No matter how Tegra 2 performs, Nvidia is to be commended for its effort in advocating game development on mobile hardware. And let's draw a distinction between the masses of graphically-unimpressive titles and the ones that do legitimately cool stuff with 3D.
Unfortunately, the games most likely to sport truly impressive graphics are often exclusive to Tegra 2-based devices. That's a real problem if you're on a different hardware platform. It's even worse for the Kindle Fire because Amazon's Appstore offers an even poorer selection of games.
There is a technical reason for this limitation, beyond Nvidia's habit of swinging its marketing around like a baseball bat. Software developers writing for Tegra 2 often use Nvidia's proprietary 3D libraries. As such their games just won't work on Android-based devices powered by TI or Qualcomm SoCs.
As an experiment though, I extracted the APKs for Riptide GP, Sprinkle, and Shadowgun from our Motorola Xoom and installed them on the Kindle Fire. Note that Riptide and Sprinkle started as Tegra 2-exclusive games on Android, but were eventually ported to iOS.
Kindle Fire: Shadowgun Crashes
Unfortunately, Shadogun crashes immediately after we select game difficulty.
Riptide is playable without any problems, but screen shots always end up with artifacts.
Kindle Fire: Riptide GP, Screenshots With Artifacts
Xoom: Riptide GP, Artifact-Free Screenshot
We haven't featured Sprinkle in any of our hardware reviews, but it's similar to Angry Birds. The difference is that you use a water cannon to put out fires that threaten villagers. While the concept sounds cheesy, the water effects are downright impressive, making the game more enjoyable. On the Kindle Fire, we still get tearing effects in screen shots.
Kindle Fire: Sprinkle, Screenshot With Artifacts
Xoom: Sprinkle, Artifact-Free Screenshot
Game play is smooth, but as you can see in the video below, water effects are incorrectly rendered. Instead of one continuous stream, we get a lot of individual bubbles.
The mobile game compatibility landscape looks a lot like the desktop scene did 15 years ago, when titles were more inherently tied to a compatible 3D accelerator. Things won't really change, though, until game developers and SoC vendors all agree to abide by a common gaming framework and driver architecture.
If you're planning to root and install games on your Fire, make note of our experience with these three titles. Some will work. Some won't. And others simply don't look quite right.
- Meet Amazon's Kindle Fire
- Quick Navigation Tour
- Books And Documents: Not Quite An e-Book Reader...
- Video And Music: Amazon Prime Members Rejoice
- Amazon Appstore Is Not Android Market
- The Shopping Experience: All About Amazon
- Amazon Silk: Assisted Web Browsing (Sort Of)
- Web Browsing: The Same Old Android Restrictions
- TI's OMAP 4430: CPU And GPU Performance
- An Experiment: Gaming Performance, Tegra 2-Porting
- Storage Performance: Slightly Faster Than USB 1.0?!
- Display Performance: IPS Confirmed
- Display Performance Examined: Very Bright, So-So Gamut
- Benchmark Results: Battery Life And Recharge Time
- Benchmark Results: Real-World Performance
- Benchmark Results: Wireless Performance
- Awesome For Amazon Addicts
- Appendix A: Background Information On Our Benchmarks
- Appendix B: Notes For Kindle Fire Owners
Ummm.... what?
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
Ummm.... what?
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
Just give him the 6990, the poor fellow just wants to play BF3.
Ever heard of bots? There're tons of those on Tom's nowadays.
A GPU of a 560 Ti level maxes it out @ 1080p, no need for a 6990.
Back to topic...
ROFL, and who needs a tablet without all that? That's right, Amazon fanboys. That company is an utter POS that is not unlike Apple, designing underpowered useless products and delivering them as "innovative". The only "innovative" thing here is a complete dependency on the company's online services... oops, nevermind, Apple did it first
And do not say "ya, but you can root it!!!". That's nice, people can jailbreak their iPads. You cannot include rooting and jailbreaking when you talk about something being open
The Fire doesn't have either of those things. Not going to work. You should check out the specs of the Fire first.
Oh yeah? You bought a Fire?
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
This article is a big fail.. they should have included it to compare.
Just sayin...
You can say the same thing with the Ipad and the Itunes store. Except for the fact that Amazon isn't making money with just selling the Kindle Fire alone.
Still though I like both the Ipad and Kindle Fire.
Also, I want to elaborate on the GPU. The OMAP 4430's SGX540 runs at 300MHz, not 200MHz, so those figures are a little misleading.
It seems like a good product from Amazon, but for my expected use, it isn't sufficient. I mainly use my iPod touch to read comics in JPEG format, so not being able to install many apps + having limited space really hurts.
Glad you liked it! Most of the time I cringe when the table discussion turns to tablets. A lot of tech reviewers aren't even really technies. They come from a Communication background, which is why the Fire is always pitted in a iPad 2 fight. Plus, the investors want the Apple fight cause they only see things in terms of units sold.
The engineers and consumers want a comparison based on features and usability. And the executives and PR people want a comparison based on demographics.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle. For me, this tablet is very attractive, but then again, I like amazon. If you're not part of that crowd, it's a harder purchase to justify in the long run.
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com