The 30pin HDMI adapters have zero lag - see my several counter-based tests. (I've published one yesterday ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV7kSZtWl5U ) showing the cumulative lag of the old HDMI adapter and the Elgato Game Capture HD HDMI pass-thru. I use the latter to simultaneously output the HDMI signal to my HDMI monitor and record the stream on my Mac. I also use it for RGB -> HDMI conversion (which also lacks any kind of lag.)
BTW, Nova 3 uses non-mirrored mode at 720p only. This is why it's much faster than mirrored full-res titles. It seems it's mostly the latter that make the iPad 3's video output drop frames.
Yeah, I will definitely agree that for some high powered games and for airplay widescreen games, the ipad 3 is underpowered. So a non ipad retina game like Real Racing 3 may well run better on an ipad 2 vs 3, and of course, the ipad 4 version should beat the ipad 3 version hands down. However the resolution factor at some point has to be an important factor, maybe even moreso than framerates. But I do think the ipad 3 downgrading and bashing is sometimes a little exaggerated. Currently, I can only think of one game that has some real framerate problems at times, and that is this game Afterburner Climax. Games like Real Racing 3 (mirrored) or Nova 3 (airplay), run fine with no framerate issues. So pretty much everything on the market runs fine on an ipad 3 still to this day, with the exception of maybe Afterburner climax during very congested scenes. Yeah, it's kinda funny cause we are talking about so many issues at once, but heck, can't find this talked about anywhere in the world on the internet, so is cool. And if I seem biased on the ipad 3 or the older 30 pin connector, I am not. I too wish I had an ipad 4 for a little smoother framerates and some added effects. However, I am still unsure whether a 30 pin hdmi connector is better or worse than the new lightning airplay hdmi connector. These are two different techs, and I am still trying to digest some of what we all are saying here, but it is interesting nonetheless.
While there might not seem to be any delay to the naked eye, my screenshots are showing maybe a millisecond of delay, take a look at the trees and stuff here. Notice some of the trees and stuff. Now Iron Man is another fast game like Afterburner Climax (though Ironman shows no framerate problems on my ipad 3). So there must be this very very very small delay right? Or what is your interpretation of my screenshots? And unfortunately, I always tend to use a stretch mode on my tv, so this is another factor which may add a slight delay too, but I have tried it even on original zoom mode, and I still got a hair of delay in screenshots.
In my today's tests, RR3 was definitely more jerky on the iPad 3's mirrored output than on that of the iPad 2. Of the two, despite the lower res, I'd prefer the latter for playing because it's more fluid. Of course, the two iDevices ran the game just fine on the inner screen, without any (annoying) framedrops. The direct capture videos will soon be online; then, anyone will be able to directly compare the two. The Lightning connector is inherently worse for gaming (maximum resolution, lag and maybe even IQ. I'll run some additional tests with Max Adventure to properly assess the blocking I spotted around the protagonist while playing to see whether it's indeed an issue. Nevertheless, it was the first case of my spotting visible compression artefacts in the output signal of the adapter.)
Any in-monitor DSP (IQ enhancements or even full-screen scaling in some cases) mean additional lag. Try disabling any kind of scaling and re-test. I'm sure you can decrease the lag. On a low-lag monitor, without using any kind of IQ enhancements, there shouldn't be any perceivable lag. On mine ( LG W2253V) there isn't. According to the article at http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2009/review-lg-w2253tq-part12.html (the official specs of the monitor didn't have any data on input latency), its less-equipped (no HDMI input) brother, the W2253TQ, has an average lag of 9 ms. I haven't measured any lag with my method of lag measurement. 60 fps counter video playback, meaning I can only measure lag that is more than 1/60s = 16ms or more. This also means that, as the iDevices can "only" output 60 fps, if your monitor has less than 16ms of lag, you won't even be able to measure it.
Continued testing. 1, As I've predicted, the native (non-mirrored) TV output on the iPad 3 doesn't suffer from any frame drops at any resolution. RR2 delivers stable 30 fps at its native Full HD output (albeit the true resolution seems to be a bit lower). I couldn't find any dropped frames. The same stands for Max Adventure, which I've tested in all the three settable resolutions (1080p / 480p / 720p). Both the Full HD and the 480p modes delivered true 60 fps on the external screen. The 720p mode, interestingly, only delivered 40 fps: every third frame was just a copy of the previous one. Dunno why it's slower in this particular mode than at 1080p. That is, the iPad3 can safely be used for playing non-mirrored games – there won't be a performance decrease compared to the other two A5-based 30-pin iDevices (iPad 2, Iphone 4S). Just be aware of the possibly lower framerate when mirroring – prefer an iPad2 or an iPhone 4S in these cases if you absolutely do not want lag. 2, I've run GLBenchmark 2.7 on all my recent iDevices with very interesting results. (It uses mirroring and taxes the GPU VERY hard.) The external screen output was absolutely awful on the iPad3; about two times faster on the iPad2. The iPhone 5 was significantly faster. The iPad4, with the Lightning-HDMI adapter, could only display the first frame on the external screen; after that, the adapter just stopped working and went on displaying the same frame, while the app continued running the test suite on the internal screen. I will try running GLBenchmark 2.5 on the iPad4 to see whether this older version works with the Lightning-HDMI adapter.
Too much new info for me to catch up on it all, but I appreciate you guys doing the detailed testing anyway! (And I share the disappointment in Asphalt 7.) Great list! Thanks. Those games, plus any that are turn-based (making mirroring lag irrelevant) make a nice set of big-screen games.
Again, here I will have to disagree completely. If you play Real Racing 3 with the regular outside car view, it runs flawlessly on an ipad 3 and ipad 3 hdmi. Absolutely no framerate problems. The cockpit view does not play good on the ipad 3 with some framerate issues. The bumper view you posted does play absolutely 100% well with the newer connector too. There has to be something related to the older connector vs the newer connector. Whether it is the hardware itself, or how ios upgrades interface with the connectors, there has to be something there. Because what I see is totally different than your youtube vids. RR3 in all views except cockpit views plays just like a console game in terms of speed and framerates both on the ipad 3 and ipad 3 hdmi tv. The older connector was made for the ipad 2, not ipad 3. Most everyone with an ipad 3 would have the newer connector, and who knows, maybe there are different iterations of the newer connector too, like slightly different builds that have better performance. Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to best post my videos and trying to record gameplay videos since I have never done so before, but my cruddy attempt at this will disprove these statements that ipad 3 mirrored mode is that bad. I will post tonight my vids. Can you do this? Can you get vids from the outside car view (see below) for the ipad 2, ipad 3 with old connector, and ipad 4? Then I will do a vid too from RR3 with an ipad 3 with the newer connector. I think you will be impressed not disappointed with the ipad 3 performance from my vids.
You may be indeed right. I've done a more thorough search for the differences of the two adapters and found the following on Apple's page ( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4108 ): "For best performance with iPad (3rd generation), use the Apple Digital AV Adapter (2nd generation)." Will order the new adapter.
Yes, there has to be a big difference for the ipad 3 with the newer vs older connector. Rest assured, when you see my vids below, I think you will agree with me. Ok, Here are my vids and others for Afterburner Climax. Unfortunately, this is my first time ever to do a hdmi video shot and also post it on the web, so it doesn't look too pretty. This is a picture of my tv using wide zoom mode which stretches the screen to the top and bottom, but keeps the resolution aspect level the same. I am sure there is some added lag with the zoom stretch mode and also probably from tv digital signal processing, but unfortunately, I do not have a monitor or a game mode on my tv. Maybe you all can take a look, and let me know what you think. I think there is a huge difference for the ipad 3 using the newer connector vs the older one. Sorry, but the easiest way to post vids for me seemed to be using skydrive, it doesn't stream really well, so you will have to wait for it to buffer completely to get a good view of it. I tried to keep the clips short, but as you see, both my ipad 3 and ipad 3 hdmi hardly show any framerate issues at all. In fact, after ios 6.1.3 (which made a huge difference for the newer ipad 3 hdmi connector), it pretty much runs better than an arcade game with an occasional framerate hiccup. The links are below, let me know what you all think. Especially too, whether ipad 3 hdmi 30 pin connector looks better than ipad 4 lightning connector hdmi. The ipad 4 lightning connector version on Menneisyys vids seems a slight bit smoother than my skydrive vids of the ipad 3 with newer 30 pin hdmi connector because inherently the ipad 4 will have slightly higher framerates than the ipad 3 cause of it's better cpu/gpu. However, I could swear that the screen resolution looks alot better on my ipad 3 than ipad 4 hdmi tv because of the reduced resolution of the lightning connector. Also, as noted in above posts, the lag on the ipad 3 hdmi is far smoother, so I feel no control issues, but I think there would be some on the ipad 4 or ipad mini cause of the delay induced on the airplay lightning hdmi. So I think the ipad 3 30 pin hdmi looks and plays better than the ipad 4 lightning, anyway from these videos, for what it is worth... Let me know what you think... ------- Afterburner Climax on an Ipad 3 HDMI with New Connector with ios 6.1.3 Tap on the loading message (then tap the play button) to get it to play a little bit faster. But make sure it caches enough, or it will stop. Also, sometimes skydrive is really slow, so maybe hit the download button at the top to download the file, then you can watch it without the buffering. https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=AA2FF02C15E8BE2F!416&authkey=!AJ5jzRpURkvYDX8 https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=AA2FF02C15E8BE2F!417&authkey=!AODIKCZN53HDpVo https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=AA2FF02C15E8BE2F!418&authkey=!ALjt-bdNSzEfDfM https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=AA2FF02C15E8BE2F!419&authkey=!APVcAlc-6Fkgf3s ------- Menneisyys Afterburner Climax Videos Ipad 3 with old hdmi connector with ios 6.1.2 http://youtu.be/qmVQufnjs8g Ipad 3 with old hdmi connector with ios 6.1.3 http://youtu.be/VCmy36M9oQc Ipad 3 with VGA adapter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pAa2CLJuik Ipad 4 with lightning connector http://youtu.be/yppWpsVZjRo ------- Xeyad's Ipad Mini with Lightning Connector with Real Racing 3 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9iPYW_8-tGJMkZOak9nZW8xUE0/edit?usp=sharing -------
Indeed much better than my results. The only major framedrop I could find was at 00:22 in 2013-04-29T12-07-48_0; then, there were five repeated frames. I wouldn't have thought there would be any differences between these adapters...
Yeah, actually ever since I started looking into hdmi and ios, been pretty fascinated with all of the technical knowledge there. Any framerate drops are probably due to my ipad 3 being a little underpowered, but for the most part, it looks close to 60 fps most of the time, and is absolutely beautiful on ipad 3 hdmi. The sense of speed is far better than most arcade or even many console games out there. Man, skydrive kinda sucks for vids though. Sometimes it is so slow like today, most days it is ok. Guess downloading each file maybe the best. The option is available at the top of the skydrive screen. But I am curious, though, our vids are not great tests at all, which looks better to you, (just based on the videos alone) your ipad 4 lightning connector vid, or my ipad 3 "new" 30 pin connector vids?
Yup, I downloaded them and didn't even try to stream. The latter: no lag and higher (maximum) resolution at almost the same framerate (except for some - rare - slowdowns). Much better suited for gaming. Too bad Apple has messed up the Lightning connector, video-wise...
Yeah, kinda makes me not look forward to upgrading to an ipad 5 or 6 due to this weird airplay lightning connector. Hopefully they can find a good solution to the hdmi lightning problem and maybe comeout with a new connector, or maybe hopefully something will change when the ipad 5 or 6 comes out. This might give me a reason to keep my ipad 3, if it proves that indeed, ipad 3 hdmi is better than lightning hdmi for gaming. If you do get a chance to buy a new 30 pin connector, let me know your honest opinions, cause I am very curious to know what the reality is. Thank you for your videos and interesting discussion. It really is cool that you have the equipment and the setup to do a lot of comparisons, pretty cool. Panic article http://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surprise/ Lightning HDMI Connector Teardown (almost a computer!)
BTW, I've just posted a legthy article on still image output under iOS on TA's sister site: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=17214051 Opinions are welcome
1, Ordered the 2nd-gen 30pin HDMI adapter from Apple. It's on its way here; hope I'll get it soon. (Alread posted but Apple promises 10/5 as the arrival date.) 2, finished uploading some half-speed dual videos of the iPad 2 (with the old, 1st-gen HDMI adapter): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8se8A69Lcw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y5xu8DUPDM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5epPs3aLRw I've also uploaded a lot of direct 60 fps RGB captures from the iPhone 3GS, from (most of) the same games. (Dual camera recordings will come later.) As the Elgato unit always starts a new file when there's a pause in the ouput (and, with the non-mirroring RGB / 3GS, there have been a lot), games have been posted in their own videos. Hence, I don't link to them one-by-one - you'll easily find them by just looking for "3gs" among my YouTube videos. 3, I've played a LOT with the Lightning adapter's rescaling. Currently, it seems, it's impossible to output a strictly 1:1, non-scaled image from it, unlike with the 30-pin adapters when using their "overscanCompensation" mode 1, 2 or 3. (0, the default - and the only prior to iOS 5 scales and, therefore, doesn't deliver 1:1 pixel mapping on the legacy adapters either). This all means it's not possible to achieve an (almost-)same output image via the Lightning adapter. Certainly bad news, even if it mostly "only" has consequences during e.g. text or other, "artificial" stuff like moire test images, not while gaming.
Apple just patented a patent for some kind of joystick control with touch devices, see here. Looks like there maybe some voice input too. http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/30/apple-patents-physical-controller-input-method-for-multitouch-devices Latest info on the new ipad 5 (5 pages) http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/050113-ipad-rollup-269323.html This article says the led backlight is also going to be changed along with probablh the new tech screen, and be 53% lighter. http://breathecast.christianpost.com/articles/ipad-5-rumors-revamp-in-led-backlight-says-report-7827/ This article states that ipad mini is selling better than ipad 4 right now. But this may be deceptive cause there are three other ipads that are full sized, so there just maybe more demand now cause of the different size. We shall see which outsells this year, the ipad 5 or ipad mini 2, and whether the ipad mini 2 will have a retina screen.
It's far more portable - this is why people prefer it to the much larger / less mobile 9.7" iPads. For many, portability is far more important than quality (CPU, RAM and, most importantly, resolution) - let's not forget that the vast majority of iOS users are far from geeks / techies. (Exactly the opposite, actually.) For them, a lousy tablet (I wouldn't touch anything non-Retina) will also do. Hope the 9.7" iPads will indeed get a much smaller bezel and their weight also decreases. Then it may have a chance to attract more buyers. Hope the 9.7" iPads don't face the same fate as the professional products of Apple (including the 17" MBP), which have been discontinued or, at least, neglected.
Historically, most people will buy whatever is cheaper, provided it is good enough. Is the iPad Mini 2 going to continue to be good enough? I was going to get it after all... iPad Mini owners, how do you type on them? I currently use two hands to type on my iPad 2 in landscape mode, just like a 10" netbook keyboard. I tried doing the same with the demo iPad Minis, but had to resort to two finger pecking.
