm talking about the one they sold one year ago, the 7" Froyo little monster using the same Hummingbird coupled with an SGX 540 that the Nexus S has
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
AlexTheStampede said:
And I'm talking about the one they sold one year ago, the 7" Froyo little monster using the same Hummingbird coupled with an SGX 540 that the Nexus S has
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
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how did you manage to run RipTide GP which is a Tegra only game? I suppose you used something like chainfire 3d? ( I havent tried it tho)
Exactly, Chainfire 3D and the Tegra plugin. No settings changed it just works, exactly like the pinball game. I didn't try any other game.
It requires a lot more power to render a game at 1280x720 than 800x480. As for which SoC is more powerful, I think benchmarks prove that Tegra 2 > Snapdragon S2.
AlexTheStampede said:
Exactly, Chainfire 3D and the Tegra plugin. No settings changed it just works, exactly like the pinball game. I didn't try any other game.
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I see. cool. but it still doesnt make sense why Rubicon mentioned that the Adreno 205 is more powerful than the Tegra 2.
Killer Bee said:
It requires a lot more power to render a game at 1280x720 than 800x480.
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this part i totally agree in terms of resolution but to say the Adreno 205 GPU is more powerful than the Tegra 2 GPU is wrong in every sense. Just because a game plays well in 800x480 doesnt make that GPU more powerful than the Tegra 2 GPU which plays game on 1280x800 in tablets. If it were the same resolution in the incredible S i'm pretty sure the game would be just as sluggish or worse.
mlbl said:
Could someone shed some light on this?
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Assuming the game runs at the Transformer's native resolution, the ULP GeForce would be required to push nearly three times as many pixels as the Adreno 205 in the Incredible S. Consider then that the ULP GeForce is maybe 50% faster in best-case scenarios.
As for Tegra optimizations, all that really is is a proprietary texture format that only Tegra chips can use. It provides a few benefits.. that can already be implemented in OpenGL ES 2.X anyway.
Edit:
Man it obviously took me a long time to type that.. got ninja'd three times over..
mlbl said:
I see. cool. but it still doesnt make sense why Rubicon mentioned that the Adreno 205 is more powerful than the Tegra 2.
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Just because they are developers, doesn't mean they aren't ignorant of certain hardware.
Sjael said:
Assuming the game runs at the Transformer's native resolution, the ULP GeForce would be required to push nearly three times as many pixels as the Adreno 205 in the Incredible S. Consider then that the ULP GeForce is maybe 50% faster in best-case scenarios.
As for Tegra optimizations, all that really is is a proprietary texture format that only Tegra chips can use. It provides a few benefits.. that can already be implemented in OpenGL ES 2.X anyway.
Edit:
Man it obviously took me a long time to type that.. got ninja'd three times over..
Just because they are developers, doesn't mean they aren't ignorant of certain hardware.
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Your explanation makes a lot of sense and yep doesn't mean they are developers, they're always right. Its possible they've made a mistake there and just make some assumptions on their own instead of basing off facts.
To begin with, the "Tegra Zone" means quality exactly like say, Amazon AppStore. Example? Galaxy on Fire 2 runs smooth-ish (I'd say 20fps or so) on an iPhone 3G. Not a 3GS. The mighty 600mhz (is it still underclocked to 400?) money printer Apple sold in 2008 with 128mb of ram. But hey, I'm sure the resolution of the screen is low enough to counterbalance the amazing graphics possible only thanks to Nvidia!
Anyway the Galaxy Tab runs at 1024x600 that is closer to the 1280x720 of the TF (the lower bar is 80 pixels, and there isn't any game using those obviously).
Here's what the developers of "Great little war game" have to say about tegra 2 tablets:
We've done just that with v1.0.4 - have a play in the new settings screen.
We've kind done all we can do now tbh, of the 4 different GPU's in Android phones, Tegra 2 comes bottom and its in most of the devices with the biggest screens.
---
Can you believe that? Sounds to me they are getting lazy rather than trying to optimize it for Tegra 2 because right now, they have two modes in the game with the new update - a fast graphics and a best graphics mode. Fast graphics mode appears to set the game resolution at a horrible 640x480 to speed things up but makes things very very ugly with heavy pixelation on tablets. while best graphics uses the native resolution, everything is sharp but slows down on certain larger levels of the game.
I suggested to them to change this to 800x600 when toggling to fast graphics which i believe will reduce the pixelation effect while still maintaining a decent graphics for the player. What do you guys think?
Sjael said:
Just because they are developers, doesn't mean they aren't ignorant of certain hardware.
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I gotta bump that one up. I'm in a development shop and the majority of the developers wouldn't know what CPU they had if there wasn't a sticker on their laptop.
Understanding software and hardware is a completely different skill set.
Well, could just be gpu optimization. Adreno uses a VLIW5, similar to AMD gpu, with an extra scalar unit, which apparently is hard to develop for, but can yield great results on shader heavy prgrams that are designed for it (or just happen to favor it). The Adreno 205 does outpace the [email protected] in vertex shader heavy benchmarks... and most implementations of snapdragon only use one of its two memory channels! ( because the first is PoP, but thesecond must be off package).
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
while the Tegra 2 CPU is powerful, the GPU isn't as powerful as the Adreno 205 GPU on the Incredible S.
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That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. Rubicon mainly develops for the iOS platform; I'd reckon they are just lazy at optimizing for several different SOCs.
grainysand said:
That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. Rubicon mainly develops for the iOS platform; I'd reckon they are just lazy at optimizing for several different SOCs.
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There is another point I didn't address. Adreno 205 is Unified shaders. So is sgx540. Tegra 2, however, is 4 pixel, 4 vertex. So there are definately situations, even entire genres, that would be potentially slower on Tegra 2 compared to what a benchmark would say.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
I had bought Great Little War Game 2 weeks ago. But after few minutes of playing I canceled the purchase and refunded. Why? Because of poor optimization for Asus.
I have this game also on Ipad2. It runs smoothly and much better.
Orion66 said:
I had bought Great Little War Game 2 weeks ago. But after few minutes of playing I canceled the purchase and refunded. Why? Because of poor optimization for Asus.
I have this game also on Ipad2. It runs smoothly and much better.
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generally not just the asus but all the tegra 2 tablets have poor performance for this game
So is the issue that the tegra 2 in some respects is slower or that developers need to write with the way the tegra 2 gpu works in mind?
Sent from my tf101 using xda premium 1.59Ghz
I keep reading that the Tegra 3 is not optimal for the 1080p resolution of the Infinity.
How does it affect gaming? Do games like Dead Trigger and Max Payne run smoothly?
Also, is the 300MHz increase over the TF201 noticeable in every day usage?
Thanks, I should be getting my TF700 in a few days. :good:
NCRoadster said:
I keep reading that the Tegra 3 is not optimal for the 1080p resolution of the Infinity.
How does it affect gaming? Do games like Dead Trigger and Max Payne run smoothly?
Also, is the 300MHz increase over the TF201 noticeable in every day usage?
Thanks, I should be getting my TF700 in a few days. :good:
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Games do not lag, and the infinity doesn't just have 300Mhz advantage it uses a slightly newer CPU called tegra 3 t33 which has a new GPU as well, so it's gaming performance is decent, all games run just fine,
And the tablet it self is a little slower than tf201 but that will change with jelly bean
Sent from my Jelly Beaned GNexus
Hello at all,
i have a problem.
at the moment i have a "Surface RT" from Microsoft, but the Game-Performance is not as good as on equals Android-Tablets (like Nexus7)...
Many Games on Tegra3 are stuttering (like Jetpack Joyride etc.)
Question:
Wich CPU/GPU Combination ist better
(Tegra3 CPU with Geforce ULP GPU like Surface RT, Asus VivoTab)
or (Qualcomm S4 Plus CPU with Adreno 225 GPU like Samsung Ativ Rt, Dell XPS 10)
http://www.qualcomm.com/snapdragon/tablets-pcs
Very Thanks for your informations...
Im not sure about which one is the better setup. However to fix your stuttering for now, try useing another input device rather than touch for your games. I use my touch cover for jet pack and my 360 controller for the other games I have.
Not sure why but a lot of games seem to stutter when you touch the screen , now this can be fixed as shown by hydro thunder developers in there latest patch.
THEBIG360 said:
Im not sure about which one is the better setup. However to fix your stuttering for now, try useing another input device rather than touch for your games. I use my touch cover for jet pack and my 360 controller for the other games I have.
Not sure why but a lot of games seem to stutter when you touch the screen , now this can be fixed as shown by hydro thunder developers in there latest patch.
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very thanks for your information, but i have only the surface 32gb without touchcover...
questions:
1. how do you connect your wireless xbox360 controller with surface rt?
2. do you know any games with no stuttering, without "hydro thunder"?
3. do you know any other games who push the power from tegra3 like "hydro thunder"?
At the moment i play the free game "Baller", very great, but also stuttering...
very thanks...
hi mate you will need the wireless pc receiver to sync the xbox controller wireless, however I just use a wired one. Games with controller are far better mate when supported, they even have rumble feed back. Both angry birds have been fixed not to lag on touch.
If you really enjoy jet pack mate why noT just plug in a usb keyboard or mouse works the same.
Soulcraft is a great game not tegra optimized though.
I can confirm that the game you are playing called baller has no stutter with touch cover but stutters on touch input.
it's all going to come down to optimization for the chipset, the tegra3 and adreno 225 are similar, but the tegra3 has the edge, but in real world, without something being optimized for the specific chipset, you're not going to see a huge difference.
now the s4 pro, with the new adreno is beast. i really wish the surface came with that vs tegra
adiliyo said:
it's all going to come down to optimization for the chipset, the tegra3 and adreno 225 are similar, but the tegra3 has the edge, but in real world, without something being optimized for the specific chipset, you're not going to see a huge difference.
now the s4 pro, with the new adreno is beast. i really wish the surface came with that vs tegra
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Optimization in most of cases is just a marketing trick.
Tegra 3 is really weak, even in comparison with MSM8960. Also Adreno 320 is up to 3 times faster than 225, so make conculisons.
If you want a nice cheap game to showcase the tegra chip in the surface search sprinkle in the marketplace. Great game with some great physics and good graphics.
is sprinkle on win8 now?
Hello,
i have question. I want choose cheap tablet for games like GTA San Andreas, GTA Vice City. I know 200 dollars isn´t much
Here are my list:
Prestigio PMP5785C (quad core CPU and GPU (Mali400MP-4cores too) 7" display
Acer Iconia Tab A1-810 (better brand ? quad core CPU, i don't know how many cores PowerVR SGX544 has) 8" display
What do you recommend ? What is better for gaming ? Both tablets have USB OTG for my gamepad.
Thanks
Maybe condor ctab 970lQD 1.6quad CPU Mali 400mp GPU & retina iPad screen 2048x1536. 9.7inch 2gb ram
Sent from my XT925 using xda app-developers app
I think Prestigio PMP5785C is better for gaming. Although Acer Iconia Tab A1-810 has good features and performance for price but it struggles with most intensive games.
Those are your only options? 200 is your max budget?
The Prestigio seems better, but probably can get a better one if you buy it online
taxik said:
Hello,
i have question. I want choose cheap tablet for games like GTA San Andreas, GTA Vice City. I know 200 dollars isn´t much
Here are my list:
Prestigio PMP5785C (quad core CPU and GPU (Mali400MP-4cores too) 7" display
Acer Iconia Tab A1-810 (better brand ? quad core CPU, i don't know how many cores PowerVR SGX544 has) 8" display
What do you recommend ? What is better for gaming ? Both tablets have USB OTG for my gamepad.
Thanks
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i'd go for prestigio
I tried both and i think that Acer is better Acer has a really bad display (bad dark colors and bad brightness level). Prestigio had problem with storage there is only 5GB free storage (Acer had 15GB). I don't why, maybe its some kind of bug and there were problems with Wifi and it was laggy in menu
Hi all,
I have a nvidia shield and it was a beast with gaming and graphics. I have it lying around and I have been shopping for an external graphics card online when a crazy idea struck me. Is it possible to use my old shield tablet as an external graphics card. The tegra k1 has a lot of power and I wanted to know if I could use it for gaming on my windows laptop. The intel hd 620 graphics is trash.
Thanks!
No it is not possible also yes this tablet has powerful graphics but in comparison to the Intel 620 gpu it really isn't. The whole external gpu thing for laptops is terrible anyway all the implementations kinda suck lots of latency between external gpu And laptop...
The gpu in the k1 is more or less equal to a 550ti
Ok thanks for letting me know. Also thanks for the analogy of the tegra k1 and the gtx 550ti. I'll buy a laptop with a 960m or something next time. Apparently the 550ti is way faster and better at rendering and displaying graphics. The benchmarks of the gtx 550ti are way better than the ones of the Intel hd 620 graphics despite the fact that it's from 2011!
K1 has 192 cuda cores and generally runs at 540mhz, may boost higher, i have seen it go up to 700ish mhz. Next thing to think about is that gpu generally has GDDR5, K1 uses the system ram wich probably is somekind of LDDR3 at low clock speeds (aka less bandwith)... So its hard to compare
It would be nice to see a 949mx in a case with ventilation or something that could connect via thunderbolt 3 as an external gpu.