All of a sudden I wish this was System Wars. Comparing a device running 720p to one running 1080p and claiming victory because it runs slightly better. Even System Wars has enough logic to shoot that notion clear out of the sky, hell, even 900p to 1080p is considered a massive disaster, and that's only a 25% difference in power.
In any case, mobile gaming is moot point lol, anyone claiming otherwise is delusional. It's an utterly casual market based around second hand rip-off games running for 5 bucks.
First of all, way to handpick benchmark results, the Apple A8 is on par/ faster then the Snapdragon 805, and this isn't even without Apple Metal being incorporated yet, why not link battery test reviews and great compliments from other reviewers saying the 6 has great battery life? My 6 easily last me all day with moderate to heavy usage, Apple Metal and apps being recompiled to iOS 8 and the Apple A8 will increase battery performance. Anandtech and others have gotten some pretty dam solid numbers from the 6, and even shows in Anandtechs testing the 6 Plus and 6 beating other flagships in wifi longevity
Also, the Plus and 6 have the least performance degradation over time, next to the SHIELD tablet(that is incredible that a mobile device like a smartphone in a smartphone envelope is able to not throttle back, and that it competes with tablets in a tablet envelope)
That is some serious performance degradation for the Android devices, it's all because of Imagination's new GPU architecture , where they are able to go for much longer without GPU throttling, it's some amazing stuff
Those are benchmarks that represent OFFSCREEN tests ie. every device is running the SAME test at the SAME resolution.
The performance degradation chart is running ONSCREEN, so each device is running the test at DIFFERENT resolutions.
Fact is, the Xperia Z3 Compact running Android 4.4.4 (Dalvik) has much better battery than the iPhone 6. I could find a reviewer saying the iPhone 6 has good battery life, but the Xperia Z3 Compact has better.
@musicalmac You just quoted "onscreen" benchmarks, which doesn't hold relevance when comparing two mobile devices, as you're asking the devices to do two DIFFERENT tasks. I shouldn't have to keep repeating myself, if an application cannot run at the native resolution of the device, the resolution or high resolution texture settings can be LOWERED to MATCH the settings used on the iPhone.
These are two different numbers by a factor of ~2x:
1334*750 = 1,000,500 pixels
1920*1080 = 2,073,600 pixels
Just about any device with a Qualcomm SoC (and some others) since the Nexus 4 can utilize OpenGL ES 3 and some features of AEP. Devices with Adreno 420 or Mali-T760 can utilize DX11 equivalent features that can be used in AEP (which is planned to be released with Android L). Devices with Tegra K1 already run (desktop) OpenGL 4.x. The numbers you quoted are mainly comparing Apple's A8 with devices using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801, which launched at the start of 2014. Qualcomm's current flagship SoC (launched this past summer in the Galaxy S5 LTE-A) is the Snapdragon 805. I can't provide a number, but just about every major game has been using OpenGL ES 3 since summer 2013. Titles for Tegra K1 devices use (desktop) OpenGL 4.x. When AEP launches with Android L later this month, then games on non-Tegra K1 devices will start to take advantage of those OpenGL 4.x extensions.
I'm not seeing many specifics here, and as is very typical, I'm being told that what hasn't yet been released and what hasn't been put into the hands of tens of millions of consumers is worth respecting as though it were already here. How many android games support lowering the resolution to accommodate for poorly balanced hardware? Can you provide at least a few examples to allow us to respect your point?
What good does a uniform 1080p benchmark do us when the iPhone 6 runs at 1334x750? Does that give you any indication as to how games are going to reasonably perform on an iPhone 6? Why wouldn't we look at each device in context -- because you can just reduce the quality of any game that struggles at the native resolution of an android phone?
It's also worth highlighting (what I had deleted in my previous post) what @xboxiphoneps3 said regarding these tests and Metal.
Not sure on how many support resolution adjustments. As it stands the Snapdragon 801 is the mainstream Android flagship SoC since H1 2014, devices with Snapdragon 801 often use a 1920x1080 display. Excluding games for Tegra, Snapdragon 801 can play any Android title at high settings. The H2 2014 SoC is Snapdragon 805, which can offer the same (if not higher) performance at 2560x1440 as Snapdragon 801 at 1920x1080. The Snapdragon 805 also offers an expanded feature set (DX11 equivalent features). Some examples of popular non-Tegra games that can support resolution adjustment include Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, San Andres, Beach Buggy Blitz, Beach Buggy Racing, Riptide GP2.
The resolution adjustment usually appears as a scroll bar (specific resolutions are not indicated). A number of these and other titles also include frame capping, this will keep the game from over working the SoC and consuming more battery. Frame capping is also a native feature on NVIDIA's Shield tablet. While not all games have a resolution adjuster, others include the ability to toggle hi-resolution textures and mapping.
Aside: The features mentioned above are available on NON-rooted devices. Any one of the millions of rooted users can control the exact resolution, and OpenGL features used by an application.
The GFXBench offscreen runs all SoC's at 1920x1080, that's just the default setting to compare performance. The fps count listed on the side does not reflect the expected fps of a game using OpenGL ES 3.0 features, only the fps relative to that test. The 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited test uses an offscreen resolution of 1280x720 (lower than the iPhone 6). Again, the purpose of these tests are to compare devices performing the same test at the same resolution. This still allows you to view each device in context, these results don't only represent raw SoC performance, but the performance of that SoC within the device in question (this is why multiple devices using the same SoC with the same amount of RAM might have different scores).
Of course, it's worth mentioning these tests do not always reflect on a GPU's capabilities. Something that a company such as NVIDIA has a unique advantage with an equivalent GPU architecture to their desktop/laptop chips. I suppose this can also be said of Intel's SoC's (Bay Trail, Core M, etc.) that feature Android as the OS.
Metal might offer iOS an improvement in performance over OpenGL ES 3, but it has only used equivalent features. So we've yet to see a real improvement in that department. Not much to comment on there, take a look at the images posted on the first page for reference. If there was something specific you wanted to discuss that xboxiphoneps3 had posted, you need to cite it. Otherwise his posts have been rebutted. I also disagree with your dismissal of Android L / AEP and the numerous improvements, especially if you want to cite Metal as a point in favour of iOS.
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Keeping with the theme of the topic (which had it's title changed after my initial response disproved TC's rhetoric), games for Tegra K1 (an Android SoC) have better graphics than any iOS game. Tegra K1 titles are PC ports utilizing OpenGL 4.x (desktop) on Android:
Not sure on how many support resolution adjustments. As it stands the Snapdragon 801 is the mainstream Android flagship SoC since H1 2014, devices with Snapdragon 801 often use a 1920x1080 display. Excluding games for Tegra, Snapdragon 801 can play any Android title at high settings. The H2 2014 SoC is Snapdragon 805, which can offer the same (if not higher) performance at 2560x1440 as Snapdragon 801 at 1920x1080. The Snapdragon 805 also offers an expanded feature set (DX11 equivalent features). Some examples of popular non-Tegra games that can support resolution adjustment include Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, San Andres, Beach Buggy Blitz, Beach Buggy Racing, Riptide GP2.
The resolution adjustment usually appears as a scroll bar (specific resolutions are not indicated). A number of these and other titles also include frame capping, this will keep the game from over working the SoC and consuming more battery. Frame capping is also a native feature on NVIDIA's Shield tablet. While not all games have a resolution adjuster, others include the ability to toggle hi-resolution textures and mapping.
Aside: The features mentioned above are available on NON-rooted devices. Any one of the millions of rooted users can control the exact resolution, and OpenGL features used by an application.
The GFXBench offscreen runs all SoC's at 1920x1080, that's just the default setting to compare performance. The fps count listed on the side does not reflect the expected fps of a game using OpenGL ES 3.0 features, only the fps relative to that test. The 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited test uses an offscreen resolution of 1280x720 (lower than the iPhone 6). Again, the purpose of these tests are to compare devices performing the same test at the same resolution. This still allows you to view each device in context, these results don't only represent raw SoC performance, but the performance of that SoC within the device in question (this is why multiple devices using the same SoC with the same amount of RAM might have different scores).
Of course, it's worth mentioning these tests do not always reflect on a GPU's capabilities. Something that a company such as NVIDIA has a unique advantage with an equivalent GPU architecture to their desktop/laptop chips. I suppose this can also be said of Intel's SoC's (Bay Trail, Core M, etc.) that feature Android as the OS.
Metal might offer iOS an improvement in performance over OpenGL ES 3, but it has only used equivalent features. So we've yet to see a real improvement in that department. Not much to comment on there, take a look at the images posted on the first page for reference. If there was something specific you wanted to discuss that xboxiphoneps3 had posted, you need to cite it. Otherwise his posts have been rebutted. I also disagree with your dismissal of Android L / AEP and the numerous improvements, especially if you want to cite Metal as a point in favour of iOS.
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Keeping with the theme of the topic (which had it's title changed after my initial response disproved TC's rhetoric), games for Tegra K1 (an Android SoC) have better graphics than any iOS game. Tegra K1 titles are PC ports utilizing OpenGL 4.x (desktop) on Android:
So you said you wanted some offscreen benchmark testing? Here is a few off screen benchmark results for you, this isn't even accounting Apple Metal which boosts CPU/GPU performance as a whole and even more power is squeezed out , Apple A8 obviously isn't faster then the K1 Kepler GPU but so far you can only find K1 in tablets, so it's not even a direct competitor, Adreno 420 and GX6450 seem to be close on performance, although this isn't even accounting Apple Metal, which is like AMD Mantle, makes 100% for a ecosystem where you know the hardware configurations(only a few sets of hardware configurations on iOS i.e 4S/5/5S/6
It's too bad you will be seeing the S805 powering Quad HD displays, where the performance isn't going to be much better then the 330 because it's running at Quad HD resolutions while a Adreno 330 is usually powering a 1080p display(although LG G3 has a Adreno 330 GPU powering it's quad HD display, and it has serious GPU throttling issues, Adreno 330 on Quad HD , For the low...)
Also you are forgetting that the 6 Plus actually renders games and everything at like 2228x1200 (Something like that, not exact sure on number but higher then 1080p, then gets downscaled by "Desktop class scaler" to the screen's native 1080p resolution.
K1 is better but truth is, you don't even see Nvidia in smartphones and barely tablets still, majority is Qualcomm SoC's, Apple's stance is a very solid one and they defitnetly have a advantage on the competition until next year (or even in a week where they are gonna announce the iPad Air 2 with the A8X SoC and 2GB of RAM and possibly have the GX6650, which actually matches the K1 Kepler GPU in performance)
@xboxiphoneps3 I've been using offscreen benchmarks since the start of this thread (I try to source from the official benchmark's webpages when possible, rather than a single device by Anandtech reviewers).
I'm well aware that the Adreno 420 (Android 4.4.4 - Dalvik) is equally competitive with the PowerVR GX6450, I haven't said anything to the contrary, other than stating benchmarks.
Again, when Metal is concerned there are pros and cons to your argument. While Metal should offer a performance boost over OpenGL ES 3.1, it still only offers equal features. Adreno 420 should see at least a slight boost from Android L - ART and AEP. Adreno 420 can also utilize a number of the AEP features and DX11 equivalent features such as tessellation, meanwhile, the PowerVR 6XT series is limited to an OpenGL ES 3.1 equivalent.
Just because Snapdragon 805 is being used in a device with QHD, doesn't mean the application has to be running at QHD resolution (I even mentioned that in the exact post you quoted). The performance with regards to the scaling on the iPhone 6 Plus is still reflected in the offscreen score, so I don't see why that would matter.
The PowerVR GX6650 can match or even exceed the performance of Tegra K1, but that still won't make it as capable in terms of API and features.
Tegra K1 is not being used in phones due to the fact it has a separate modem. This is also the reason a number of Android device manufacturers chose to skip Snapdragon 805, as it also uses a separate modem. Snapdragon 810 which has already been spotted in testing, and might launch as soon as January 2015, has an integrated modem, it also represents a large jump for Qualcomm (LPDDR4, 20 nm, Cortex A57 ARMv8, etc.).
When it comes down to it, Intel's Core M is the most powerful SoC for tablets, and has been confirmed for Android devices as well. So I don't see any ARM based SoC competing with it in 2014.
Of course, I just don't see the point in running Android on Core M when you have the option to use x86-64 Windows with its entire ecosystem at your disposal.
Llama Mountain reference tablet (5Y70) running Diablo III @ 2560x1440
@xboxiphoneps3 I've been using offscreen benchmarks since the start of this thread (I try to source from the official benchmark's webpages when possible, rather than a single device by Anandtech reviewers).
I'm well aware that the Adreno 420 (Android 4.4.4 - Dalvik) is equally competitive with the PowerVR GX6450, I haven't said anything to the contrary, other than stating benchmarks.
Again, when Metal is concerned there are pros and cons to your argument. While Metal should offer a performance boost over OpenGL ES 3.1, it still only offers equal features. Adreno 420 should see at least a slight boost from Android L - ART and AEP. Adreno 420 can also utilize a number of the AEP features and DX11 equivalent features such as tessellation, meanwhile, the PowerVR 6XT series is limited to an OpenGL ES 3.1 equivalent.
Just because Snapdragon 805 is being used in a device with QHD, doesn't mean the application has to be running at QHD resolution (I even mentioned that in the exact post you quoted). The performance with regards to the scaling on the iPhone 6 Plus is still reflected in the offscreen score, so I don't see why that would matter.
The PowerVR GX6650 can match or even exceed the performance of Tegra K1, but that still won't make it as capable in terms of API and features.
Tegra K1 is not being used in phones due to the fact it has a separate modem. This is also the reason a number of Android device manufacturers chose to skip Snapdragon 805, as it also uses a separate modem. Snapdragon 810 which has already been spotted in testing, and might launch as soon as January 2015, has an integrated modem, it also represents a large jump for Qualcomm (LPDDR4, 20 nm, Cortex A57 ARMv8, etc.).
When it comes down to it, Intel's Core M is the most powerful SoC for tablets, and has been confirmed for Android devices as well. So I don't see any ARM based SoC competing with it in 2014.
Of course, I just don't see the point in running Android on Core M when you have the option to use x86-64 Windows with its entire ecosystem at your disposal.
Llama Mountain reference tablet (5Y70) running Diablo III @ 2560x1440
Isn't that what Open GL ES Next is for, for Power VR 6xT mobile GPU's?? it adds select extensions from OpenCL and OpenGL, although still 3.0 I believe, Imagiation Technologies also says the Rogue series can be scaled to Directx11 feature set.
Isn't that what Open GL ES Next is for, for Power VR 6xT mobile GPU's?? it adds select extensions from OpenCL and OpenGL, although still 3.0 I believe, Imagiation Technologies also says the Rogue series can be scaled to Directx11 feature set.
OpenGL ES Next is OpenGL ES 3.1, and it does not include things such as tessellation or geometry shaders. This is why AEP works to extend OpenGL ES 3.1 with OpenGL 4.x features.
Back in March, before Android L and AEP had been announced, Intel was showing off "OpenGL ES 3.1 and advanced features" on an Android device using a Bay Trail SoC. They had a demo of F1 Race Stars by Codemasters using adaptive tessellation, and another demo with EA's SSX using geometry shaders.
Rogue can be scaled to DirectX 11, but the current PowerVR GX6450/GX6650 can only use OpenGL ES 3.1 / OpenGL 3.x / OpenCL 1.x / DirectX 10. So no support for tessellation or geometry shaders.
OpenGL ES Next = OpenGL ES 3.1
Current Android SoC's that support DX11 / equal features:
Intel Bay Trail Z37xx (Ivy Bridge based GPU) NVIDIA Tegra K1 (Kepler based GPU) Samsung Exynos 5433 (Mali-T760 MP6) Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (Adreno 420)
Before the end of 2014:
Intel Core M (Broadwell based GPU) NVIDIA Tegra K1 Denver (Kepler based GPU) Qualcomm Snapdragon 610/615 (Adreno 405)
Tegra 1, 2, and 3 fell flat on its face while previous gen iPhones ran laps around them in benchmarks (as usual). Nothing to see here, just desperate Fandroids in denial of established patterns and history repeating itself.
graphics will always perform much better on iPhones, and gaming will always thrive on iOS.
Isn't that what Open GL ES Next is for, for Power VR 6xT mobile GPU's?? it adds select extensions from OpenCL and OpenGL, although still 3.0 I believe, Imagiation Technologies also says the Rogue series can be scaled to Directx11 feature set.
OpenGL ES Next is OpenGL ES 3.1, and it does not include things such as tessellation or geometry shaders. This is why AEP works to extend OpenGL ES 3.1 with OpenGL 4.x features.
Back in March, before Android L and AEP had been announced, Intel was showing off "OpenGL ES 3.1 and advanced features" on an Android device using a Bay Trail SoC. They had a demo of F1 Race Stars by Codemasters using adaptive tessellation, and another demo with EA's SSX using geometry shaders.
Rogue can be scaled to DirectX 11, but the current PowerVR GX6450/GX6650 can only use OpenGL ES 3.1 / OpenGL 3.x / OpenCL 1.x / DirectX 10. So no support for tessellation or geometry shaders.
OpenGL ES Next = OpenGL ES 3.1
Current Android SoC's that support DX11 / equal features:
Intel Bay Trail Z37xx (Ivy Bridge based GPU)
NVIDIA Tegra K1 (Kepler based GPU)
Samsung Exynos 5433 (Mali-T760 MP6)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (Adreno 420)
Before the end of 2014:
Intel Core M (Broadwell based GPU)
NVIDIA Tegra K1 Denver (Kepler based GPU)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 610/615 (Adreno 405)
I'd argue having low level access ala Apple Metal is a more better route to go for mobile over trying to push the latest desktop API's onto mobile, where power consumption needs to be extremely efficient on mobile obviously, OpenGL 3.1 should be alright until next year, when anyway Imagination will support the latest and greatest DirectX and etc.
What does Android L have in terms of low level access to the hardware?
@NVIDIATI: So some games may have the option to improve performance on otherwise poorly balanced hardware, I'm not sure that's a talking point I'd use as an advantage. It's more an indictment of the fragmentation woes facing the ecosystem. iPhone owners don't need to worry about those same issues, and will almost certainly enjoy better overall gaming performance.
I also feel confident pointing to Metal because it has been released and has been utilized already. We are still waiting for android L to be formally released (something most android phone owners won't likely enjoy until they choose to upgrade, if they stick with android). I'm looking forward to benchmarks that also utilize Metal.
I think we may lose sight of other factors when considering the performance of our favorite things. Anand mirrors much of what I say regarding the SoC inside the iPhone 6 --
For the most part, the A8 SoC performs admirably despite the relatively low (1.38 GHz) frequency and half the cores when compared to competing SoCs. It seems that this is mostly building upon the lead that A7's Cyclone CPUs began. It remains to be seen if other SoC manufacturers will catch up in their CPU architecture at one point or another (NVIDIA's Project Denver in particular is interesting), but for now Apple seems to be quite far in the lead in CPU performance...
-- Below is another quote from the iPhone 6 review, added for those who believe Anand is biased --
Overall, the iPhone 6 has been a surprise for me. While not all that much changed on the surface, this is the first phone that I’ve reviewed all year where I’ve found more to like the deeper I dug. The iPhone 6 is a great phone in its own right and needs no qualifications in that recommendation. While as a current Android user I’m still reluctant to use the iPhone 6 as my only phone, the iPhone 6 is good enough that I’m willing to consider doing so.
Even the amusing Phonearena tells a similar story --
Despite its seemingly monstrous hardware, the Note 4 is still not as a great a performer as the iPhone 6. And it's not because of its higher resolution.
It probably comes as no surprise, but Samsung picked Qualcomm for the Note 4's processor – though keep in mind that in certain regions, the company's own Exynos chips are being utilized. Anyway, on-board the US version of the company's latest phablet is the 28nm Snapdragon 805, with its four 2.7GHz Krait 450 cores and Adreno 410 GPU. All of this is complemented with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM. In comparison, Apple's ARMv8-based, 64-bit A8 processor (20nm) with its two 1.4GHz Cyclone cores, PowerVR GX6450 GPU, and 1GB of RAM, appears outmuscled, but that's not at all the case.
Indeed, while the Note 4 provides a smooth ride whatever you go for, synthetic benchmarks show that it is having a harder time pushing all those extra pixels, especially when talking about heavy graphical content like games. In those scenarios (and even when talking about off-screen results), the A8 actually proves a better performer.
One very good site and one very bad site, telling the same story.
As it stands the Snapdragon 801 is the mainstream Android flagship SoC since H1 2014, devices with Snapdragon 801 often use a 1920x1080 display. Excluding games for Tegra, Snapdragon 801 can play any Android title at high settings. The H2 2014 SoC is Snapdragon 805, which can offer the same (if not higher) performance at 2560x1440 as Snapdragon 801 at 1920x1080.
One more note -- Anand disagrees. From their Note 4 review --
Once again, the Galaxy Note 4's GPU performance line up quite closely with what we expect from the Adreno 420. However, due to the higher 1440p resolution the performance improvements from the Adreno 420 are relatively small or none at all unless the application renders at 1080p.
I'd argue having low level access ala Apple Metal is a more better route to go for mobile over trying to push the latest desktop API's onto mobile, where power consumption needs to be extremely efficient on mobile obviously, OpenGL 3.1 should be alright until next year, when anyway Imagination will support the latest and greatest DirectX and etc.
What does Android L have in terms of low level access to the hardware?
Steve Jobs would have agreed, which is why Flash was never supported by iOS.
I'd argue having low level access ala Apple Metal is a more better route to go for mobile over trying to push the latest desktop API's onto mobile, where power consumption needs to be extremely efficient on mobile obviously, OpenGL 3.1 should be alright until next year, when anyway Imagination will support the latest and greatest DirectX and etc.
What does Android L have in terms of low level access to the hardware?
The idea is to converge with the rest of the market, not fragment it. DirectX 12 and OpenGL NG are low level API's, they are upcoming industry standards, Metal is not. Apple (a supporter of OpenGL NG) is only using Metal for the short term to make up for the lack of API compatibility of their PowerVR 6 GPU's inside the A7, A8, and A8X. Once they can make the switch, Apple will move over to OpenGL NG (DX12 competitor) and leave Metal behind (or risk further market fragmentation).
Android, which is currently extending to OpenGL 4.x with AEP, allows developers to easily port games to Android from PC or consoles. Tegra K1 games are currently utilizing OpenGL 4.x, are running the same code as their PC counterparts. Current GPU's that support DX11 should have some support for DX12 (ex. Tegra K1 shares the same Kepler architecture as a desktop counterpart and can utilize DX12).
DX12 power consumption is much lower on mobile over DX11. This demonstration shows the power savings of DX12 using Intel's Asteroids demo (running on an i5 Surface Pro 3). The FPS count is locked for this test:
Power reduction seen in timeline when switching from DirectX 11 to DirectX 12
Android L does not offer low level API support as there are no low level API's currently available. So as long as the hardware can support it, an update to AEP is all that's needed to add support for a low level API.
@musicalmac said:
@NVIDIATI: So some games may have the option to improve performance on otherwise poorly balanced hardware, I'm not sure that's a talking point I'd use as an advantage. It's more an indictment of the fragmentation woes facing the ecosystem. iPhone owners don't need to worry about those same issues, and will almost certainly enjoy better overall gaming performance.
I also feel confident pointing to Metal because it has been released and has been utilized already. We are still waiting for android L to be formally released (something most android phone owners won't likely enjoy until they choose to upgrade, if they stick with android). I'm looking forward to benchmarks that also utilize Metal.
I think we may lose sight of other factors when considering the performance of our favorite things. Anand mirrors much of what I say regarding the SoC inside the iPhone 6 --
For the most part, the A8 SoC performs admirably despite the relatively low (1.38 GHz) frequency and half the cores when compared to competing SoCs. It seems that this is mostly building upon the lead that A7's Cyclone CPUs began. It remains to be seen if other SoC manufacturers will catch up in their CPU architecture at one point or another (NVIDIA's Project Denver in particular is interesting), but for now Apple seems to be quite far in the lead in CPU performance...
-- Below is another quote from the iPhone 6 review, added for those who believe Anand is biased --
Overall, the iPhone 6 has been a surprise for me. While not all that much changed on the surface, this is the first phone that I’ve reviewed all year where I’ve found more to like the deeper I dug. The iPhone 6 is a great phone in its own right and needs no qualifications in that recommendation. While as a current Android user I’m still reluctant to use the iPhone 6 as my only phone, the iPhone 6 is good enough that I’m willing to consider doing so.
Even the amusing Phonearena tells a similar story --
Despite its seemingly monstrous hardware, the Note 4 is still not as a great a performer as the iPhone 6. And it's not because of its higher resolution.
It probably comes as no surprise, but Samsung picked Qualcomm for the Note 4's processor – though keep in mind that in certain regions, the company's own Exynos chips are being utilized. Anyway, on-board the US version of the company's latest phablet is the 28nm Snapdragon 805, with its four 2.7GHz Krait 450 cores and Adreno 410 GPU. All of this is complemented with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM. In comparison, Apple's ARMv8-based, 64-bit A8 processor (20nm) with its two 1.4GHz Cyclone cores, PowerVR GX6450 GPU, and 1GB of RAM, appears outmuscled, but that's not at all the case.
Indeed, while the Note 4 provides a smooth ride whatever you go for, synthetic benchmarks show that it is having a harder time pushing all those extra pixels, especially when talking about heavy graphical content like games. In those scenarios (and even when talking about off-screen results), the A8 actually proves a better performer.
One very good site and one very bad site, telling the same story.
Metal is only being used in 5 games and 1 tech demo. Those games are only boosting the OpenGL ES 3.1 features, nothing new. Again, look to the first page if you're confused. Tegra K1, inside the Shield Tablet, Xiaomi MiPad, and Nexus 9 (with Denver), already has AEP and has 10+ direct PC ports to prove it. AEP has numerous feature benefits that are not available with Metal (and will never be available on the A7, A8, or A8X).
I don't see any relevance in your Anand and Phonearena quotes based off of what I've told you previous to this. You need to elaborate.
@musicalmac said:
One more note -- Anand disagrees. From their Note 4 review --
Once again, the Galaxy Note 4's GPU performance line up quite closely with what we expect from the Adreno 420. However, due to the higher 1440p resolution the performance improvements from the Adreno 420 are relatively small or none at all unless the application renders at 1080p.
Disagrees? It agrees with exactly what I said "The H2 2014 SoC is Snapdragon 805, which can offer the same (if not higher) performance at 2560x1440 as Snapdragon 801 at 1920x1080."
The case of an increase in performance would be found when utilizing AEP, something the Adreno 330 inside the Snapdragon 801 would not.
@musicalmac said:
@xboxiphoneps3 said:
I'd argue having low level access ala Apple Metal is a more better route to go for mobile over trying to push the latest desktop API's onto mobile, where power consumption needs to be extremely efficient on mobile obviously, OpenGL 3.1 should be alright until next year, when anyway Imagination will support the latest and greatest DirectX and etc.
What does Android L have in terms of low level access to the hardware?
Steve Jobs would have agreed, which is why Flash was never supported by iOS.
What are you talking about? We're discussing industry standard API's. That's by no means an appropriate comparison.
@musicalmac: Why would comparing a brand new device with anything but the equivalent alternatives be relevant or make you want to buy it? I bet the Nexus 5 and S5 would outperform a Nintendo 64, would that make you want to buy them?
@musicalmac You just quoted "onscreen" benchmarks, which doesn't hold relevance when comparing two mobile devices, as you're asking the devices to do two DIFFERENT tasks. I shouldn't have to keep repeating myself, if an application cannot run at the native resolution of the device, the resolution or high resolution texture settings can be LOWERED to MATCH the settings used on the iPhone.
These are two different numbers by a factor of ~2x:
1334*750 = 1,000,500 pixels
1920*1080 = 2,073,600 pixels
Just about any device with a Qualcomm SoC (and some others) since the Nexus 4 can utilize OpenGL ES 3 and some features of AEP. Devices with Adreno 420 or Mali-T760 can utilize DX11 equivalent features that can be used in AEP (which is planned to be released with Android L). Devices with Tegra K1 already run (desktop) OpenGL 4.x. The numbers you quoted are mainly comparing Apple's A8 with devices using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801, which launched at the start of 2014. Qualcomm's current flagship SoC (launched this past summer in the Galaxy S5 LTE-A) is the Snapdragon 805. I can't provide a number, but just about every major game has been using OpenGL ES 3 since summer 2013. Titles for Tegra K1 devices use (desktop) OpenGL 4.x. When AEP launches with Android L later this month, then games on non-Tegra K1 devices will start to take advantage of those OpenGL 4.x extensions
I'm not seeing many specifics here, and as is very typical, I'm being told that what hasn't yet been released and what hasn't been put into the hands of tens of millions of consumers is worth respecting as though it were already here. How many android games support lowering the resolution to accommodate for poorly balanced hardware? Can you provide at least a few examples to allow us to respect your point?
What good does a uniform 1080p benchmark do us when the iPhone 6 runs at 1334x750? Does that give you any indication as to how games are going to reasonably perform on an iPhone 6? Why wouldn't we look at each device in context -- because you can just reduce the quality of any game that struggles at the native resolution of an android phone?
It's also worth highlighting (what I had deleted in my previous post) what @xboxiphoneps3 said regarding these tests and Metal.
Not seeing many specifics? EVERYONE ONE OF HIS POINTS is very specific, unfortunately just because he can explain it to you doesn't mean he can understand it for you.
FYI, ALL Android Apps support hardware specific graphics, in that the developer has the ability to export multiple builds of each application in order to target specific devices/screen sizes/versions of Android, etc... etc... As such giving the user an option to change the resolution of a game would be pointless because it would already be optimized to run on the hardware they were using.
His point is that saying that device A outperforms/outlasts device B when device A is only doing 1/4 of the work that device B is doing is kind of silly. That's like me pointing out that I can jump higher than Michael Jordan when I'm on the Moon.
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