Remember late last month when we learned that Firemint’s Real Racing 2 HD [$9.99] would be getting full 1080p output to your TV using an iPad 2? Well, in case you missed it, the gist of it is that connecting an iPad 2 running Real Racing 2 HD to your television using the Apple HDMI dongle will let you display the game on your HD TV in full 1080p. The iPad then acts as the controller for playing the game on the TV while simultaneously displaying a track map and other information pertaining to your race. The game runs full screen without any borders and at a solid 30 frames per second.
Today the update containing this feature has gone live for Real Racing 2 HD. You can get an idea of just how it works by checking out the following demonstration video that Firemint has put together:
One of the coolest aspects of this new feature is that you can seamlessly disconnect or reconnect the device during play and be able to pick up right where you left off. So, if you’re playing on your TV at home and have to leave in the middle of a race, you can simply unplug the adapter and continue on from your iPad. Likewise, if you’re in the middle of a game on your iPad you can simply connect it up to your TV and continue on the larger screen. Doing this will automatically pause the game for you during a single player game, but during multiplayer the game continues on during the brief pause while the game adjusts.
You can bet that we’ll be toying around with this new feature to see just how well it works, as following the announcement of this update last month we did some digging around and learned that other games that have display-out abilities could also be played in 1080p using an HDMI or VGA dongle. Real Racing 2 HD is the first game to officially support this feature, but I’d love for more developers to include it in their games too since being able to play games on the big screen at home as well as on-the-go would be simply amazing.
Firemint has put together a simple FAQ on their website if you need help getting started, and you can always drop by our forums if you need to ask your fellow gamers for help or simply discuss this awesome new feature for Real Racing 2 HD.
