Ok, there is obviously a lot of interest surrounding this game, especially since a version became available for Snapdragon phones such as the Desire.
I think this is particularly important as Snapdragon phones are often said not to have the power to run graphic intensive games. Since NFS:Shift is one of the best looking mobile games to date, it seems like a good chance to put snapdragon to the test.
First I will quickly add, I am also unsure why the .apk file most people are using to run this on the desire seems to need so much access to your phone. I have been using taskmanager to close the app totally once I finish playing, just in case.
Also, we should take into account that this is not the official version of NFS:Shift, it appears to have been modified by a third party to work with snapdragon. The original Droid X rip would not work on phones like the Desire, Nexus 1. It will be interesting to see how the official version compares with this when it is finally released.
So, I have managed to try the game on both an iPhone (3GS) and a Desire, side by side. And here are my findings:
Framerate
The framerate on the Desire is VERY solid and I have not noticed any slowdown. The controls are therefore nice and responsive. I actually found the Desire version to run smoother than the iPhone version. The iphone version was smooth, but it could occasionally judder for no apparent reason. Strangely, whilst the framerate in game is better on the desire, on menus the iPhone seems to have the advantage, although only slight. Overall I would say a draw with perhaps a slight advantage to the Desire as menu speed is less important than gameplay speed.
Image Quality
This was interesting. I found the graphics to be sharper on the Desire, with better defined edges. The iPhone 3GS seemed to have issues rendering some items at a distance which resulted in more jaggy edges.
However, the iPhone did seem to have slightly better road textures, although everything else was like for like, including the cars.
Perhaps the only real plus the iPhone version had was that when you hit something ( a wall, another car etc) you got a nice graphical effect (screen goes black and white and contrast increases). This seems to be absent on the Desire. This might return in the official version as it seems like a strange thing to take out and I saw no evidence that the Desire could not handle it.
Overall, image quality is hard to sum up. The desire version looks cleaner and sharper, but the iPhone version has a little bit more detail on the road surface and has some cool collision effects.
Sound
The same on both.
Overall, this game compares very well to the iPhone version, which of course was designed for one hardware configuration. Most importantly, it shows the desire and other snapdragon phones CAN produce graphics that rival the best seen on the iPhone. Hopefully this can assure more people that Gaming does have a future on Android, provided Devs step up.
I think this is particularly important as Snapdragon phones are often said not to have the power to run graphic intensive games. Since NFS:Shift is one of the best looking mobile games to date, it seems like a good chance to put snapdragon to the test.
First I will quickly add, I am also unsure why the .apk file most people are using to run this on the desire seems to need so much access to your phone. I have been using taskmanager to close the app totally once I finish playing, just in case.
Also, we should take into account that this is not the official version of NFS:Shift, it appears to have been modified by a third party to work with snapdragon. The original Droid X rip would not work on phones like the Desire, Nexus 1. It will be interesting to see how the official version compares with this when it is finally released.
So, I have managed to try the game on both an iPhone (3GS) and a Desire, side by side. And here are my findings:
Framerate
The framerate on the Desire is VERY solid and I have not noticed any slowdown. The controls are therefore nice and responsive. I actually found the Desire version to run smoother than the iPhone version. The iphone version was smooth, but it could occasionally judder for no apparent reason. Strangely, whilst the framerate in game is better on the desire, on menus the iPhone seems to have the advantage, although only slight. Overall I would say a draw with perhaps a slight advantage to the Desire as menu speed is less important than gameplay speed.
Image Quality
This was interesting. I found the graphics to be sharper on the Desire, with better defined edges. The iPhone 3GS seemed to have issues rendering some items at a distance which resulted in more jaggy edges.
However, the iPhone did seem to have slightly better road textures, although everything else was like for like, including the cars.
Perhaps the only real plus the iPhone version had was that when you hit something ( a wall, another car etc) you got a nice graphical effect (screen goes black and white and contrast increases). This seems to be absent on the Desire. This might return in the official version as it seems like a strange thing to take out and I saw no evidence that the Desire could not handle it.
Overall, image quality is hard to sum up. The desire version looks cleaner and sharper, but the iPhone version has a little bit more detail on the road surface and has some cool collision effects.
Sound
The same on both.
Overall, this game compares very well to the iPhone version, which of course was designed for one hardware configuration. Most importantly, it shows the desire and other snapdragon phones CAN produce graphics that rival the best seen on the iPhone. Hopefully this can assure more people that Gaming does have a future on Android, provided Devs step up.
