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Nvidia's Tegra 3 Optimizations: THD Android Games, Tested
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1. Nvidia's Tegra 3: King Of Android Gaming?

At least for the next couple of days, Tegra 3 is Nvidia’s flagship system-on-a-chip (SoC) for smartphones and tablets. Although the chip's performance is no longer the fastest around, an aggressive developer relations team works with game developers to optimize their titles for Nvidia's hardware. As a result, Tegra 3's ULP GeForce graphics component and quad-core Cortex-A9-based processor continue to serve up some of the nicest-looking graphics available from mobile games. But does the Tegra 3's advantage still hold water more than a year after its introduction, or has the rest of the industry caught up?

Armed with an Android-based HTC One X+ smartphone as our test platform, along with 12 purportedly Tegra-optimized titles, we logged some quality game time to find out.

Let’s be clear about what we’re actually measuring. Today's efforts aren't about benchmarking Tegra 3’s frame rates or drawing blanket generalizations about gaming on Android. Instead, we’re doing a visual comparison to see whether or not the optimizations made for Tegra 3 are significant, and if they have any negative impact on playability.

Before we get to the testing, let’s talk about how Tegra’s ULP GeForce is different from other mobile GPUs.

Tegra Versus PowerVR, Mali, And Adreno

Tegra 3 is quite different from other SoCs in terms of how the GPU operates. Nvidia's ULP GeForce is a more complex version of what came before in Tegra 2, employing 12 pixel shaders rather than four, and operating at up to 520 MHz, up from a maximum of 400 MHz.

Current mobile GPUs employ two basic types of rendering operations: Immediate Mode Rendering (IMR) and Tile-Based Rendering (TBR).

Nvidia’s Tegra operates using IMR, which has been the standard in PC GPUs for over a decade (the last desktop graphics processor to use tile-based rendering was STMicroelectronics' PowerVR Kyro II, back in '01). With immediate-mode rendering, polygons are received, modified, textured, displayed, and certain zones are calculated several times. In the mobile world, this would generally be considered wasteful. But Nvidia offers graphics hardware fast enough to handle it.

Imagination Technologies' PowerVR chipsets are the quintessential example of Tile-Based Deferred Rendering. TBR involves dividing each frame into small sections referred to as tiles (right). The rendering of each tile is performed separately, and only the visible pixels in each one are sent down the rendering pipeline. Any pixel not visible in the frame is not rendered (hence, deferred), such as those making up the part of the car obscured behind the tree (below).

Breaking up each frame into separately-rendered tiles gives PowerVR fairly linear scalability, since multiplying GPU cores multiplies GPU performance. Eliminating non-visible areas from the calculations also reduces the necessary bandwidth, which is a very important advantage in the mobile world. While Imagination Technologies' PowerVR technology is found in SoCs from Intel (Medfield), Samsung (Hummingbird), and Texas Instruments (OMAP), it's most notably the graphics force behind Apple’s venerable line of iOS-based devices (Ax).

ARM and Qualcomm GPUs utilize a combination of the two basic rendering modes. ARM’s Mali uses a hybrid known as Tile-Based Immediate Mode Rendering (TBIMR). Meanwhile, Qualcomm employs a different kind of hybrid mode in the Andreno 320, which can render either in TBR or IMR. The most notable use of Mali is in Samsung’s Exynos, while Adreno is exclusive to Qualcomm’s own Snapdragon SoCs.

Although each rendering type has its pros and cons, suffice it to say, Nvidia’s choice is coherent. Ironically, Nvidia takes advantage of one of PowerVR’s limitations. Since many games are designed for iOS-based devices with PowerVR GPUs, their geometry is limited. So, by simply doubling the number of pixel shader units in Tegra 3, Nvidia allows developers to add extra effects to existing games. The company is known to leverage its close relationships with video game developers on the PC side, and now it's doing the same with the creators of mobile titles.

To be clear, Nvidia doesn’t currently have the fastest mobile GPU on the block. ARM, Imagination Technologies, and Qualcomm all have faster engines. One reason for that is simply that Tegra 3 is more than a year old, and we're on the cusp of seeing its successor at CES. Secondly, Nvidia simply isn’t in the same position as Samsung or, to a lesser degree, Apple. Creating the A5X SoC in the third-gen iPad, for example, required that Apple double the number of GPU cores in its A5, moving from an MP2 GPU to an MP4. Plus, Nvidia has to worry about selling its chips to device manufacturers, whereas Apple and Samsung are the manufacturer.

The company is still enjoying plenty of success, however, showing up in a range of devices and form factors, such as HTC's One X+, Microsoft's Surface, Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 11, and even Tesla's Model S electric sedan. So, what do optimized games look like, and how does Tegra 3 handle them?

2. Test Setup And Benchmark Suite

For this comparison, we chose a series of games selected by Nvidia and optimized for Tegra 3. The only limitation we imposed was that the titles also had to be available for iOS, so we could compare the Tegra 3’s visuals to that of the iPhone 5. We added two more test platforms, a Samsung Galaxy S III and a pre-release Google Nexus 4, to compare Nvidia’s chip to GPUs from ARM and Qualcomm.

Test Setup
Model

HTC One X+HTC One X+

HTC One X+

Apple iPhone 5Apple iPhone 5

Apple iPhone 5

Google Nexus 4Google Nexus 4

Google Nexus 4

Samsung Galaxy S IIISamsung Galaxy S III

Samsung Galaxy S III

SoC

Nvidia Tegra 3 (AP37)

Apple A6

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064)

Samsung Exynos 4 (4412)

CPU

Cortex-A9 @ 1.7 GHz (quad-core)

Swift @ 1.3 GHz (dual-core)

Krait @ 1.5 GHz (quad-core)

Cortex-A9 @ 1.4 GHz (quad-core)

GPU

ULP GeForce @ 520 MHz

PowerVR SGX543MP3 @ 266 MHz

Adreno 320*

Mali-400 MP4 @ 400 MHz

Memory

1 GB

1 GB

2 GB

1 GB

Storage**

64 GB

16 GB

8 GB

16 GB

Display

4.7” S-LCD 2 @ 1280x720 (312 PPI)

4” IPS LCD @1136x640 (326 PPI)

4.7” WXGA IPS @1280x768 (318 PPI)

4.8” Super AMOLED @1280x720 (306 PPI)

MSRP***

$650

$650

$300

$700


*Qualcomm does not disclose the frequency of the Adreno 320.
**The Storage specs are off the base models to help with pricing.
***Base models, as of 12/20/12.
Benchmark Suite
TitleTegra Optimization
Beach Buggy BlitzYes
Dead TriggerYes
Fruit NinjaSeparate THD Edition
Galaxy On Fire 2THD-only*
Grand Theft Auto III
Heroes CallYes
Princess PuntYes
Shadowgun: DeadZoneYes
SprinkleYes
SoulCraftSeparate THD Edition
The Dark Meadow: The PactYes
Zen PinballTHD-only
*Also available for the Sony Xperia Play.


When available, we ran the Tegra HD (THD) version of each game on the HTC One X+. The standard Android version from Google Play was used on the Galaxy S III and Nexus 4. Obviously, the iOS version from the App Store was used on the iPhone 5. So that everyone can test at home, all but one of the games we’ve selected is a free title. Our one exception, Grand Theft Auto III is only five bucks, and in our opinion, well worth the price of admission considering the very un-mobile scope of this sandbox favorite.

Remember that today we’re concentrating on visual differences rather than performance, so don’t expect the usual frames-per-second performance data. Instead, we have side-by-side screen shots of the same area in each game on all four test phones. While we originally wanted to provide a video comparison between the various games, due to DRM issues, we weren’t able to. Besides, screen capture software for today’s mobile devices causes far too much of a performance impact to make the comparison valid.

3. Beach Buggy Blitz And Dead Trigger

Beach Buggy Blitz

First up is Beach Buggy Blitz, a fairly standard Mario Kart-style racing game. Beach Buggy Blitz offers a single Android version with Tegra 3 optimizations for Nvidia-powered devices. The game ran on all four of our test devices without issue.

iPhone 5iPhone 5

We noticed several graphical embellishments on the Tegra 3-packing HTC One X+. One example is the more realistic headlight effects in darker areas of certain tracks, such as caves. Another example is the droplets that appear on the screen when driving through water. The screen shots don’t do these effects any justice, but the features did improve our overall sense of immersion in the game. Beach Buggy Blitz is visually identical on the iPhone 5, Nexus 4, and Samsung Galaxy S III.

Dead Trigger

Dead Trigger may very well be the best example of a Tegra 3-optimized game. This zombie-infested first-person shooter‘s lone Android package adapts to the GPU. We had no problems running Dead Trigger on any of our four test devices.

From the second Dead Trigger starts, the visual differences are glaring. Particle effects, water effects, lighting, smoke, and additional details are all visible on the HTC One X+. But while Nvidia has the exclusive on those effects under Android, Apple's hardware is also fast enough to display them all too. So, we end up with the most graphically-detailed version on the HTC One X+ and the iPhone 5. This game on the Galaxy S III and Nexus 4 is empty in comparison.

For those inclined, the additional effects can be enabled on a rooted Android smartphone, though we cannot attest to the stability or performance of the game should you do so.

Download Dead Trigger from Tom’s Guide

4. Fruit Ninja And Galaxy On Fire 2

Fruit Ninja

Fruit Ninja is an easy-to-learn and rather addictive touchscreen classic. Fruits are tossed up from the bottom of the screen and the player has to slice them up using swiping gestures. Fruit Ninja is available in both free and paid versions; there are simply fewer modes in the free build. A specially-optimized THD version is offered on Google Play alongside the standard version. Unfortunately, the paid version of Fruit Ninja THD costs $2 more than the standard Android version.


Can a game consisting entirely of fruit really look any better on a device it was optimized for? Yes and no. The modeling is more precise, and details are a little more visible if you look closely at the fruits in the THD version. But, given the type of game this is, those differences aren’t significant to the overall experience. After all, when your task is to slice up fruit that pop up from the bottom of your screen, the level of detail in the pineapple doesn’t change the fun factor all that much. It's a plus on paper, but imperceptible during play.

Download Fruit Ninja from Tom’s Guide

Galaxy On Fire 2

The next game on our list is the great-looking space shooter Galaxy On Fire 2. The game is available for Android on Google Play in two versions: the THD version for Tegra 3-based devices, and another for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. The latter operates on the Nexus 4, no doubt because Qualcomm's Adreno GPU is the same one you'd find in the Sony phone The Galaxy S III, however, cannot run the game at all.

While the three versions of Galaxy On Fire 2 don’t have the same exact missions and environments, there’s still no contest: the Tegra 3-optimized version is much better-looking. There’s a higher level of detail in the textures and effects, making the game significantly more attractive. The Xperia Play version on the Nexus 4 is visually identical to the iOS version.

5. Grand Theft Auto III And Heroes Call

Grand Theft Auto III

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III is already well-known worldwide and was recently re-released for mobile devices. Remember that this is the only paid game in our selection, but c’mon, it’s friggin' GTA! The game operates flawlessly on all four of our test devices.

Tegra 3Tegra 3Nexus 4Nexus 4Galaxy S3Galaxy S3

Once we synchronized the game’s view distance and detail levels, there were no visible differences between our three high-end Android-based phones. However, it was noticeably more fluid on the Samsung Galaxy S III than the Tegra 3-powered HTC One X+. Interestingly, GTA 3 is the only game in our suite that runs worse on iOS. The view distance is not as far and there are fewer details than on Android. The game also doesn’t support the iPhone 5’s 16:9 display, though it’s a good bet that a simple update to GTA could correct these issues.

Heroes Call

Heroes Call is an action RPG with very good graphics. Fans of Diablo and Torchlight won’t be disappointed. While Google Play offers only one version of Heroes Call, Tegra-equipped devices automatically receive the THD edition, whereas other devices download the standard version.

According to Nvidia’s technical documentation, Tegra 3 improves Heroes Call’s lighting effects, physics, and camera control. While the lighting effects are a little different on the HTC One X+, we really couldn’t see a difference as far as physics or camera management. The game is visually identical on the other three test devices.

6. Princess Punt And Shadowgun: DeadZone

Princess Punt

Like Punt The Dog? Princess Punt is a similar game, but with a princess who punts knights at evil giant acorns. Fair enough. There’s a bit of strategy involved, and aside from the asinine plot and obviously poor translation, it’s actually a pretty amusing game. Like with Fruit Ninja, there are separate THD and standard versions of Princess Punt in Google Play.

iPhone 5iPhone 5Galaxy S3Galaxy S3

We could only spot two discernable differences on the Tegra version: the rare weather effect on certain levels, and a flickering effect surrounding the characters. These Tegra-only additions serve no real purpose, nor add anything significant to the visual experience. Meanwhile, the game is visually identical on the iPhone 5, Google Nexus 4, and Samsung Galaxy S III.

Shadowgun: DeadZone

Next up is the recently-released Shadowgun: DeadZone. This multiplayer-only third-person shooter is powered by the cross-platform Unity engine. While optimized for Tegra 3, there is no separate THD version. Instead, a single Android version automatically detects and adapts to the GPU of the installed device.

According to Google Play, this game’s minimum system requirements are Android 3.0 and 512 MB RAM. Even though all of our test devices meet these requirements, DeadZone is only stable on the HTC One X+ and iPhone 5. The game regularly crashes on the Galaxy S III, and doesn’t run at all on the Nexus 4.

Shadowgun: DeadZone is visually identical on the HTC One X+ and the iPhone 5, but tremendously inferior on the Samsung Galaxy S III. While the game’s multiplayer-only operation makes it impossible to recreate the exact same game sequence, the difference in character models, textures, and lighting effects are flagrantly obvious.

7. Sprinkle And SoulCraft

Sprinkle

Sprinkle is a puzzle game where you have to keep fires from destroying the homes of bulbous little creatures, with a limited amount of water at your disposal. While the game has a free edition, a more complete version is also available for two dollars. Sprinkle ran perfectly on all four of our test devices. The single Android version automatically detects the GPU and applies the additional Tegra-oriented optimizations if Nvidia's GPU is present.

iPhone 5iPhone 5Nexus 4Nexus 4

While Nvidia emphasizes improved water effects, the only real noticeable difference that we saw was the addition of smoke. But in a game that’s all about putting out fires, smoke effects make a lot of sense, and contributes nicely to the game’s experience.

Download Sprinkle Free from Tom’s Guide

SoulCraft

Like Heroes Call, SoulCraft is a free-to-play action RPG. That is to say it's free with optional in-app purchases that greatly improve the experience. Google Play offers both the standard version of SoulCraft, as well as the THD version for Tegra-based devices. This one worked well on all four of our test smartphones.

Tegra 3Tegra 3iPhone 5iPhone 5

Nexus 4Nexus 4Galaxy S IIIGalaxy S III

While not obvious at first glance, a few additional, but minor, lighting effects are visible in the Tegra version. The game is visually identical on the iPhone 5, Nexus 4, and Galaxy S III.

8. The Dark Meadow: The Pact And Zen Pinball

The Dark Meadow: The Pact

The Dark Meadow: The Pact is a gorgeous Myst-style adventure game powered by the Unreal engine. While the game runs perfectly on the Tegra 3-based HTC One X+ and on iOS, it crashes immediately after starting on Google's Nexus 4. Meanwhile, Google Play doesn’t even list this title for Samsung's Galaxy S III.

This game offers a lot more detail and greatly improved lighting effects when you run it on a Tegra 3-based device. The ivy in the first few minutes of the game, for example, doesn't show up on the iPhone 5.

On the other hand, The Dark Meadow: The Pact is significantly less fluid on the Tegra 3 than the iPhone 5's A6 SoC. While movement isn’t jerky per se, it is definitely slower. Though not a major problem on our high-end test smartphone, owners of slower Tegra 3-based devices may experience playability issues.

Zen Pinball

We can all figure out what kind of game Zen Pinball is. While free to download, this title is more like trial-ware. It only includes one table, and additional tables are available as in-app purchases. Zen Pinball only works with Tegra-based Android devices and iOS. Unfortunately, that means we could not test on either the Google Nexus 4 or Samsung Galaxy S III.

While the iOS-based version of the game works the same as the Tegra version, additional lighting effects on the 3D elements of the table (bumpers, ramps, décor elements, and so on) make the Tegra version obviously better-looking.

9. Tegra HD: Must-Have Or Marketing Gimmick?

In a majority of cases, the Tegra-oriented game optimizations are largely marketing on Nvidia's part. When it comes to Android, almost any modern GPU is capable of comparable performance as the Tegra 3. The additional Tegra-only effects are more of gimmick than anything else. We did notice, however, that optimized titles were able to run stably, whereas the Nexus 4 and Galaxy S III ran into issues with a number of different games.

With thousands of games competing on Google Play, Nvidia’s TegraZone can provide developers an opportunity for their games to receive additional exposure. But how many people really know about, or actually use TegraZone?

Limiting certain graphical effects to the GPUs capable of rendering them smoothly is a wise choice. Many entry-level smartphones have SoCs with performance far below that of the Tegra 3, making many of the detail effects quite onerous on lower-end hardware. This also allows developers the freedom to create titles that play well across a wider spectrum of devices, while creating better-looking experiences for the folks buying higher-end phones and tablets.

Another point to keep in mind is that Nvidia sometimes has exclusivity deals with game publishers, which makes certain titles available only on Tegra-equipped devices for a few weeks or months before general Android availability. Zen Pinball HD, for example, is still only for devices with an Nvidia GPU.

In some cases, however, the additional Tegra effects can be enabled on any GPU. Just keep in mind that forcing this can cause performance to drop. Dead Trigger, for instance, can be manually modified on a rooted device via a configuration file. In other cases, it’s possible to trick the game into recognizing another GPU as a Tegra. Chainfire3D is the app most often used for doing this. It allows you to modify the OpenGL drivers to make the game think the smartphone is equipped with any GPU you choose. But be careful; the program modifies system settings, so a novice modder could easily render their device unusable. Even we managed to soft brick the Samsung Galaxy S III while fooling around with Chainfire3D.

If you're an Android user and gaming is a priority, it actually does make sense to choose a device powered by Nvidia's Tegra 3 SoC (or wait until Tegra 4-based hardware starts showing up). The titles we've looked at here aren't all on the Top Paid list in Google Play, but they do represent a variety of genres and many of them are quite popular. We picked them specifically to judge whether Nvidia's Tegra-specific optimizations make a difference, but ended up discovering that, beyond aesthetics, stability is a big deal, too. A quarter of these games had problems running on Google's Nexus 4, Samsung's Galaxy S III, or both. Even if the optimizations aren’t always apparent, many higher-end games (like those based on the Unity and Unreal engines) are optimized for Nvidia's hardware.

The iOS Problem

But then there's iOS. Apple equips its smartphones and tablets with relatively fast GPUs from Imagination Technologies. And since exclusivity agreements between developers and Nvidia generally only pertain to Android, those "Tegra-only optimizations" are often also exposed on iOS (for instance, Shadowgun: DeadZone and Dead Trigger). What’s more, these games often run faster on the iPhone 5 due to its newer, more powerful GPU. Incidentally, the same goes for Windows 8 and RT.

So, while gaming is one of Nvidia's competitive advantages over other chip-makers in the Android arena, developers are still pushing all of their best effects to Apple's ecosystem, too. We could take a cheap shot and say that the best smartphone for Tegra 3-optimized games is an iPhone 5, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the added effects don't show up under iOS, even when the games play more smoothly than they do on Android-based phones.

We’ll conclude with an expression of hope for the future: we’re eagerly awaiting Tegra 4 rumored to launch at this year's CES. Remember that Tegra 3 is more than a year old, and it's a simple evolution of an older chip. Even then, most games look good on it, are highly detailed, and basically on par with Apple’s latest and greatest. We can’t wait to see what Nvidia’s next SoC does for Android gaming in the days to come.

For enthusiasts, here's a photo album showing the differences in the 12 games we tested.