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iPad Pro AAA games on iPad Pro

jonnyb098 said:
My advice is to give up this pipe dream as a customer and just get a dedicated console if you want HIGH END gaming. And for Apple to stop advertising the iPad or any iOS device as a AAA console competitor. Its not. You will never see GTA V on an iPad even though its capable of running it at 60FPS with zero hiccups.

Is it possible ? Sure. And it has been for the last couple years. The processor and graphics have blown the raw power of the switch away for a while. The problem is development. It requires Apple handing over a tiny bit of control to the game devs and thats something they wont do. Plus the hardware/controller issue is just too big of a mess for game companies to want to deal with.

I dont see this changing anytime soon. Also people are not going to shell out 20, 30, 40 , 60 bucks for a game like I would on a Switch. Free to play and premium gaming are not two things that go together. The whole model is just not gonna work for Apple or its customers. People whined like babies back when the app store first came out and fairly decent games cost $7-10 and so now most games are free to play with loads of micro transactions. iOS has become the ultimate casual gaming device and thats how it will remain. It carved out its place in the gaming community and its not going to change. You can thank Apple and yourselves for that. If it doesnt make much sense its because it doesn't. People are irrational creatures that will spend $5 per day on starbucks and hundreds per year in gems and other micro transactions but were scoffing at a one time $7 iOS game.
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I mostly agree with you. Between Apple’s 30% cut, the well-established app economy that emphasizes freemium or very cheap apps, and their strict limitations on content (which would totally prevent GTA V type games from ever making it to the App Store), I don’t see how we will get Xbox equivalent games on iOS devices.

That said, Apple seems to be up to something when it comes to gaming. The new iPad Pros are crazy-fast, including the GPU. It’s way more than one needs for casual gaming. The sensors and cameras seem to be overkill for memojis and FaceID alone. Based on the rumors and hardware clues, they are clearly working on moving AR forward, but that can’t be the only aim - by itself the usefulness and long-term appeal of AR is highly questionable.

I’m not sure where this goes. Perhaps the next iOS rollout will include some gaming accessories and in-house developed games? Who knows.

But for now, everything you’ve said is true. I’ve watched console ports like Minecraft and Disney Infinity die on the Apple TV. I’ve seen a lot of failed efforts and lost developer interest when it comes to premium games. It’s a risky move for a developer to jump in with a premium game at this time. Maybe down the road...
 
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ILowry82 said:
Does anyone know if you can use the new iPad Pro as a display for either PS4 or Xbox? Either streaming/remotely or direct via usb-c to HMDI?
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Didn’t sony have some kind of app for pc and mac that would let you remote play ps4? We need that for iPad with controller support
 
Use this code to get $10 off Shadow for a month. It would be $20 to check it out to see if you like it
IVAIUO4S
 
thunng8 said:
Where is your evidence of throttling? I’ve never seen any games throttle on my iPad Pro.
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Considering how smart phones and tablets work, it will for a truly demanding game. Like If someone tried to run something like the Xbox One S version of Red Dead Redemption 2 on it, it will no doubt throttle in minutes without some kind of cooling. It will just keep getting hotter with something constantly pushing it to the max. The iPad is designed to have high work loads like that for a very short amount of time.

The most demanding game that I know of is Fortnite on the iPad, and that runs and looks worse than Switch version even though technically the iPad is stronger.

Edit: oh and by throttle, I mean CPU/GPU throttle where it downclocks/makes them slower in order to keep them below a temperature. So once it reaches a certain temp, it will make the games run worse.
 
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Sunshoopa said:
Considering how smart phones and tablets work, it will for a truly demanding game. Like If someone tried to run something like the Xbox One S version of Red Dead Redemption 2 on it, it will no doubt throttle in minutes without some kind of cooling. It will just keep getting hotter with something constantly pushing it to the max. The iPad is designed to have high work loads like that for a very short amount of time.

The most demanding game that I know of is Fortnite on the iPad, and that runs and looks worse than Switch version even though technically the iPad is stronger.

Edit: oh and by throttle, I mean CPU/GPU throttle where it downclocks/makes them slower in order to keep them below a temperature. So once it reaches a certain temp, it will make the games run worse.
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Fornite is hardly the most demanding game. It looks awful on any platform imo. Briefly played it and it doesn’t seem to throttle at high settings. Can’t really say for sure since I only played briefly and long since deleted it.

On my iPad Pro 2017 the best looking game is grid autosport (it is many times better looking than fornite) and it doesn’t throttle as far as I can tell. Solid 60fps for hours.
 
thunng8 said:
Fornite is hardly the most demanding game. It looks awful on any platform imo. Briefly played it and it doesn’t seem to throttle at high settings. Can’t really say for sure since I only played briefly and long since deleted it.

On my iPad Pro 2017 the best looking game is grid autosport (it is many times better looking than fornite) and it doesn’t throttle as far as I can tell. Solid 60fps for hours.
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Fortnite might not look that great, but what Fortnite is doing is very GPU intensive. It has to keep a large view distance and keep foliage looking good for gameplay reasons. Grid auto sport (it does look good btw) is a track racing game thus can optimize looks over gameplay for the same power. (Also can’t find anything confirming it’s 60 FPS? Most likely 30 FPS)

Also that game ran on the 360 hardware, it’s nowhere near the Xbox One S.

Edit: also want to add that you won’t be seeing intentional throttling usually. They optimize the games so it won’t throttle the iPad.
 
Tried playing WoW today with jumpdesktop and the Citrix mouse. Worked pretty well other than operating the camera which was terrible. It wasn’t as smooth as the Shadow video posted up thread either but would be usable in a pinch.
 
Sunshoopa said:
Fortnite might not look that great, but what Fortnite is doing is very GPU intensive. It has to keep a large view distance and keep foliage looking good for gameplay reasons. Grid auto sport (it does look good btw) is a track racing game thus can optimize looks over gameplay for the same power. (Also can’t find anything confirming it’s 60 FPS? Most likely 30 FPS)

Also that game ran on the 360 hardware, it’s nowhere near the Xbox One S.

Edit: also want to add that you won’t be seeing intentional throttling usually. They optimize the games so it won’t throttle the iPad.
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It’s 60fps on iPad Pro 2017 or higher. As far as I can tell it never dips below that.

Can’t compare with the Xbox 360 version as it runs at much higher resolution, frame rate and other graphical settings compared to that version. Having said that it still doesn’t look quite as good as the latest forza.
 
I’m a huge gamer but I rarely play games on my iPad these days. First off a lot of games on iOS are ruined by there free to play nature, when a game tells me I have to stop playing because my energy meter is empty or I have to wait hours for some action to complete then I’ll simply stop playing altogether.

Then there’s the type of games, I would only play games that are suited to the touch screen so no fps etc using virtual buttons on screen. If Apple themselves would release a fully compatible and customisable controller for games that aren’t suited to touch controls that would be great. Also it’s very rare I’ll see a game on iOS that doesn’t have a better alternative on console or pc, my iPad doesn’t leave the house as I don’t consider it a portable device like my Swit

Lastly the battery on the iPad, when I’m addicted to a game I can play it a lot, like thousands of hours. Some high powered graphics intensive game will wipe out its battery in a few hours so I’d be recharging the device throughout the day like I do with my Switch. I’ve just had to upgrade a perfectly fine Air 2 because the battery doesn’t hold enough charge now, a lot of that battery degradation has come from me hammering games the first year I had it.
 
I think the new iPad Pro has the potential to go head to with for example the Nintendo Switch, but it is up to Apple to unlock that potential.

I think a few things would need to happen:
  • Apple would need to actively work with games publishers to port successful games to iOS, not just wait for publishers to do it themselves and then charge them 30% of their revenue for the privilege.
  • Curate the store to promote these games instead of micro-transaction crap.
  • Apple should release their own controller or license, promote and sell other controllers in their store (e.g. work with 8BitDo) as officially supported controllers, because more complex games are just too awkward to play with touch controls.
  • Create graphic API's that are only supported on the more expensive iPad Pro's so that it will get exclusive AAA content.
None of this is likely to happen I'm afraid (or maybe they're already doing some of this and I'm not aware of it).
 
thunng8 said:
It’s 60fps on iPad Pro 2017 or higher. As far as I can tell it never dips below that.

Can’t compare with the Xbox 360 version as it runs at much higher resolution, frame rate and other graphical settings compared to that version. Having said that it still doesn’t look quite as good as the latest forza.
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Is it? on my iPad Pro 2018 its still locked at 30fps
 
Cloysterpeteuk said:
I’m a huge gamer but I rarely play games on my iPad these days. First off a lot of games on iOS are ruined by there free to play nature, when a game tells me I have to stop playing because my energy meter is empty or I have to wait hours for some action to complete then I’ll simply stop playing altogether.
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There's one called Catapult King that had a timer AFTER I paid for it. I couldn't believe it!
 
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