Epic Citadel (future of gaming)

[booman]

Here is an example of the future of gaming!
Epic Citadel is a browser based benchmark with beautiful graphics and detail.
Walk around a stunning castle in First Person and take in all the eye candy while you stroll down streets, over a country-side and through a church.

Epic Citadel

The Unreal engine utilizes Java and HTML5 to communincate with your video card and I see a lot of possibilities with browser-based gaming.

Obviously we will still need a good video card, but as tablets can render these amazing visuals it makes me believe one day my desktop will be obsolete.

Note: Make sure to use Firefox in Linux because Chromium isn't supporting Unreal yet.

[Aedan]

I'm not sure about tablets running the HTML5 demo - so far the devices I've tried have failed to be able to run it. It's also a lot slower in the browser (around 50% performance drop) than native.

[booman]

Agreed, but when tablets can run this quality of video... I'll have to re-think my whole LAN setup.

Which tablets have you tried?

By the way, I think there is an Epic Citadel app for IOS devices. Probably optmized for their hardware.

[Aedan]

I haven't tried an iOS device although I suspect it won't work. I have tried both Android and BlackBerry devices with no joy. My suspicion is that it's down to memory usage. On Windows, Firefox peaked at a working set size of 2GB. For most non-x86 tablets, that's just simply more memory than they have; no swap means that it's a no-go.

In terms of GPU, there is a large performance difference between tablet GPUs and desktop GPUs. Looking at something like GFXBench 2.7 T-Rex HD Offscreen and you can see that a high end tablet GPU (like iPad 4) is still less than 3% of the performance of something like a GTX 660 Ti. Even an integrated GPU like Intel's HD Graphics 4000 is pretty much 10 times (!!) the performance of the iPad 4.

Sadly it gets worse, as the benchmark I used above is fixed at 1080p offscreen rendering. Back in the real world, the display on an iPad 4 has a resolution of 1536 x 2048; the Nexus 10 actually hits 2560 x 1600. That's a high resolution for the low power GPU to be throwing pixels at!

I'm not saying that it won't ever happen, but there are a few good reasons why it might be a bit further off than you and I might hope. Battery life and heat dissipation might well be two reasons. If you go looking, you'll discover there are SoC out there that can't actually run the CPU/GPU at flat out for long periods of time, simply because it's not possible to get rid of the heat fast enough to prevent it being a problem.

[booman]

Thank you for confirming that my Huge Desktop with powerful video card will still have a purpose for the next 10 years.

I still worry about tablets taking over gaming some day... but for now, it sounds like there more work to do...


One more thing...
Non x86 Operating Systems do not have a swap file?

[chrisbard]

What about android tablets? My phone is old and its still able to run, I'd assume a modern android tablet would have no problem running it?

[Daniel ~]

So how are you guys benching in Citadel?

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by chrisbard

What about android tablets? My phone is old and its still able to run, I'd assume a modern android tablet would have no problem running it?

We're talking the HTML5 version here (IE, running in a web browser), not the native app.

[booman]

I'm actually talking both... of course the HTML5 will be higher quality, but if the app runs good too... Yea!

[Daniel ~]

OK then we all agree. My Desktop is just so much better and faster than anyone else's that there's absolutely no point in anyone but me even benching their machines.

I expect you all to post pictures of your various machines bowing in humble servitude before my posted benchmark...they should probably be saying nice things about my machine while they gravel and make a few excuses...like "I was just to tried" or "my mother wouldn't let me bench"

That sort of thing. Your fancy Paypal accounts won't help you here!

You can't buy your way out of this one! I shutter to think of this as "The future of gaming"

Thank you.

[booman]

Some day you'll see, believe me its a sad day for me, but I'll hold on to my large cases and over-sized video cards as long as possible.

10 years from now GPUs and CPUs will be so powerfull that all Gaming will be on a flat touch-screen. No more cases and $500 video cards.

Its coming and my 12 computers will be considered antiques. I'll be taking them to the Digital Antique Roadshow for estimates of worth.

[Daniel ~]

You'll probably get more for them if you name them...jut saying...":O}

[booman]

Name them? Just another mouth to feed... I don't want to get THAT attached

[Daniel ~]

Then just name them right before you sell them, let the next guy get attached!

[chrisbard]

So yeah for those interested in what my HTC can do with its Epic android app it says 11.6 FPS 800x480 in High Performance mode. I am curious for Aedan's BBerry result!

[booman]

Here are some user benchmarks from another forum: overclock.net
Ranges from 34fps to 50fps

Looks like IOS doesn't have an app yet.

But we are talking about HTML5 and Android app. Both are optimized differently for the respective hardware

[chrisbard]

Well here is the result with my Nexus 4, not too bad.

[booman]

Yeah, not bad at all and nice resolution