3GS graphics put to rest

Hey guys, I couldn't find this info definitively put anywhere with Google, so here it is. I care because I'm thinking of upgrading for gaming, and I can't really use a DS or PSP, so...yeah, the 3GS is better, but, is it a "real console" in terms of power?

A big determiner is what kind of PowerVR SGX it has. Well, I was able to confirm that it is definitely the 535.

http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&showhide=true&D1=Apple iPhone 3G S&D2=SonyEricsson U1i Satio

The Satio is known to use the 530. Since the 535 has double the pipelines of the 530, you'd expect it would roughly double the performance. Well, it doubles it over a known SGX 530 user almost exactly.

This means that the 3GS, if used full-bore, has the potential to take on the PSP (the PSP has some advantages despite weaker on-paper specs, but they're too technical to get into) or better. Games nowadays haven't even scratched the surface.

Or have they? Has this already been definitively settled? Can anyone also point me to some pretty screenshots of GS-only games? Thanks!

 

Firstly, I'd never buy an iphone for gaming, period. I like to talk on my phone sometimes and games tend to be battery hogs. I'm looking at an ipod 3g.

Secondly I noted in the original post that I can't use a PSP.

It doesn't matter if the next is a lot better. Right now there is a generational gap; art assets created for an OGL 2.0 pipeline simply aren't usable on an OGL 1.5 pipeline. Once you start using shaders, it's easy enough to use older versions (see: oldblivion, bioshock patches that allow it to run on radeon 9800 level harware...) Since the SGX's has an OGL 2.0 compliant unified shader architecture, just like games for modern PCs, you just scale back the level of detail and effects for weaker hardware. The 3GS bootstraps you into the zone where it doesn't get amazingly better except for more triangles and pixels.

(someone spoke about 128mb more memory)
Yes, let's all remember that the xbox had 64mb memory, the xbox360 has 512mb, and the 3gs has 256. The OS takes about 64. So we're left with about 192mb. Larger textures are good to a point, but there's usually no point in having them much bigger than the resolution of the screen (480x320) except in landscapes etc. Instead it allows for a lot more headroom for bigger, more complex, wide-open worlds.

Is a cortex A8 fast enough? Sure! My developer's speculation is that it could run Oblivion with somewhere between Morrowind and Oblivion graphics. It is aided alot by the speed of the SLC flash inside - loading times are much less than DVD/BD media. However it will come up short in areas like physics. Unfortunately you'll have to have either enemies with pretty bouncing boobies or enemies with brains.

Now, *THE DOWNSIDE* to the SGX chip is this - this prettier art, etc., it takes longer to create. Costs more. I wouldn't be surprised if companies are hesitant to develop 3GS level games for the very reason that they are more expensive to produce, with a more limited market. As it stands, investing 30% more development time for a better experience for 10% of players who probably won't pay any more money is counter to profit making.

*THAT* said, Apple has this wonderful thing called planned obsolescence. They plan on the 1g, 2g devices being obsolete quite soon. And by obsolete I mean broken.

I don't know. Personally, if I had to pay $10 more to play NOVA with console-like graphics, I wouldn't. But if I spent $20 to get a NOVA that really WAS like Halo - wide open environments, better AI, etc. - I'd jump at it!

And don't forget games like Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies. It lags to heck on a 2g touch at low detail level, and don't think for a moment that the CPU speed doesn't affect all the people getting dropped. On a 3g s, I hear, you can run max detail level, and it enables some shaders, and it's a lot prettier and doesn't lag. The lack of lag is the best improvement IMO. Once you get up past wave 20 just dodging the zombies and firing your shotgun gets downright difficult. Games that straddle the edge and offer an option to both generations - right there, the casual gamer can go for a 2g touch, but the serious one can use a 3g. I count myself as a serious one with a 2g impediment. I'm in #2-4 (depending on how you sort them) for the online leaderboards for top 3-player games on Verrukt. OrgnlDave, if you want to look. Imagine what I could do with a 3g!

 

Thanks for the screens. I see lots more shader use, higher-res textures. Zen Bound is pretty but I wish there were more to look at...surely someone with a 3GS must have shots of Zombies running on it!

As far as the iPad goes, it has literally 5.1x the pixels as the 3g s. I would *imagine* that they'd want at least 4x the pixel throughput as the 3gs chip, so I'd then go so far as to imagine that they're using an SGX variant with 4x the pipelines; however, since the shaders are unified, you don't really need 4x the pipes, since you only need enough for the same geometry + extra pixels. This is all just speculation, but I would imagine that 8 or 12 pipes would be a good compromise. If the SGX has a max of 4 shaders per core as I remember, then a 2- or 3-core variant would be logical. (Note that cores aren't the same as for processors: ATI/nVidia cards have hundreds of 'cores'). This would kick the theoretical number of triangles through the roof, but you'd only REALLY be drawing the same number in the same game, with more cores going to the pixel end to handle the higher resolution.

The real question about the ipad is how much RAM it has. It would need 512mb at least to keep up with texture size requirements and be competitive with the 3gs in graphics.

 

I'd like to add that my $.02 is on the iPad being meant for gaming. Gaming was never huge for apple with macs, but since the release of the app store they've raked in literally tens if not hundreds of millions from their unprecedented 1/3 cut of EVERY game sold. They *accidentally* created a real handheld competitor to the big two (DS/PSP)! And it's much more profitable for them than the DS or the PSP are to Nintendo or Sony, because of that 1/3 cut and lack of need for any real extra advertising. If they're not taking gaming seriously now (and the 3GS shows they're at least trying) then they're ludicrous.

 

Let's not turn this into a platform war guys...the topic is the iphone, not if the PSP rox and teh iphone sux its defecationz!!!!

Interesting about the drivers. But why put the SGX in, esp. considering how sales of games are, if they don't plan to make some kind of push? As I understand it, the original iphone wasn't planned to be for gaming, thus the problems with programming games for it. Maybe they'll introduce a game SDK to address that (like DirectX, but better)? The problems I'm referring to are mostly the really bad programming model i.e. with the timers, etc.

I mean really. Just think about the sales #s, the new more powerful hardware, etc. You as a developer TrueAxis, you think they are really going to let it slip? Maybe the reason we haven't seen EA, etc. releasing those "premium games" Apple was talking about a while back is that this API/OS update is coming first...

Anyway speculation aside, the issue with memory bandwidth on consoles is rather moot. We're talking about portable devices. The Cortex A8 does 600MHz? The SGX does 100-200? DRAM could almost keep up with the demands of the SGX, let alone DDR. I mean come on.

As far as compromises made for power go, I fail to see how the PSP or DS are any different. The PS3 uses a PS capable of supplying 380w of power! The iPhone keeps it under 1W at full load as I remember. I really doubt the PSP does that much more - as I remember at first the CPU was originally underclocked, despite its much more massive battery! It's years old technology now, optimized better for power (as they planned ahead). Every mobile device goes through that. What relevance does it have? The iPhone gets about as much play time as a PSP or DS off its battery in intensive games...if not less...