Pity me, for I am limping by with a first generation iPod Touch. I purchased it used a couple of years ago and instantly fell in love with all of its features, but as time has gone by, I'm starting to feel its age. It doesn't help matters that developers have started to snub the original model of the system, leaving it unsupported in their latest releases. The decisions to drop support for legacy models are maddeningly arbitrary... there are advanced games like Hero of Sparta II and Asphalt 5 that will work with the first generation iPod Touch, along with retro throwbacks like Pac-Man Battle Royale and The 6th Planet that, for reasons beyond my comprehension, require the latest hardware. Since I don't have access to the more recent models of the system, I have to ask... in the games that are compatible with all generations of the iPod Touch, how much of a performance boost can I expect from the latest model of the system? The tech specs suggest that the fourth generation iPod Touch is greatly improved over its predecessors, but is that reflected in the games? If I were to play Asphalt 5 on a fourth gen Touch, in what ways would the experience be enhanced? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Fifth Gen should seriously outpower the current ones I'd hold off for one personally as it's bound to get games the rest won't be able to run and you probably don't want back in that situation soon, but if you want the newest games right now any device 3gs and higher does the trick nicely and you should find the new devices quite a bit faster in everything. I'd look at the comparison videos on youtube to try and gauge what gains there are in it. Mobile technology is moving very fast at the minute it's going to be a crazy year.
If you want a huge performance boost wait until odd number generation devices. Even number generations add features but do little for overall performance. Wait for the 5th gen . Dual Core CPUs and GPUs and eDDR2 RAM are more than 99.9% likely to come and will leave the current line of devices in the dust.
The real reason devs won't make their games for first and second gen is that they don't want to spend the time optimizing for an insignificant part of the market. So the games do run; but the devs want a certain amount of quality control, and it's not a good return on investment.
I do agree with your statement but wasnt the 4gen ipod/iphone a pretty big leap up from the 3rd gen ? PS I duno know if you know this or not but a game that runs on all devices and is totally awesome is Real Racing 2.
No...well it could have been...but the Retina Display has 4X the pixels and needs a lot more power to run, so pretty much any performance improvement was cancelled out.
Plus, there's not much incentive to cater to the part of the market that's unwilling to spend money (ie. people who don't want to upgrade).
So I should basically tough it out until September? Man, that is going to be painful. I've seen the comparison videos with the 4th gen units and I want one so baaaad... The real kick in the pants is that these new units are supposed to be incredibly difficult to fix... the LCD and glass pane are fused, so you can't just replace the pane if it breaks. The whole thing has to be sent back to Apple to be repaired at a hefty price. I've dabbled with fixing tech in the past and have been able to save a lot of money refurbishing orphaned machines (example: I was able to get a PS3 for $125 and a little elbow grease), but it doesn't sound feasible in this instance.
Believe me, I spend money on apps! I just don't like spending $225 on a new system every year. That's not the way things are done in the adjacent video game industry... I've gotten quite used to five year lifespans for systems and I wish those long cycles would catch on with other sectors of the tech industry.
But you are the exception. The average person with a first gen uses it for music and still runs 1.0, in my experience. And it's nor a new device every year- by your own admission, you get a new device every three years, so $70 a year isn't too much.
I did? I mentioned the five year life cycle for consoles but I don't recall mentioning anything about buying a new system every three years. Anyway! I'll probably purchase a new system as soon as I can afford it. Unemployment curtails such expenditures, unfortunately.
well if you put hardware in context to software.. than a yearly refresh of your ipod is not more expsensive than on traditional platforms.. 4-5 console games are the price of an ipod.. and you get the newest hardware with it , yearly.. if you got a ps3 for 125 thats quite cheap and i assume its used or some special occasion sale.. but not common.. so you got it late and cheap.. but thats special circumstances that should not be accounted for.. if you'd buy a console early in their lifecylce you prolly spend double to triple the amount of ipod.. lets asume a lifecyle of 5 years, so its 500$ that means you have around 2 years of ipod refresh for the ps3 platform only.. now lets say you play 8 games a year (which undoubtfull is not alot) that gets you 8*50$ * 5years = 2000$ that totals into 2500$ without accessoirces of any kind -- soo 5x 230 for yearly refreshes = 1150$ leaves you with a price difference of 1350 to spend on itunes games.. thats 270$ a year.. arguing that the average game price is around 2-3 dollars thats around 90 games yearly.. and its pretty safe to say you don't need yearly hardware refreshes.. every second year should be fine..
Hmm iPhone 1 (Original iPhone): Base iPhone 2 (iPhone 3G): Features iPhone 3 (iPhone 3GS): Performance iPhone 4 (iPhone 4): Features & Performance iPhone 5: ??? (Performance again?)
Having gone from an original iPhone to the 3GS and iPad I don't believe the performance difference in games is significant between the 3GS and current devices in comparison to the upgrade from the original hardware. The long load times combined with the lack of mutlitasking made short gaming sessions on the older hardware inconvenient.
Originally Posted by SirAwesome View Post I do agree with your statement but wasnt the 4gen ipod/iphone a pretty big leap up from the 3rd gen ? PS I duno know if you know this or not but a game that runs on all devices and is totally awesome is Real Racing 2. Incorrect. Real Racing 2 has 2 sets of graphical assets allowing it to perform well on ALL iPods. It runs as well on my 2G as the 4G. The difference is in the graphics. The 2G uses a different set of graphic assets and has a low poly count and lower textures while the 4G allows very high quality graphics. With that being clarified, I see a pretty major performance increase between to 2G and 4G. Better frame rates in most games and a very large increase in loading speed for all apps. So, you can buy a 4G now with the security in knowing that most apps will run fine for at least 3 years, or wait for the 5G to be released. It's your call.
Exactly. The 4th generation devices did little for overall performance. Please wait until September. You won't regret it. Actually wait until they announce the iPad 2 on March 2nd. If the iPad 2 is dual core, then definitely wait until September for the iPod touch 5, but if it isn't and Apple cheaps out...go ahead and buy a 4G.
Uhh no but almost all new Android phones have this type of hardware and drivers for it has been found in iOS 4.3 Beta files. It's more than likely that it's coming to Apple hardware.
