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.
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.
- Nvidia's Tegra 3: King Of Android Gaming?
- Test Setup And Benchmark Suite
- Beach Buggy Blitz And Dead Trigger
- Fruit Ninja And Galaxy On Fire 2
- Grand Theft Auto III And Heroes Call
- Princess Punt And Shadowgun: DeadZone
- Sprinkle And SoulCraft
- The Dark Meadow: The Pact And Zen Pinball
- Tegra HD: Must-Have Or Marketing Gimmick?




Exactly what is wrong with tech today, for 30 years companies learned to embrace compatibility after the Sony Betamax failure (technically better, but priced beyond comsumer appreciation). Now everyone wants to follow Apple forgetting they too suffered from a "closed shop" for 20 years.
Exactly what is wrong with tech today, for 30 years companies learned to embrace compatibility after the Sony Betamax failure (technically better, but priced beyond comsumer appreciation). Now everyone wants to follow Apple forgetting they too suffered from a "closed shop" for 20 years.
What's bothersome for me though is that some tegra optimized titles actually run on a low resolution by default on the N7 (to compensate for low memory bandwidth???) yet still play on a 30-40ish frame rate, luckily the devs have put resolution option in the setting (see Riptide, beach buggy blitz), but you'll be playing at 20-30fps if you bump it up to the max/native res.
Another title, Horn, which is actually a Tegra exclusive using UE3, actually runs on a low res but does not provide any option to change that, and even with the low resolution, it is extremely choppy at times I can easily notice 15-20fps.
One dev that I like is MADFINGER Games (dead trigger, shadowgun), their titles are so heavily optimized that they run at a consistent 35-45fps on my N7 and I do not notice lag nor inconsistent frame rate. still runs at constant 60fps on my Note II though...
Meanwhile I can't think of anything that doesn't run at 60fps on my Note II, So much that wonder how much better the gpu performance is on Snapdragon S4 pro and apple A6 devices.
Yes, but tiny screens u put u fingers on ruin the experience of gaming, i get my old megadrive out and play or niintendo 64 for some funny simple old school games. Phones look the 'tiny' part like it but its just not the same. I bought a whole heap of games on my iphone only to put them down and never play again since the format in which u play is just not 'fun' and thats the whole point of games is it not. Oh well, consoles or pc's FTW
definitely, GTAIII and Vice City were both PS2 games and the new mobile versions have upgraded textures
Q - Why no benchmarks?
Sorry about that, my bad - it's fixed now.
There's plenty of hardcore games for mobile devices. Play any Shm'up, especially those from Cave co. like Bug Princess. Although that's probably more processing power rather than graphics power.
Were talking about 15 or 16 years ago here. Ohh look how small it is now with more power.
you just did!
Agreed, PhysX is the word I think of, after read couple of lines...
Comparing Tegra 3 with the other SoC on the Tegra 3 optimized titles was interesting, but it comes to the wrong conclusion and recommendation.
The vast majority of the games available on the Google Play store are NOT Tegra optimized, and the Tegra 3 GPU is the slowest of the bunch.
Why not testing the most graphically intensive games, such as Asphalt 7, ME Infiltrator, Wild Blood?
Also you could have been researching a bit better, Shadowgun for example is also available on the Samsung store with SGS III optimizations.
marketing.