sfhand Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Next April Fools.... er, April 1, 2013? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaytoniousRex Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 It already runs on Android, so no need to necessarily wait that long. What we are waiting for, though, is enough business justification to thoroughly regression test and do any remaining polishing for Android - which usually boils down to workarounds for specific device types with quirks. For example, all we know right now is that it runs great on Android devices with Tegra2 and 3 chipsets. Letting us know that you're interested helps to make that case, so thanks for letting us know. Letting us know which specific Android devices you have in mind helps, too. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Kindle Fire por favor! I would be all over this but I don't have an iPad. I thought this was totally fake when I first saw it this morning, but it seems it might actually be for real. Great business move, or cruel joke, but brilliant either way. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derbius Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I have a Galaxy Nexus phone and would definitely be interested in the app. It has the resolution but I guess it doesn't have a Tegra chipset. Does that mean I chose an evolutionary dead end by accident? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 You may be able to get some clue about what Android devices are likely to be able to run the game based on graphics and processor benchmarks. The Game does NOT run on an iPad1; it requires at least an iPad2 to run. So this gives you some idea of the graphics and processing power needed to run the app. Of course, Android and iOS are different environments, so there may be performance differences, but at least this gives you a ballpark idea. Anyway, taking a quick glance at the benchmarks, I wouldn't hold my breath for Kindle Fire compatibility; its 3D Graphics benchmarks are a fair bit below the iPad2's. Then again, the Kindle Fire has a significantly smaller screen and less pixels to drive than the iPad2, so perhaps this compensates to a degree and the developers will be able to get it running well on the Fire. Certainly, purely from the perspective of which types of tablets have the largest share of the market right now, Kindle Fire would be a logical next step after the iPad. Of course, with Android, you also have the issue of the various "flavors" of Android that are out there, and different localizations of the OS for different devices... it's a pretty balkanized market. As for a smartphone version, my personal guess is that it's not likely to be released for the Galaxy Nexus or indeed any smartphones (iOS, Android, or whatever) any time soon -- processing and graphics horsepower issues aside, my first impression of the game is that UI especially is really intended for an iPad-sized, 9.7" screen. While it might still work pretty well on a smaller 7" tablet like the Kindle Fire, I don't think it would play very well on the small screen of a smartphone, even a larger-screen phone like the Galaxy Note. But I'm just shootin' the breeze here -- perhaps the developers will give an official comment sometime soon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derbius Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 As I understand it, as with iOS there is no longer a separate Android OS for tablets and for smartphones. Moreover since my Nexus has a 1280×720 screen it has as many pixels as an iPad 2 (albeit squeezed). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 As I understand it, as with iOS there is no longer a separate Android OS for tablets and for smartphones. Moreover since my Nexus has a 1280×720 screen it has as many pixels as an iPad 2 (albeit squeezed). It has more to do with the fact that there are many different flavors of Android out there, and the responsibility for updating devices already on the market to the latest version of Android lies with the manufacturer; Google has no direct control over this. So even though Android 4.0 is the current version of the OS and is supposedly unified for tablets and phones, many devices out there (including some fairly recent and powerful ones) are still officially limited to running earlier versions like Android 2.3. In some cases, it is possible to side-load the newer version of the OS, but this can cause issues, and is more trouble than many people are willing to go to. Also, device manufacturers and even wireless carriers often customize Android for a given device. Most of these customizations are minor and don't really affect app compatibility, but some devices have more significant OS customizations, and this can effect what apps will run on them. Then there's the issue of screen resolution. In the iPad world, there are exactly 2: The iPad 1 & 2 @ 1024 x 768, and the new iPad @ exactly double, 2048x1536. Since iOS natively supports pixel doubling, an App built to run 1024x768 will run at will run on the new iPad without modification (though it will look better if optimized for the higher resolution screen). There is no such standardization on the Android world. So apps that are optimized and run will on one Android device with a certain screen size may not work so well on another. To be sure, there are certain screen sizes that are more common than others in the Android world, so the developers can probably pick a more common resolution and go with that. Bear in mind that absolute screen size matters, too. With a touch UI, certain gestures don't work well on small screen -- small screen games usually need to stick to simpler finger gestures, which is why some games that work well on full-size tablets like the iPad do not translate well to smartphones. My general impression is that Combat Mission: Touch falls into this category. Regardless of whether the game will run on a Galaxy Nexus, it doesn't seem to me that it would play very well on a 4.65" screen... hard to know for sure without actually playing with it at this size, though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 No the problem is that iPad 2 and 3 have real 3D chips and a cheap tablet like the Kindle Fire does not. Without a 3D chip to help you along the game won't be much fun. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acrashb Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Letting us know that you're interested helps to make that case, so thanks for letting us know. Letting us know which specific Android devices you have in mind helps, too. Toshiba Thrive AT100 . Android 3.2, apparently soon to be upgraded to ICS (4.0) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I'm no expert on the hardware, but my Kindle Fire runs games like Dead Space and Dungeon Defender's just fine and they look just the same as on my mom's iPad 2. I guess that might not translate to the larger scale of things in CM Touch. If not, it looks like they are coming out with a new bigger and badder Fire this summer, with the Tegra 3 chips and 10 inch screen. You guys should try to get in on that as a featured launch title or something. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Both Dead Space and Dungeon Defenders will run fine on an iPad1. They look a little better on an iPad2, but the 1 handles them just fine. So, given that CM:Touch has a minimum spec of the iPad2, it's pretty easy to infer that the 3d Graphics hardware requirements are much higher than either Dead Space's or Dungeon Defenders'. But if you really want the hard numbers, just look up the 3D graphic benchmarks for the Kindle Fire vs. the iPad2. There's a pretty clear difference. The only reason why the Kindle fire isn't worse off is the smaller screen and therefore fewer pixels it has to drive. I really don't think it's likely you'll find a ~$200 tablet from anyone that will run this game. Not to say there aren't Android tablets out there that do as well or better than the iPad2 in terms of 3D graphics. But they also cost as much or more. And if and when Amazon comes out with a Tegra3-based 10-inch Fire, that would almost certainly have enough horsepower. It will be interesting to see what price tag Amazon puts on that one. Rumor has it they take a loss on every Kindle Fire sale (with the business model that they'll make it up on purchases made via the device). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Actually now that I looked it up, the Kindle Fire has the same GPU as the iPad2, but at half the number of cores and fill rate. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Actually now that I looked it up, the Kindle Fire has the same GPU as the iPad2, but at half the number of cores and fill rate. Yep. And the 2012 iPad has this same GPU, too, but twice the number of cores as the iPad2 (for 4x the Fire). But since the 2012 iPad has twice the screen resolution, it needs these all 4 of these cores just to get roughly the same framerates as the iPad2 on that "retina" screen. I'd be interested to see a side-by-side comparison of the game on an iPad2 vs. 2012 iPad. It looks pretty darn good on my wife's iPad2... it would be interesting to see what (if any) improvement the retina screen provides. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cabul Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 It already runs on Android, so no need to necessarily wait that long. What we are waiting for, though, is enough business justification to thoroughly regression test and do any remaining polishing for Android - which usually boils down to workarounds for specific device types with quirks. For example, all we know right now is that it runs great on Android devices with Tegra2 and 3 chipsets. Letting us know that you're interested helps to make that case, so thanks for letting us know. Letting us know which specific Android devices you have in mind helps, too. Asus Transformer Prime please! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 it would be interesting to see what (if any) improvement the retina screen provides. Utter waste of GPU resources, IMHO 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumrox Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 Asus Transformer here, Tegra 2 chipset, running ICS (4.0) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaytoniousRex Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 Utter waste of GPU resources, IMHO Amen to that, Redwolf. I wish they had just done the beefing up of the GPU and left the screen alone. But we play the cards we're dealt. Kindle Fire is a woefully underpowered device, but we're looking into it anyway. There's a lot we can do with dynamically lowering the quality of the game's rendering based on where it's running. Some of our problems there apply to the rest of this discussion generally: the limiting factors for a game like this one on all of the mobiles are usually RAM, Fill Rate, and OpenGL implementation quality. The main problem on the iPad1 was RAM. The ongoing problem on all of the iOS devices is fill rate. (Hence my amen above). OpenGL quality varies wildly across Android devices. (For example, Android devices don't even all implement the same texture compression format support, so it can get quite complicated.) But please continue to let us know what you would like to see supported. All data points are helpful. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthjes Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 ... As for a smartphone version, my personal guess is that it's not likely to be released for the Galaxy Nexus or indeed any smartphones (iOS, Android, or whatever) any time soon -- processing and graphics horsepower issues aside, my first impression of the game is that UI especially is really intended for an iPad-sized, 9.7" screen. While it might still work pretty well on a smaller 7" tablet like the Kindle Fire, I don't think it would play very well on the small screen of a smartphone, even a larger-screen phone like the Galaxy Note... Though I can understand your arguments, I would really like to play CM on my Galaxy Note. It should work with a slightly larger UI; and for smaller Icons there is still the S-Pen that can be used... But I'm generally for an Android version, even if its Tablet-only! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 Utter waste of GPU resources, IMHO Depends on what you're trying to do with the device. My pro video and photog. friends are all in love with it because it makes the iPad3 an immensely useful tool for previewing and reviewing high-resolution content in the field -- many were already using the iPad for this purpose, but the higher resolution makes it much easier to see the fine detail of the images without having to repeatedly zoom in. In the few minutes I have handled one, my subjective impression is also that the "retina" display makes reading text much less fatiguing, reading on the iPad2 is OK for a little while, but definitely tires my eyes out if I read for too long. It looks to me like the higher resolution reduces this problem (though if you're looking buy a device purely for reading, a "digital ink" reader is still vastly superior, IMHO.) It also allows the iPad to output full 1080i HD video to an HD TV, either via dongle to an HDMI cable, or via Airplay to an 3rd Gen. AppleTV, which is a very nice trick -- prior generations were limited to 720p. But for 3D gaming, it may very well be that the overall visual experience would be better if the resolution were kept at 1024x768, and the additional graphics horsepower were put into increasing fill rate rather than increasing resolution. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 Depends on what you're trying to do with the device. My pro video and photog. friends are all in love with it because it makes the iPad3 an immensely useful tool for previewing and reviewing high-resolution content in the field Did they enable USB host mode and can mount CF cards from a USB reader yet? Otherwise that sounds a bit academic unless you use an Eye-fi card. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 Did they enable USB host mode and can mount CF cards from a USB reader yet? Otherwise that sounds a bit academic unless you use an Eye-fi card. Quite a while ago, Apple came out with a "Camera Connection Kit" that contains the necessary hardware to plug either a CS card or a digital camera directly via micro USB into an iPad, and access pix or video stored on the card/camera. It's not a full "USB host mode" in that iOS won't let you access just any old file on a memory card, but it will let you access .jpg, .raw, MPEG-4, H.264, etc. I have also heard that the micro-USB adapter does actually work as an interface to some other USB-based devices, such as USB keyboards. But I haven't tried this myself. But actually, most of the pros I know do use Eye-fi cards. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzerfest Posted April 4, 2012 Share Posted April 4, 2012 Acer Iconia Tab A500 Tegra 2 I'd be all over this! As of right now I dont use my tablet for gaming at all. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aloko Mac Posted April 4, 2012 Share Posted April 4, 2012 Acer Iconia Tab A500 Tegra 2 I'd be all over this! As of right now I dont use my tablet for gaming at all. +1 for the iconia 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaytoniousRex Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 My pro video and photog. friends are all in love with it Yeah, I know, but in my myopia every screen full of pixels is an OpenGL context upon which a 3D wargame should be rendered. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluescreen2 Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 +1 for asus transformer 101 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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