iPad 3

Pages

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57...

I can't help but to keep scratching my head at the rumored resolution.... I'm all for it I just struggle thinking of a SOC that will be powerful enough to drive that resolution with a noticeable jump in graphic fidelity.

That is a TON of pixels to drive.

Well, they could run games at quarter-res, and do text and stuff at full res.

Where that thing would be supremely outstanding would be as a book reader. Full color, super-high-res. If it can be jailbroken, I might even buy one.

That resolution would be ... incredible.

Universal apps will be extremely hard to support. Images that size are very resource consuming... you wont see many games that are universal w/ the iPad 3.

PAR

Bitmap images are, yes. Vector images are a better solution when you're trying to be resolution-neutral.

As far as I know there are few game engines that support vector images And supporting thus in games that require high performance is... well probably not very performant lol

PAR

It was noted by a few reviews when Lion came out, apple have been preparing groundwork for HiDPI (as they call it) for quite some time.

par: Well, 3D graphics is a superset of vector graphics, so....

The iPad3 should be called the Vectrex 2.

Sorry... I meant on the iOS platform and specifically 2D. When I was looking for engines I specifically looked for vector based ones and couldnt find any at the time. Things might have changed =/

PAR

Suddenly I'm not so bothered that my PD request for an iPad 2 was denied yesterday.

Again, it can just run games at quarter-res. You'd barely even be able to tell. Each dot of game graphics would take four dots on the actual screen. Depending on how good the hardware is, it could even do some interpolation between pixels to smooth out any visible blockiness, but it wouldn't likely be annoying even if they didn't. Those are VERY tiny pixels.

I run at 1280x800 all the time on my 2560x1600 screen. Lots of games, for instance, have insanely tiny UIs at high resolution, so knocking down to 1280 is the best way to make them readable. It's always better to run full res if possible, but quarter res really isn't that objectionable.

edit: you do lose subpixel hinting, so text will appear MUCH less sharp than you'd think, but the actual graphics typically look fine.

second edit: in other words, probably all the existing games would keep running just fine at their current resolution, and then a few games could crank up the resolution by 4x. I doubt many fast-action games would do that, but strategy games will probably be okay.

third edit: Macs have always been pretty terrible for gaming. Apple has been pushing resolution ahead of the graphic hardware's ability to keep up for years, at least in the computer space. At least by doing it this way, they can maintain pretty good backward compatibility (although text in old full-screen apps probably won't look very good), while doing what they love, which is giving you extremely high resolution.

If your primary use of the iPad is gaming or regular movie-watching, you might not want a 3. Depending on how the subpixel hinting issue plays out, an older 2 might actually be better.

When the iPad 2 came out did they continue to sell the original iPads at a cheaper price? I'm starting to want an iPad but I don't really need the newest and I'm hoping maybe iPad 3 will drive down the price of 2.

I've had an iPad 2 since late June, and it's been wonderful. Now the WSJ is reporting that the first week of March will be the reveal for the next iPad. Considering work just gifted me a 32GB 3G iPad 2 (I've had the base 16GB wifi), I've got a little over a week to bring it back and wait on the next iteration. Barring whatever the restocking fee, that is...

Running games at quarter Rez kinda defeats the whole Retina thing. I would be surprised if this was the expected outcome

TheGameguru wrote:

Running games at quarter Rez kinda defeats the whole Retina thing. I would be surprised if this was the expected outcome

But it's not like there isn't precedent, with universal and HD iPhone games and then the non-uni/HD versions running at 2x resolution on the iPad; plus games optimized for the 4S that get fewer graphical bells and whistles on the 4 and 3GS.

Running games at quarter Rez kinda defeats the whole Retina thing.

Not really, because the Retina thing is really about razor-sharp text....LCD text so sharp it looks the same as the printed word. That's the big reason to own a large Retina display, in my view.

Not much point to DPI that high just for gaming. It'll be nice if we can ever truly support resolutions that high for fast action shootemups, but that's at least a couple card generations off, in every form factor. They're all fast enough to drive regular-DPI displays, but not four times that many pixels.

You do realize, Guru, that being uptight about this is essentially being mad at Apple for their hardware not being oriented around gaming? When has Apple hardware _ever_ been aimed at gaming, except accidentally?

Malor wrote:
Running games at quarter Rez kinda defeats the whole Retina thing.

Not really, because the Retina thing is really about razor-sharp text....LCD text so sharp it looks the same as the printed word. That's the big reason to own a large Retina display, in my view.

Not much point to DPI that high just for gaming. It'll be nice if we can ever truly support resolutions that high for fast action shootemups, but that's at least a couple card generations off, in every form factor. They're all fast enough to drive regular-DPI displays, but not four times that many pixels.

You do realize, Guru, that being uptight about this is essentially being mad at Apple for their hardware not being oriented around gaming? When has Apple hardware _ever_ been aimed at gaming, except accidentally?

Isn't something along those lines what John Carmack and Valve have been thinking about? Varying fidelity for different parts of what's displayed in a game. You could have a crisp UI with a up-scaled rendered world, essentially level-of-detail scaling but with more elements.

Malor wrote:
Running games at quarter Rez kinda defeats the whole Retina thing.

Not really, because the Retina thing is really about razor-sharp text....LCD text so sharp it looks the same as the printed word. That's the big reason to own a large Retina display, in my view.

Not much point to DPI that high just for gaming. It'll be nice if we can ever truly support resolutions that high for fast action shootemups, but that's at least a couple card generations off, in every form factor. They're all fast enough to drive regular-DPI displays, but not four times that many pixels.

You do realize, Guru, that being uptight about this is essentially being mad at Apple for their hardware not being oriented around gaming? When has Apple hardware _ever_ been aimed at gaming, except accidentally?

No doubt.. I'm not uptight.. just kinda shocked that Apple would open themselves up to any level of criticism or cracks.. Nvidia is rapidly improving their SOC's and with AMD stating that this is their new approach I wouldnt be surprised to see Android tablets capable of better gaming shortly.

But yes your point is correct.. Apple despite all attempts has fell into gaming with iOS... I'm fairly sure they still only grudgingly accept it at all in their own HQ.

(Possibly derailing the thread) I have to wonder how steam on mac will affect things long term. So far it's probably made some mac ports that were going to happen anyway more widely available, but it hasn't set the world on fire. What I'm curious about is whether PC games in development have had more/any attention to mac owing to steam, while as far as I can tell apple is static in terms of game support.

maybe i'll be able to afford an iPad 1 now.

But yes your point is correct.. Apple despite all attempts has fell into gaming with iOS... I'm fairly sure they still only grudgingly accept it at all in their own HQ.

Yeah, I get the definite impression that Apple holds its collective nose near gamers, because it's just not Hip and Cool(tm). They don't seem to actively sabotage gaming, but they don't seem to go even a millimeter out of their way to make it better.

Scratched wrote:

(Possibly derailing the thread) I have to wonder how steam on mac will affect things long term. So far it's probably made some mac ports that were going to happen anyway more widely available, but it hasn't set the world on fire. What I'm curious about is whether PC games in development have had more/any attention to mac owing to steam, while as far as I can tell apple is static in terms of game support.

I don't think Steam for the Mac has gotten PC developers to port to a Mac if they weren't planning to do so already.

Malor wrote:
But yes your point is correct.. Apple despite all attempts has fell into gaming with iOS... I'm fairly sure they still only grudgingly accept it at all in their own HQ.

Yeah, I get the definite impression that Apple holds its collective nose near gamers, because it's just not Hip and Cool(tm). They don't seem to actively sabotage gaming, but they don't seem to go even a millimeter out of their way to make it better.

The iTunes cut makes them so much money from gaming that they simply can't ignore it, they just don't encourage it beyond the games they put in the ads (which they do to show off the hardware). Many people forget that Steve Jobs didn't want 3rd party apps of any kind on iOS because he thought it would destabalise the user experience (which they do but it didn't end up mattering). He only opened it up after roaring demand from the user base and that has arguably been iOS' greatest success, something he didn't want. One of the things that's always fascinated me about iOS gaming (and Android to an extent as well) is that they've become massively successful venues for games and have opened up a whole new sub-industry in the gaming space and yet they did it despite complete apathy and perhaps even a bit of scorn from the platform holders. You would never see this happen on any other kind of closed platform and the way this played out is totally unique in the game industry's history. Funny enough, the only platform that seems to have openly embraced games is Windows Phone 7 with its Live integration, yet gaming on that platform seems to be a largely dead proposition right now. I really hope the big push Microsoft is supposed to make with Nokia this year gets it some significant market share so developers start paying attention.

I've been waiting for this. I was about to pick up an iPad 2 as a secondary tablet for the music (in the performance sense) apps that aren't [can't be] on Android but realized it was coming up on time for the Next Big Thing. For the stuff I want one for, sheet music being one, the new display will be awesome.

Malor wrote:

Yeah, I get the definite impression that Apple holds its collective nose near gamers, because it's just not Hip and Cool(tm). They don't seem to actively sabotage gaming, but they don't seem to go even a millimeter out of their way to make it better.

I wouldn't quite say that. When gaming took off on iOS, Apple created Game Center. It's still more than Nintendo has ever delivered in the online/social gaming space.

Well, Nintendo knows how to make games and that's all. Their network stuff is sh*t on a stick.

Id be interested to find out just what they can improve and how "revolutionary" a product its gonna be. Guess we'll find out in march

Yeah beating Nintendo at network/online is like setting the bar fairly low...not like Jags season attendance numbers low...but still pretty low.

All that's really been confirmed is retina display, which will require a CPU/GPU bump, and likely more RAM as well. The camera upgrade will probably just match whatever the screen resolution is, meaning we should get Full HD video, if nothing else.

WSJ: Apple testing 8-inch iPad

The invites haven't even been sent out and yet the frenzied speculation about what Tim Cook will whip out on stage at next month's purported announcement has begun. The Wall Street Journal believes Cupertino's planning to produce a smaller, 8-inch slate to partner its 9.7-inch flagship. Unnamed sources at the company's suppliers say it'll pack a screen with a resolution close to the 1024 x 768 display on the current model. This jibes with what we've heard about the iPad 3 toting a Retina Display -- unless the smaller unit is aimed at budget buyers. The report claims test panels are being produced by AU Optronics and LG Display and that this model might also run on LTE. It's probably fair to point out that Apple is famous for producing prototypes in a wide variety of sizes that will never see the light of day, so don't get your hopes up too soon.
sourceWSJ

Pages