[OT comments deleted]
Yea, tablet CPU's and GPU's have come a long way since back then. Current Tegra 3 tech provides tablets with a 4 core CPU which clocks in at around 1,4 Ghz. And if I must remind you, Europa Universalis 3 has a recomended system specs of 1,6 Ghz Dual core. Tegra 3 nearly doubles that. Tegra 3 also supports OpenGL 2.0 which is needed to run Europa Universalis 3.
How exactly can they not run it? The only problem with the conversion of platforms in my eyes is that they need to port the engine it runs on onto the Ipad and Android.
That's the most technically stupid thing I've read on the Internet in a long time. You clearly know all the marketing from Nvidia, but nothing technical about Tegra 3.
First Tegra 3 is not a 4-plus-1 CPU, it's a 1-plus-4 processor. That means that it's a single core CPU with 4 smaller cores optimised for threadable workload, that only get used when the main core gets enough of a workload to realise that it's better to share it with some or all of the idle cores. There's obviously a lag hit with this arquitecture, but aparently it's well engineered that current applications don't appear to suffer from it.
Second, there's something called MIPS which means Million of Instructions Per Second, and ARM-based processors are no where NEAR the performance in MIPS compared to the x86 Intel Atom and the x64 (ie, already 64-bits) AMD Bobcat processors found in netbooks. In other words, Tegra 4 (four) could run at 10 GHz that I bet it still wouldn't reach the level of MIPS of a modern x64 processor.
The gap is definitly closing between ARM and Intel/AMD, but ARM is still focused on power consumption, which they won't sacrifice for more performance until technology evolves enough to let them put more transistors consuming the same or less power than previous generations of processors.
"Would you buy Europa Universalis if it was on the Ipad?" is the title of the thread, and the OP asked people who wouldn't want it why not.
I personally wouldn't buy it because I waste enough time playing the game as it is. I don't need to take it with me everywhere I go.
Ha, you'd be the first to buy the game and play it whenever you could!
But what if you want to play during your honeymooon!
Exactly! You should have just enough time to annex Granada while she's shaving her legs! Why waste time watching TV in a language you don't understand a thing?
What is this, the 4th time I'm telling you. The Tegra 3 processor is a quad core processor running at 1,4 Ghz. Double the amount you say Europa Universalis 3 needs.
There you go again. What you say means nothing when actually converting into technical terms. AndrewT explains it very well below, but apparently you either didn't read it or didn't understand it or didn't believe it. Your loss.
GHz alone doesn't mean anything. It's not even the same type of processor. It's a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) processor, not a CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) processor as are used in desktops.
Even if the CPU wouldn't be the problem the game would have to be ported in the way that PC games have to be ported to console. And the whole interface would have to be redesigned to be used with touch interface.
It would be like the console versions of Starcraft, years later, with lesser graphics and awkward controls. Who wants that?
Precisely. BUT I would say that something is better than nothing. Starcraft years later and yadda yadda yadda is better than just having Angry Birds and too simple games that just feel like those dumb Flash games that you can play for free on the Internet. I want a real game on my Android smartphone. The resolution is starting to show up, the new smartphones start to be at least 720p in the high-end models, so we're getting there.
As repeatedly stated above, the number of CPU cores and their Ghz are irrelevant. The PROCESSING POWER of the CPU and GPU in a tablet is not up to that in an everyday desktop or laptop, not remotely. EU3 DW requires vertexshader 3.0, pixelshader 3.0 and 128mb of video memory, and on top of that the CPU offloads much on its data processing onto the GPU. Show me any tablet that comes close to those specs.
Precisely. Andrew saves the thread. Thank you.
I would add one more thing: the Microsoft-proprietary DirectX Runtime files. All clausewitz games are - to the best of my knowledge - completely dependent on them and won't work without them. Therefore they have to be licensed for any other operating system other than Windows for x86/x64. I see that being a problem for Android and iOS. I don't think Microsoft allows games to be used on those OSs, I don't even know if they can be made compatible.
It could be that we can only see clausewitz games in a mobile phone/tablet in a mobile Windows 8 for ARM, which I doubt Microsoft would be interested in providing enough backwards compatibility for the ARM version. Time will tell.
Exactly the opposite is true; a mouse is a much finer control device than touch is. Imagine trying to click on the "split army" button with your finger, it's about 3 pixels across. Look at all the screen elements on an EU3 screen. How are you going to make every one of those big enough that a fat finger can unambiguously select it on a 7" screen? You can't.
The only "certainly" about it is that it is certainly not possible, as tablets stand today. I give it 3 years at least, maybe 5.
So, two questions arise. Either we wait several years to have a fairly current PC reduced to a tablet dimension so that we can install EU3 as it is on it, or we wait several years for Paradox to develop a EU3-ish Grand Strategy game for tablets and smartphones in a more near future.
As a user who is tired of not having decent games on my Android smartphone, I just can't wait to have a good empire-building Grand Strategy game as soon as possible.
*Hint hint Paradox, hint hint.*
The biggest problem in my eyes is converting the engine to support the iOS and Android OS. The engine is made for windows (please note if it also works for Linux and Mac) and thus many of the coding and other features aren't available on the iOS. But if they could convert the engine. They could easily make games for those platforms, as long as they use the same engine!
No, not easily. That's actually the hardest part. The clausewitz had its first game released in what, 2007? It's 2012 and both Victoria 2 A House Divided and Crusader Kings 2 got released based on the same engine. I'm pretty sure a few more games will be milk... ahem... built from that engine.
The point is, you just can't expect a new engine to be built to acommodate the so many limitations present in tablets and smartphones just because the screen resolution is already met. It's one tick on a very long list of pre-requisites.
OT, but this is in fact becoming an issue with large resolutions screens. Why on earth can't the interface scale a little bit? There so much room, so tiny, tiny buttons...
Ahhhh an excelent question! From my understanding, the truth is that th
e clausewitz engine isn't trully full 3D, which is an immense shame! The text is in 2D, so it doesn't scale with the resolution. Several other elements of the screen also don't scale with resolution, meaning they're also in 2D. EU3 isn't really playable on an Eyefinity setup (like 3 monitors) because it can't handle the screen extension.
I suspect it's a DirectX 9 limitation. One can only hope they can spare one or two programmers to brainstorm and investigate what they can do to upgrade clausewitz to deal with issues like this, and hopefully make it DirectX 11 compatible where possible.
Actually not, my problem is the interface filling 3/5 of the screen, not it being too small.
Which I bet it's all the 2D stuff in the game, which is not scalling down. I'm sure a cap would have to be programmed to prevent the text from becoming too small or too large depending on the resolution. This one is not an easy problem to solve, I'm sure.
And you explained every single bit of your answer.
I believe this is what he meant behind the sentence. C'mon, you understand where I was getting into - The question whether going into the tablet business with grand-strategy titles is profitable.
It's not just "EU3 for iPad", it's also HOI, CK, and other non PE games of the same type.
I think the iPad could do a lot better than just Angry Birds.
I absolutely agree with you. I won't buy an iPad, but that doesn't mean that I don't want Paradox's games on my smartphone. Also, with Windows 8 coming all future laptops should have a touchscreen by default, and a laptop without a keyboard becomes a tablet. Simple as that. We'll see quite a few people using a desktop keyboard and mouse connected to their tablets, just as we'll see a lot of people leaving their laptops behind because they're happy to just use their fingers to type and click. With all those screens becoming touch-screens it won't take many years before desktop monitors and even your Plasma TVs to become touch-screens as well.
So, having Paradox developing an operating system-agnostic touch-based Grand Strategy game or four is not a bad idea at all, instead of hoping that either Windows or GOG (Good Old Games) will support their games in the future.
eh?? I beg to disagree.. All games on clausewitz except for EU3 currently runs on multiple cores.
Any chance we could have EU3 taking advantage of the quad core goodness? I'm sure you've tested something by now how much cool (or not) EU3 would be with the AI using 4 cores.