Gaming?

[sjones72751]

Not really sure if this is the best spot to post my question on. I switched to the Verizon Iphone 4 from the Droid Incredible (amoled version). My DINC was rooted and rom'ed. Tried a lot of roms. I'm a IT tech for a living, but not so good on the programming side of things. My question is simply this. I've noticed that games on the Iphone run a lot better. They run faster, smoother, have better graphics (Infinity Blade anyone?) and are just all around more polished. Even Angry Birds on the Iphone runs a hell of a lot better than on my droid. The gaming problem on android extends to the other phones that i've seen as well. Including the droid x and the samsung fascinate. I'm pretty sure that the hardware is more powerful on the dinc, x, and fascinate than that of the iphone. so how does the iphone out perform them? I know that the galaxy s phones have a hell of a gpu in them, yet the iphone wipes the floor with all of them. Angry Birds for one has a bit of a lag on android and just the general performance leaves me thinking that games like Infinity Blade and Epic Citadel aren't even possible on Android. Now please, no flaming, or phone wars or any of that crap. Just looking for a technical and logical answer out of curiousity. Thanks.

[Jordan8]

I've read this question answered once upon a time, & its something to do with on android, everything goes through the processor(pinch to zoom blah blah) & on the iphone since the os is for specific devices, its optimized to handle this a different way.

I forget what that different way was though, maybe somebody else can fill in.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

[freezyfreaky]

Not really sure if this is the best spot to post my question on. I switched to the Verizon Iphone 4 from the Droid Incredible (amoled version). My DINC was rooted and rom'ed. Tried a lot of roms. I'm a IT tech for a living, but not so good on the programming side of things. My question is simply this. I've noticed that games on the Iphone run a lot better. They run faster, smoother, have better graphics (Infinity Blade anyone?) and are just all around more polished. Even Angry Birds on the Iphone runs a hell of a lot better than on my droid. The gaming problem on android extends to the other phones that i've seen as well. Including the droid x and the samsung fascinate. I'm pretty sure that the hardware is more powerful on the dinc, x, and fascinate than that of the iphone. so how does the iphone out perform them? I know that the galaxy s phones have a hell of a gpu in them, yet the iphone wipes the floor with all of them. Angry Birds for one has a bit of a lag on android and just the general performance leaves me thinking that games like Infinity Blade and Epic Citadel aren't even possible on Android. Now please, no flaming, or phone wars or any of that crap. Just looking for a technical and logical answer out of curiousity. Thanks.

Google definitely noticed that too because they added features in the Android 2.3 SDK for game programmers like the ability to natively access sensors and to draw directly to the pixel buffer. More info here: Android 2.3 Platform Highlights | Android Developers

Unfortunately, until we are all running on Android 2.3 and game developers can take advantage of this SDK, we will be stuck with what we have now. Hopefully, we will see this by the end of the year.

[sjones72751]

Jordan, that would definitely explain it, but wouldn't that just make the need for gpu's in android non existant? And freaky, that's a good read. Looks like they are def making strides in improving performance in games. I'm wondering if maybe apple and google use 2 different technologies. Like linux using opengl and windows using directx. that's why windows runs games so much better no matter the hardware. Anybody else have something to chip in?

[freezyfreaky]

Jordan, that would definitely explain it, but wouldn't that just make the need for gpu's in android non existant? And freaky, that's a good read. Looks like they are def making strides in improving performance in games. I'm wondering if maybe apple and google use 2 different technologies. Like linux using opengl and windows using directx. that's why windows runs games so much better no matter the hardware. Anybody else have something to chip in?

Windows run games better because their video drivers are better written and optimized. From the link, it seems like Android is using OpenGL API's.

If you want good performing 3D, you will still need GPU in Android. Otherwise, 3D games will have to use the CPU instead of offloading the operations to a dedicated GPU.

[sjones72751]

ya, that's true, the drivers under windows are better written. about the cpu thing i was referring to jordan's post above yours. he thought he read somewhere that it's because everything goes through the processor, which would negate having a gpu. and for a second i thought he may be onto something with the whole system on a chip idea (shared fsb?) but then i remembered that the iphone has an soc platform as well. there's gotta be something different in 2d and 3d graphics acceleration at the software level. that is one thing that always bummed me out about my dinc tbh. other than the performance it was a great phone.

[sjones72751]

Found this comment on youtube

I still think that Android needs some improvements when it comes to 2D / 3D games and part of these improvements are comming with Android 2.3 . But Samsung Galaxy S is not more powerful than IPhone 4. It is safe to bet that they are equal, but still to the OS differences, iOS shows better performance because of Objective C

Now, to figure out what Objective C is...

[freezyfreaky]

Objective-C is a programming language that is similar to C that came out of a company called NextStep that Steve Jobs started when he got kicked out of Apple. C is considered to be a low-level programming language that is built to be fast and generally used for programming hardware such as kernels and things like that.

Android uses Java and Java is an interpreted language built for portability. That's a big reason why it is so widely used on the web. To accomplish this portability means there is a virtual machine (Dalvik in Android's case) that interprets the compiled Java bytecodes into machine language for the CPU to run. While Objective C is compiled into machine bytecodes that specific to run directly on that particular CPU. In regular programs you might not notice the speed difference but in performance intensive applications like games you will.

Also, don't discount the fact that until Android 2.3 game developers didn't have direct access to the pixel buffer of the graphics or other sensor hardware. This is a huge benefit boost to displaying graphics on the screen and responsiveness in the controls especially in fast action games.

[rustydogg]

I'm not sure if there is much of a difference in games like Angry birds. I'm not much of programmer but angry birds seems like a pretty simple non CPU intensive game. I've played it on my buddy's Iphone 4G and I really haven't noticed a difference.
Thats all of my experience on the Iphone though.
However I do love to play old school games on my Droid 2. I use the tiger arcade app to play old games like street fighter zero 3, Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel vs Capcom.
Not sure how hardware intensive those games are but they run pretty smooth on my Droid 2.
The fact that the Droid 2 can emulate the hardware and still run smooth games is impressive IMHO.
I've played this games when they came out on the arcades, the playstation the PS3.
Also having a keyboard is a big plus when playing this games. I've tried the virtual keypad and its just not my thing. I can't for the Sony Xperia with the built in keypad for gaming.
If the Iphone can beat this phone then I will be impressed. I doubt it though.
Also taking a note from old gaming hardware it might be that since iOS has been out longer then Android then perhaps the programmer who make this games have gotten better at doing their stuff.
I recall that back in the days games that came out near the middle and end of the console's life were among the better looking ones.