Yesterday I had the chance to finally try the Ipad. I tried several apps, and I admit it's a really nice reading device, fonts are clear and the screen is ok. However, I've tested a few games, and I found them a bit slower , with a less smoth framerate ( i've tested a race game and so on ). Probably, part of the problem was due the fact it was in a shop, the device seemed a bit lagged or something, but I noticed that problem. And the fact it's a bit too heavy for a confortable reading, at least for me. What do you think? You experienced similar issues or it was just that device?
It depends of the game, for few I also noticed it, mainly gameloft first person shooters. But also few other, even a Brick Breaker! I think some games ported from iPhone get ported too fast with a focus only to increase graphics precision and not putting enough focus on some points like the gameplay and the fps. But one important thing is also that before to take any conclusion you must hardware restart the iPad to reset memory state in case a game has problem. I also recently notice something that puzzled me, I have seen a video review of Zombie Infection HD and fps seem perfect when on my iPad they aren't with the HD version but are with the iphone version.
I'm not too deep into the game yet but the framerate for Zombie Infection HD seemed fine on mine. Just depends on how good a job the developers did porting a game. Brothers in Arms 2 HD for example has great framerate until the last level or so when the framerate takes a free fall. The iPad pretty much has the same guts though as iPhone4 other than it has only half the RAM (256 vs 512) and a bit higher res at a different aspect ratio.
The ipad is similar to the 3GS in performance but with more pixels to push it has lower fps. Nevertheless it is a wonderful machine to program for.
Similar performance to 3GS? I thought it was twice as fast?.. but yes, it does have more pixels to push around, but it also has an A4 chip which the 3GS does not. The few FPS games I've seen on iPad were much smoother than the 3GS. Supposedly the iPad is faster then the Iphone 4 as well, but has only half the memory.
You are correct, they run very similar processors(cpu and gpu) but the a4 in the ipad is clocked at a higher frequency. I was basing my statement on the fps my games manage during development. The pixel count probably then outweighs the processors.
