I've spent some time trying to confirm this. While I know the answer is probably yes, I want to make sure before I buy the cable, because otherwise it'll be useless. I just want to know that you can do HDMI out and game. I know it can play videos or whatever, but for gaming, does it work? The plan is to use HDMI out and get an MFi controller. Is anyone doing this? I've read some reports of not-so-good quality on the output but no one mentions actually using it with games.
I did manage to watch a quick video review of the cable, which included a few quick clips of gaming. But I'm really glad I saw this video because the guy mentioned some input lag. He said it wasn't too bad but from the video, it looked to be like half a second lag or perhaps a quarter of a second, which is actually fairly big if you're playing a game. Anyone chime in on this? Why would a video out cable have input lag?
Here. Read this, especially my TOC (Table of Contents) Lightning Concerns stuff. http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=173262 If you got any further questions, please ask me there. The thread is about anything to make ios devices, ios consoles, including HDMI, iCade, MFi, and other things like hybrid styluses and soundbars. So feel free to ask me there. The mods have told me that they want me to maintain the HDMI as a console thread, so I will be more active in it soon. Take care.
Thanks Connector. I posted my concerns there. I browsed the thread and can see that others are mentioning the lag too but I don't know if the a7 (ipad mini retina) has addressed this to some extent. I'll check that thread for any replies.
I just found a rather interesting article on how the lightning to HDMI adapter works. The reason why it's laggy is because there's a small processor within the adapter itself that processes the visual data (compression) and then sends it through the HDMI as video output. This means that no matter what, there will always be some latency. They might be able to improve it with updates but there will always be some. I've watched a few more videos, and I can already tell that the delay would frustrate me, specially with the kinds of games I'd actually want to play on my big screen.
I've experimented with this quite a bit. The video processing lag is noticeable, though I'm less convinced than others that it is unfixable. Apple could definitely reduce the lag through improved compression techniques and optimizations. Very few games are unplayable. While you will see the lag in fast-reaction games like Sonic, the vast majority of MFi compatible games are still completely enjoyable. Still, lets hope Apple fixes things a bit more
What about games like Devious Dungeon? That require really precise twitch platforming, etc. That's one of the genres I was really looking forward to playing on my TV. I know the brain can adapt to some amazing things so if you think it isn't so bad, let me know which games you can successfully enjoy that are fast-paced and where timing is everything.
