Having spent the bulk of my handheld gaming time with the Steam Deck, it was a bit of a shock last year to discover that PC gaming isn’t just possible on Android phones and retro handhelds, it’s powering on in leaps and bounds.

I’ve seen so many different games running beautifully, from older AAA titles like Tomb Raider and Prey (2017), all the way to more demanding ones like RDR2 and even Cyberpunk 2077 (no surprise that the last one is still an imperfect experience, as things stand…but it is possible!).

GameNative lets you play all manner of PC games on Android from GOG, Epic, and Steam.

I reached out to my friend Utkarsh, who is the lead developer of GameNative to ask if he wanted to share his story and let me interview him.

His background in development and gaming through to how GameNative started and is built, all the way to what the future might bring for his program. This is an interview on what I think might be at least part of the future of handheld gaming, and I hope you find this interesting:

https://gardinerbryant.com/i-genuinely-feel-gamenative-could-replace-handheld-pcs/

  • darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    Tbh, I think we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns on video game graphics. Do we really need games to be any more photorealistic and power hungry than they are now?

    Need? No. Want? Absolutely.

    There are two interesting articles that have shaped my view on this:

    I’m not hung up on who is right about 1000Hz vs 1800Hz, only that >=1000Hz at >=1000fps is the goal. We’re a long way away from that when the best gaming CPU can only manage ~600fps in CS2 at 1080p.

    One of the digitalfoundry guys got hands-on time with a prototype monitor at CES and played a game at >500fps and while he couldn’t really convey what it was like, it was clear that the experience was very different than even playing on 360Hz displays.

    We’re at least 2-3 hardware generations away from being able to push >1000fps with relatively simple games and much further away for AAA games. I think it’s something worth looking forward to.

    • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      No, people aren’t going to want 1000+fps in games. As someone else pointed out in the thread, 4k 60fps is <5% of builds in Steam hardware surveys. Going even higher framerates just adds more and more cost, with reduced returns.

      If you could build a system that goes from 500fps to 1000fps, you’re theoretically reducing latency by 1ms (it’ll most certainly be less though). But how much more expensive is the 1000fps build? Based on tech trends the past few years, that’s probably going to be a lot more expensive, since architectural improvements of chips has slowed down over the past few years. Right now, Nvidia’s just pushing more and more power into their cards to get more performance, because efficiency has plateau’d

      Add to that, the human eye only sees up to 500fps in ideal conditions. Why would you pay a bunch of money for extra framea that you physicall can’t see?

      • darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        14 hours ago

        Add to that, the human eye only sees up to 500fps in ideal conditions. Why would you pay a bunch of money for extra framea that you physicall can’t see?

        Eyes don’t work in fps and the 500fps limit is a myth that is shown to be false in the linked articles. The need for >1000fps is more about how our brains perceive motion and getting as close as possible to eliminating judder.

        Also, talking about costs isn’t really relevant when we’re talking about future tech. What is aspirational today will be the norm tomorrow. We’ll get there first with upscalers and mfg and who knows what else is in the pipeline to improve the rendering process.