It's not retina. Really?

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by Rubicon, May 30, 2012.

?

I want this iPad3 enhancement

  1. Leave it like iPad 2 and give me a smoother frame rate

    20.5%
  2. Keep the 1024 resolution, but add more graphics and stuff to use the extra power

    69.2%
  3. Same graphics as iPad 2, but at a higher resolution

    10.3%
  1. Monolith

    Monolith Well-Known Member

    Dec 20, 2010
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    I was under the impression that you'd want to use max resolution because it's a powerful marketing tool, not because it's the most efficient use of resources. i.e., the same reason why the ipad 3 was physically built with such a high-res screen.

    Just because you (the dev) and a handful of people here can rationally agree that resources are better spent elsewhere doesn't mean it's the best choice. Just imagine the power of being able to say "OPTIMIZED FOR UBER HD RETINA SCREENS" when trying to sell the game -- especially a game being sold to people who bought ipad 3's in part due to the successful marketing of the ipads own UBER HD RETINA display. I mean, this is already a proven marketing tactic considering they own ipad 3's: don't be so quick to throw that away.

    Plus, I think you've got a much greater chance of being featured/GOTW if Apple can use you to sell new ipads.
     
  2. JBRUU

    JBRUU Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    Ok. Appeal to their greed. Thanks. But we the consumers and customers would greatly prefer that extra power being put to use with more effects, refined physics systems, realtime shadows, AA, ect. Can't have it both ways, bud. Either kiss up to apple or please the consumer. I know it's a hard choice knowing apple, but I trust you'll make the right decision or come to a proper compromise...like a toggle to turn retin on/off...
     
  3. Monolith

    Monolith Well-Known Member

    Dec 20, 2010
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    By and large, no, you don't. Hence my post.
     
  4. soldat7

    soldat7 Well-Known Member

    Jul 12, 2011
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    Yup. I won't even consider a purchase unless it supports the native res of my device.
     
  5. JBRUU

    JBRUU Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    "Keep the 1024 resolution, but add more graphics and stuff to use the extra power [ 62.96% ]"

    I rest my case.
     
  6. JBRUU

    JBRUU Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    If its just an amazon app or a 2d game like angry birds or Jetpack joyride, sure, I agree 100%. But if you want full 3d games to fully support 2048x1536 resolution and run at a stable framerate, you're out of your mind. Infinity blade and mass effect don't even run at full retina resolution, and THEY sometimes have framerate issues. Consoles can barely crank out 1080p for games, yet you're asking greater than that. Heck, even PCs are pushing it to run a full game like crysis at that resolution. It take a helluva a lot of power, and the iPad 3 is a tablet, the most powerful one on the market, but still a tablet. And if retina is such a big issue, why not a toggle to switch between the two? Galaxy on Fire 2 has one. NOVA 3 was promised one in an update. Why not every 3d actioner??
     
  7. Monolith

    Monolith Well-Known Member

    Dec 20, 2010
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    Jesus. Are you trolling me, or do you really not understand?
     
  8. JBRUU

    JBRUU Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    ???

    Not at all (the trolling). But I do believe that 62%, especially one out of 3 options, is the majority. If you want full retina, fine, you can support that and I have no problem with it. I do not, and would prefer that the extra power of the iPad 3's beefier GPU and 1gb of RAM be put to use with extra effects rather than full retina. As do 62% of the people who voted in this thread's poll. That, my friend, is the majority out of people polled.

    Let's leave it at that. We disagree, no need to argue back and forth and turn this thread into a big debate between the two of us.
     
  9. Rubicon

    Rubicon Well-Known Member

    Feb 22, 2011
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    #29 Rubicon, Jun 7, 2012
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2012
    QFT

    I agree with everything Monolith said in theory. Unfortunately, the device under discussion is an iPad 3 which, while impressive, doesn't have fantasy power. We've since tried the 3D at full size and even after removing the animated water, textured fog of war and some other stuff, the fps was still crap. And that was before we doubled the texture sizes.

    Apple will not be featuring a game that runs at 4 fps.
     
  10. Alas, that is the thing I wish was better with my ipad. I realize with the new retina screen, it is underpowered in cpu and gpu section when it comes to native 3d projects.

    That is the main disadvantage with the new ipad. The heat issues bothered me for about a week, but for some reason now they seem to have gotten better, or me used to them. The power charging issues can be solved by powering up more often.

    But alas, this 3d framerate problem is bad for high end console games. Like Rubicon says, no one wants to play a game with 4 fps, with no effects turned on.

    That would be the only reason I would have waited for the ipad 4. But I LOVE my new ipad, so I guess this dilemna with framerates is something I am going to have to deal with. Lucky, I don't like first person shooters too much, but boy, it does affect my driving games a lot.
     
  11. JBRUU

    JBRUU Well-Known Member

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    It's underpowered in gpu, not CPU. CPU has nothing to do with framerate issues with retina.
     
  12. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    One approach to possibly consider is to render the in-game 3D at regular iPad resolution (with AA if you wish), but HUD elements and any text with retina sharpness.

    The biggest benefit from retina is with font legibility anyway, so with such an approach you could safely say the game has been enhanced for retina iPads.
     
  13. Rubicon

    Rubicon Well-Known Member

    Feb 22, 2011
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    That's a good idea.
     
  14. DemonJim

    DemonJim Well-Known Member

    Nov 19, 2010
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    What Frand says. I forgive lower res for higher framerates in 3D, but all OSD elements should still be Retina.

    In addition to this, using Retina isn't an all-or-nothing thing - it's a sliding scale.

    So for example you can set the contentScaleFactor for your 3D render target to 1.5, which will actually be 50% Retina (where 1.0 is non-Retina and 2.0 is full Retina). The resolution (in terms of pixel shaders) is effectively halfway in between the two.

    Another idea is to render the basic scene at full Retina but do all post-production effects (bloom, depth of field, explosion/smoke billboards etc) at lower res.
     
  15. Rubicon

    Rubicon Well-Known Member

    Feb 22, 2011
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    No such options for us. The real killer is the terrain pixel shader now it has to handle the fog of war, or the water shader which has always been a hog.

    These kinda thoughts apply generally though, I agree.
     
  16. NinthNinja

    NinthNinja Well-Known Member

    Jan 31, 2011
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    I think the problem with iPad Retina or why developers say it's bad for frame rates is because the hardware has not been utilised by the programmers the right way... You really need to optimise from the word go with no half measures.

    This is what is possible or what Mutant Storm on the Retina can achieve:

    1. 60fps framerate.
    2. Two render targets at 1024x768 processing feedback effects.
    3. One render target at 2048x1536 processing level and enemies.
    4. The 2048x1536 render target having post processing effects to simulate glow.
    5. And then a copy to a 2048x1536 frame buffer.
    6. And to top all that off alpha polygons out number solid polygons in the graphics department.
    7. The use of 32bit colour on textures, frame buffers and render targets.

    In theory all this should grind the framerate down but in practise the game runs at a solid 60fps without a hiccup. The only thing that has effected framerate is when Game Center boots up.

    But the point I'm making is that the hardware is not underpowered and it can actually process a fair amount of pixels.

    In a marketing sense it makes sense to go for this because you will highly be likely to get featured by Apple.


    That trick of rendering into a lower rez render target and drawing the hud at a higher resolution is what I did for the iPad1 version of Mutant Storm - I'm actually surprised that the iPad1 can handle quite a few render targets.


    Anyway, I hope no one takes offence with this post... it's just another point of view on what is possible on iPad Retina.
     
  17. Rubicon

    Rubicon Well-Known Member

    Feb 22, 2011
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    #37 Rubicon, Jun 10, 2012
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2012
    No offense here, we've never been able to figure out what our core fps issue is.

    Our game doesn't have a bad frame rate but it's always been lower than what my gut tells me it should be. We've spent weeks with various analysers trying all the tricks - 1x1 textures, "just colour" shaders, drawing cubes instead of models etc. etc. There's no newbie mistakes in our engine, it just draws a shitload of stuff.

    Are you using "packed" vertex formats? One thing we've never tried it making them "worse" by using floats for normals instead of an U8 type etc.
     
  18. DemonJim

    DemonJim Well-Known Member

    Nov 19, 2010
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    Given what you've said you've tried while investigating the bottleneck Rubicon my hunch (assuming you're not vertex-bound) is that there are just too many GL state changes going on.
     
  19. Rubicon

    Rubicon Well-Known Member

    Feb 22, 2011
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    It's not state-changes. Our engine already sorts the rendering list to minimise them and one time we took the dirty cache out and let it set every state, even if it's already set. No change.

    We've never been able to test if we're vertex bound tbh, but I wouldn't think so - not drawing the units didn't give much back and the terrain models didn't increase when we saved out simpler ones (the meshes are all cpu extruded in a tool - as a manifold, no overdraw).

    We came to the conclusion we were chasing ghosts and have no true bottlenecks, we're just drawing shitloads of stuff - it may not look it but there's a bucketload of graphics in our game.
     
  20. DemonJim

    DemonJim Well-Known Member

    Nov 19, 2010
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    Maybe it's that sort algorithm? That's (mostly) a joke by the way :)

    Still, I really don't understand why you can't try what I said above having 'partial Retina' by setting the contentScaleFactor somewhere between 1.0 and 2.0 - I suppose that depends if you're using middleware which supports it (if not, get them to add it!)
     

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