Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The Droid is also an excellent test device to simulate the capabilities of many of the cheaper
Chinese handsets that flood the Asian markets, and also reach some Western markets due to
their low price point.
Cutting-Edge Devices
Honeycomb introduced very solid tablet support, and it's become apparent that tablets are a
choice gaming platform. With the introduction of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip in early 2011 devices,
both handsets and tablets started to receive fast, dual-core CPUs, and even more powerful
GPUs have become the norm. It's difficult, when writing a book, to discuss what's modern
because it changes so quickly, but at the time of this writing, it's becoming very common for
devices to have ultra-fast processors all around, tons of storage, lots of RAM, high-resolution
screens, ten-point multitouch support, and even 3D stereoscopic display in a few models.
The most common GPUs in Android devices are the PowerVR series, by Imagination
Technologies, Snapdragon with integrated Adreno GPUs, by Qualcomm, the Tegra series, by
NVIDIA, and the Mali line built into many Samsung chips. The PowerVR currently comes in a
few flavors: 530, 535, 540, and 543. Don't be fooled by the small increments between model
numbers; the 540 is an absolutely blazing-fast GPU compared to its predecessors, and it's
shipped in the Samsung Galaxy S series, as well as the Google Galaxy Nexus. The 543 is
currently equipped in the newest iPad and PlayStation Vita and is several times faster than
the 540! While it isn't currently installed in any major Android devices, we have to assume that
the 543 will arrive in new tablets soon. The older 530 is in the Droid, and the 535 is scattered
across a few models. Perhaps the most commonly used GPU is Qualcomm's, found in nearly
every HTC device. The Tegra GPU is aimed at tablets, but it is also in several handsets. The
Mali GPU is being used by many of the newer handsets by Samsung, replacing the formerly
used PowerVR chips. All four of these competing chip architectures are very comparable and
very capable.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (see Figure 1-5 ) is a good representative of the latest Android
tablet offerings. It sports the following features:
 
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