Slashdot Mirror
Epic Games Predicts Console, Mobile Convergence
An anonymous reader writes "After taking the stage at the Apple iPhone event in September, game developer Epic Games has finally revealed more about its plan to release Unreal Engine for the iOS devices. UE3 is incredibly popular on consoles, and its free UDK has been really great for us modders. In this new interview, engine boss Mark Rein says the developer envisions a future where all game devices are handhelds, with high-end processors inside: 'It feels like there's a great opportunity for game consoles to cease to be something you plug into the wall and rather become something you take with you. Of course it will be more than just your game console; you can have your productivity apps, your documents, and your media collections on it as well.'"
Ok but you miss one thing: No matter what a phone can do, a non-phone can do more. That is just life. You can't design a 1 watt (or less) GPU using current technology that will be better than a 10 or 100watt GPU also using current technology. Sure it might look good if you compare it to older tech, but that isn't realistic. I mean ok you found an old card that was low end when it was released that has the same theoretical fill rate (please remember those numbers often high BSified). How about a current card? Well a 5870 can do 108 billion anti-aliased samples per second, about 30 billion pixels a second. It can do this while pushing 850 million polygons per second. (FYI your link is broken)
Hmmm, the cellphones don't compare quite so favourably to that, do they? Wouldn't expect them to, it's idle power budget exceeds their total power budget by may times, but then it can do that, it isn't mobile.
You are looking at latest gen hardware, including some things that aren't even in the market yet (the A9 has been announced, it isn't in devices yet) and saying "Oh look at how powerful this is!" However you don't seem to do the same with non-mobile hardware. Look at the upcoming Sandy Bridge processor, which will be out when the A9 is. The A9 will be crushed by it (or indeed by a current Intel Core chip). No surprise, again massively different size, power budget, and so on but you have to consider that when looking at performance.