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>let me dock my 2013 mobile phone with 4 GB RAM and 4 Kepler-PhysX cores with my HDTV and let me play Crysis on it. Hahahaha, no. (I love the non-gamers on HN.

>let me dock my 2013 mobile phone with 4 GB RAM and 4 Kepler-PhysX cores with my HDTV and let me play Crysis on it. Hahahaha, no. (I love the non-gamers on HN. So optimistic. Go look at the current state of emulation and hardware power, it's a bleak situation.) Current desktop graphics technology is still only sorta able to run the Cryengine at full speed, and they're pumping out on the order of 1000(mid-grade)-2500(high-end) GFLOPS. An iPhone is somewhere between 5 and 15 GFLOPS. So unless we're going to have a 100x leap in graphics bandwidth, I wouldn't expect to be able to play desktop quality PC games off of a mobile phone anytime soon. Even my CPU (2500k) has higher throughput than the iPhone GPU, at 50-100 depending on the benchmark. Should be able to run a poker game or Farmville though.

ANH 14y ago
I think your definition of "gamer" is different from mine. We don't all play the AAA titles. I write 3D code for mobile devices, and I'm continually astonished by what these things are capable of, i.e. your comment about poker and Farmville is a bit too much snark. Besides, it seems you're equating game quality with poly count. There are a lot of visually stunning, intelligent games that run great on phones that would be perfect on a larger screen.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Honestly, if they can just get TF2 running on an Android phone with HDMI output at over 30FPS, I'd be happy.
  - lazugod 14y ago
    Did any of the mobile GG2 attempts pan out?
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      As in Gang Garrison 2? Not really. A Python port, PyGG2, is currently in development, and that might have a chance of mobile support, but I don't expect so. The current GG2 is written in Game Maker. While GM has cross-platform Mac/HTML5/iOS/Android support, we use a custom-built windows-only networking library, so this isn't really an option. Also, we've been meaning to migrate away from GM for quite some time, due to its performance and limitations. (I used to be a GG2 and PyGG2 dev...)
- talmand 14y ago
  Crysis was used as the example. Otherwise, what you say is perfectly reasonable and quite true. But comparing a phone with a computer running Crysis doesn't seem quite right. What I want to know is what's stopping people from doing this now? Wouldn't most tablets, and probably phones, have something in place to connect video to a TV? HDMI would be nice but I'd imagine a proprietary cable of some sort?
- heretohelp 14y ago
  > Besides, it seems you're equating game quality with poly count. As someone who, in terms of raw gaming time, spends more time beating Ninja Gaiden on the NES than playing the favorite FPS of your average 11 year old, that seems dubious at best. The original Ninja Gaiden series is the Liszt of gaming.
talmand 14y ago
I don't necessarily agree with your Crysis evaluation but I agree with your point. It's interesting to see people who think their phone somehow equals the abilities of a console or PC. I can see comparing gameplay experiences but not hardware capabilities. If he had only stated "let me play games on it" then it wouldn't matter. At the same time I don't see what's stopping him from doing that today, assuming his phone has some sort of video out support. Maybe one day we'll have that super computer in our pockets we all dream of but then our birth rates will likely decline.
- ANH 14y ago
  > It's interesting to see people who think their phone somehow equals the abilities of a console or PC. I don't know of anyone who thinks that, and I don't read the above post that way. It's almost a pointless discussion, though, because the three year old phone in my pocket is more powerful than most of the desktop computers I've owned in my life. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect mobile devices a couple of cycles hence to be able to match 90% of what's on people's desks right now.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    "I don't know of anyone who thinks that, and I don't read the above post that way." That's just what the post says, so you're responding to a person who thinks that. "You dont even need to port Crysis to be a "mobile" game (touchscreen, etc.). You just need to make it run on the hardware using Android/ios."
  - talmand 14y ago
    Well, I took it that when someone says they want to play Crysis on their phone they mean they want to play Crysis on their phone. If he was speaking about a phone in the future then I see your point. I don't think it's unreasonable either. I would agree that to compare today's tech with yesterday's or today's with tomorrow's is sometimes pointless. I didn't realize that's what we were doing.
    - ANH 14y ago
sandGorgon 14y ago
Please take a look at the video review of Horn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50IMDgndk9k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50IMDgndk9k) - this is on iPhone 5 and is playable on your HDTV. This is the Tegra 3 equivalent of the same game - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuerMfDCk0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuerMfDCk0 Desktop quality gaming is already here on your mobile. Yes, I do understand that it is not Crysis quality, but it is a superb indicator of where its heading. It was not my intention to devolve this discussion in this direction. My excitement stems from Valve's innovative new keyboard that reduces dependence on a keyboard paradigm as well as its recent leanings towards Linux ( ~ Android).
- gnarbarian 14y ago
  That's nifty looking alright until you compare it to the current high end graphics hardware which has around 1500 of those cores (my gtx670 has 1300). Once more games really start using all those cores for things like physics and interactivity you will see that phones have nowhere close the ability of modern PC HW. With that many cores you can do some things orders of magnitude faster. Take this Nbody sim my friend and I wrote for example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOUxTSjowY&feature=plcp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOUxTSjowY&feature=plcp It computes an n^2 algorithm over 20,000 particles at 30fps, and that's with my old card which has 200 cores. You just can't do that without massive parallelism.
  - stusmall 14y ago
    And massive heat dissipation. Imho that's the real killer. Its going to be a while before we start seeing passively cooled SoCs with Crysis level graphics. Some day, yes. Next year? No way. I can't even imagine how ridiculous a phone with active cooling would be. I've seen a few wintel tablets with active cooling and they look/feel like garbage compared to their thinner lighter ARM based android/iPad counterparts. The extra size would be way even pronounced on a phone.

ANH 14y ago

I think your definition of "gamer" is different from mine. We don't all play the AAA titles. I write 3D code for mobile devices, and I'm continually astonished by what these things are capable of, i.e. your comment about poker and Farmville is a bit too much snark. Besides, it seems you're equating game quality with poly count. There are a lot of visually stunning, intelligent games that run great on phones that would be perfect on a larger screen.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Honestly, if they can just get TF2 running on an Android phone with HDMI output at over 30FPS, I'd be happy.
- lazugod 14y ago
  Did any of the mobile GG2 attempts pan out?
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    As in Gang Garrison 2? Not really. A Python port, PyGG2, is currently in development, and that might have a chance of mobile support, but I don't expect so. The current GG2 is written in Game Maker. While GM has cross-platform Mac/HTML5/iOS/Android support, we use a custom-built windows-only networking library, so this isn't really an option. Also, we've been meaning to migrate away from GM for quite some time, due to its performance and limitations. (I used to be a GG2 and PyGG2 dev...)
talmand 14y ago
Crysis was used as the example. Otherwise, what you say is perfectly reasonable and quite true. But comparing a phone with a computer running Crysis doesn't seem quite right. What I want to know is what's stopping people from doing this now? Wouldn't most tablets, and probably phones, have something in place to connect video to a TV? HDMI would be nice but I'd imagine a proprietary cable of some sort?
heretohelp 14y ago
> Besides, it seems you're equating game quality with poly count. As someone who, in terms of raw gaming time, spends more time beating Ninja Gaiden on the NES than playing the favorite FPS of your average 11 year old, that seems dubious at best. The original Ninja Gaiden series is the Liszt of gaming.

talmand 14y ago

I don't necessarily agree with your Crysis evaluation but I agree with your point. It's interesting to see people who think their phone somehow equals the abilities of a console or PC. I can see comparing gameplay experiences but not hardware capabilities. If he had only stated "let me play games on it" then it wouldn't matter. At the same time I don't see what's stopping him from doing that today, assuming his phone has some sort of video out support. Maybe one day we'll have that super computer in our pockets we all dream of but then our birth rates will likely decline.

ANH 14y ago
> It's interesting to see people who think their phone somehow equals the abilities of a console or PC. I don't know of anyone who thinks that, and I don't read the above post that way. It's almost a pointless discussion, though, because the three year old phone in my pocket is more powerful than most of the desktop computers I've owned in my life. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect mobile devices a couple of cycles hence to be able to match 90% of what's on people's desks right now.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "I don't know of anyone who thinks that, and I don't read the above post that way." That's just what the post says, so you're responding to a person who thinks that. "You dont even need to port Crysis to be a "mobile" game (touchscreen, etc.). You just need to make it run on the hardware using Android/ios."
- talmand 14y ago
  Well, I took it that when someone says they want to play Crysis on their phone they mean they want to play Crysis on their phone. If he was speaking about a phone in the future then I see your point. I don't think it's unreasonable either. I would agree that to compare today's tech with yesterday's or today's with tomorrow's is sometimes pointless. I didn't realize that's what we were doing.
  - ANH 14y ago

sandGorgon 14y ago

Please take a look at the video review of Horn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50IMDgndk9k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50IMDgndk9k) - this is on iPhone 5 and is playable on your HDTV. This is the Tegra 3 equivalent of the same game - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuerMfDCk0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuerMfDCk0 Desktop quality gaming is already here on your mobile. Yes, I do understand that it is not Crysis quality, but it is a superb indicator of where its heading. It was not my intention to devolve this discussion in this direction. My excitement stems from Valve's innovative new keyboard that reduces dependence on a keyboard paradigm as well as its recent leanings towards Linux ( ~ Android).

gnarbarian 14y ago
That's nifty looking alright until you compare it to the current high end graphics hardware which has around 1500 of those cores (my gtx670 has 1300). Once more games really start using all those cores for things like physics and interactivity you will see that phones have nowhere close the ability of modern PC HW. With that many cores you can do some things orders of magnitude faster. Take this Nbody sim my friend and I wrote for example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOUxTSjowY&feature=plcp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOUxTSjowY&feature=plcp It computes an n^2 algorithm over 20,000 particles at 30fps, and that's with my old card which has 200 cores. You just can't do that without massive parallelism.
- stusmall 14y ago
  And massive heat dissipation. Imho that's the real killer. Its going to be a while before we start seeing passively cooled SoCs with Crysis level graphics. Some day, yes. Next year? No way. I can't even imagine how ridiculous a phone with active cooling would be. I've seen a few wintel tablets with active cooling and they look/feel like garbage compared to their thinner lighter ARM based android/iPad counterparts. The extra size would be way even pronounced on a phone.