[kinda PC-like gaming now possible on iPads] First iPad game with mouse+kb support emerges

[saltycaramel]

EDIT: the title used to contain a goofy clickbait “RIP PCMR?” (inspired by the video below) part that I have now edited to avoid controversy

 

Summary

An iPad game (Pascal’s Wager) has been updated to support keyboard and mouse using the new features introduced in the last few months on iPadOS. 

 

Video

 

My thoughts

Mouse support on iPad took us by storm less than a year ago. All of a sudden, after 10 years of no mouse support, we’re already at the point of having games with PC-like mouse+kb support. What’s next? Mouse+kb support in game streaming and cloud gaming apps? Triple A titles from the PC world landing on iPad with mouse+kb support? Will kids and college students in dorms be able to skip owning a dedicated gaming PC?

 

Sources

 

[Spotty]

PCMR: "But can it run Cyberpunk 2077?"

Apple: "... Can you?"

[captain_to_fire]

7 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

What’s next? Mouse+kb support in game streaming and cloud gaming apps? Triple A titles from the PC world landing on iPad with mouse+kb support? Will kids and college students in dorms be able to skip owning a dedicated gaming PC?

Because why not? As survey shows, people using iOS are more likely to pay for apps and in-app purchases [here] [here]

 

[SansVarnic]

13 minutes ago, Spotty said:

PCMR: "But can it run Cyberpunk 2077?"

Apple: "... Can you?"

Mouse support is just so damned innovative ... didnt you know that?!?

 

/s

[Zodiark1593]

28 minutes ago, Spotty said:

PCMR: "But can it run Cyberpunk 2077?"

Apple: "... Can you?"

Probably better than the PS4/Xbox One on account of the much superior CPU.

 

[Vishera]

A PC is not just keyboard and mouse,it is about modularity and performance.

Even my GTX 1660 easily beats any Apple SOC out there,the difference in graphics performance is huge.

And Apple's best is not enough.

 

Apple products lost all the modularity they used to have.

[Vishera]

4 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Probably better than the PS4/Xbox One on account of the much superior CPU.

It's not just a CPU,it's a SOC.

Anyway Nvidia's SOCs are really good,especially when it comes to graphics (The Nintendo Switch is using one).

[Prodigy_Smit]

2 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Apple products lost all the modularity they used to have.

Since when do phones and tablets of any company have modularity?

[Zodiark1593]

1 minute ago, Vishera said:

It's not just a CPU,it's a SOC.

Anyway Nvidia's SOCs are really good,especially when it comes to graphics (The Nintendo Switch is using one).

The SoC in the Xbox One and PS4 uses the AMD Jaguar CPU. Pretty much Atom competitors. Apple’s CPUs are more comparable to Intel’s big cores. The GPU in the base PS4 is probably still more powerful though than the A12Z and A14. 
 

Regarding the Switch, while I like the Tegra X1, I feel Nintendo’s choice to keep the Cortex A57 CPUs at 1 GHz harmed it a bit in more advanced titles like Doom. 

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

The SoC in the Xbox One and PS4 uses the AMD Jaguar CPU.

That is not a SOC,since it only contain two CPUs and one GPU per unit.

[saltycaramel]

For context, I’ll add the probable specs of the new iPad Pro ~13” coming out in the next few months

Display

- 12.9” 4:3 

- 2732x2048

- 120Hz variable refresh (24Hz-120Hz)

- DCI-P3 color space

- miniLED backlight for OLED-like blacks

CPU

- 8 core (4 big + 4 little)

- kinda like the M1 but in a thinner thermal envelope, in other words still very fast 

GPU

- again think the M1 but with less cooling

- probably similar to a 1050 Ti in benchmarks (e.g. GFXBench Aztec Ruin High 1440p ~70fps)

RAM

- 6GB or maybe 8GB like the base M1? 

SSD

- extremely fast, M1-like

- 128GB to 1TB

Misc

- usb-c or maybe this will be the first iPad with Thunderbolt4/Usb4? (given that it’s the M1 little brother)

- Wifi 6 

- 5G optional

- 240Hz-polling pencil input

- FaceID authentication 

- iPhone-quality front and back camera

- LIDAR for A/R and ambient scanning

- Spatial Audio for movie watching when paired with Airpods Pro or Airpods Max

- Fanless and highly efficient

- always-on and instant-on (press the space bar, FaceID scans your face, you’re in)

- while not 0, reduced risk of malware

- full system backup in the cloud

 

Price: starting at 999$ (probably 1099$ for decent storage) 

Price of the magnetic keyboard base: 349$

 

So we’re looking at 1450$ for this 13” “iPad Laptop” with decent storage and laptop-like cantilever backlit keyboard. 
 

Is that competitive (with all that stuff, including the “Misc” section) with a 1450$ 13” PC laptop offering? Or at least tempting?

[Vishera]

14 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

Is that competitive (with all that stuff, including the “Misc” section) with a 1450$ 13” PC laptop offering? Or at least tempting?

Not even close,RTX 2060 laptops will beat it no problem in gaming.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

Triple A titles from the PC world landing on iPad with mouse+kb support?

Mobile versions of the games sure, some of those already exist though. But maybe they'll at least start to be less cut down or not actually a totally different game, looking at you Tomb Raider mobile games lol.

[Arika]

i wonder if we should tell OP that this has existed on android for....at least 2 years natively and 6 years using a variety of different methods?

[leadeater]

37 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Not even close,RTX 2060 laptops will beat it no problem in gaming.

I think the problem here is that the application acceleration support and performance being so great makes the GPUs Apple have look at lot better than they actually are for things like 3D gaming. While they are easily on the upper end for that but in gaming not even the M1 is half the performance of a 1660Ti and just over half the performance of a 1650, it's around an RX 560X but slightly better at higher resolutions than that.

 

For the right price an iPad Pro and KB+Mouse with M1 equivalent performance would be a fine device to play at least a good number of games on however it won't be the right price and even a MacBook Air would likely be a better option. Should really only be buying an iPad for the benefit of it being an iPad. 

 

Thing is you can get a laptop with an RTX 2060 in it for $700 now, if you want to play games you'd be a fool to pay more for an iPad with Keyboard and Mouse for overwhelming inferior gaming performance. Forget $1500 comparisons, those laptops are in a totally different class when it comes to gaming.

[Vishera]

21 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I think the problem here is that the application acceleration support and performance being so great makes the GPUs Apple have look at lot better than they actually are for things like 3D gaming. While they are easily on the supper end for that in gaming not even the M1 is half the performance of a 1660Ti and just over half the performance of a 1650, it's around an RX 560X but slightly better at higher resolutions than that.

 

For the right price an iPad Pro and KB+Mouse with M1 equivalent performance would be a fine device to play at least a good number of games on however it won't be the right price and even a MacBook Air would likely be a better option. Should really only be buying an iPad for the benefit of it being an iPad. 

 

Thing is you can get a laptop with an RTX 2060 in it for $700 now, if you want to play games you'd be a fool to more for an iPad with Keyboard and Mouse for overwhelming inferior gaming performance.

Seems like this topic was written with a bias,considering that OP genuinely thought that keyboard and mouse support in games will make the iPad better than a PC for gaming.

Also looking at OPs activity in the profile,OP tend to talk and comment,on and about Apple products.

There is also the title: "[RIP PCMR?]"

[AndreiArgeanu]

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

Is that competitive (with all that stuff, including the “Misc” section) with a 1450$ 13” PC laptop offering? Or at least tempting?

Not in any way shape or from, the iPad has a severe lack of compatibility with desktop applications and is left with mostly mobile apps, also any older or niche software that anyone might be using on their current x86 windows machine is instantly incompatible with that iPad and highly unlikely that will ever be, not to mention the lack of customization, like you're basically stuck with iPad OS meaning that after 5 years of support or so, your iPad will most likely stop getting support for application and installing a different OS won't be an option. And again, the most important thing is the lack of app support, sure it's powerful, but there are barely any games to play that can take advantage of it, and when it comes to desktop applications on an x86 laptop and a mac you have access to the endless library of x86 applications, the iPad Pro won't even do emulation.

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

- full system backup in the cloud

That is only if you have a iCloud subscription because 5GB isn't enough for even the base model 128gb.

 

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

- probably similar to a 1050 Ti in benchmarks (e.g. GFXBench Aztec Ruin High 1440p ~70fps)

The M1 mac is already behind a 1050ti in benchmarks, and the APU in the iPad will be even farther behind in that regard. Regardless, there are barely any games that even get close to desktop quality titles.

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

- Spatial Audio for movie watching when paired with Airpods Pro or Airpods Max

Laptops support Dolby Atmos and 7.1 surround with the potentially hundreds of headphones and earphones that have the supporting technology.

 

[saltycaramel]

21 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Seems like this topic was written with a bias,considering that OP genuinely thought that keyboard and mouse support in games will make the iPad better than a PC for gaming.

Also looking at OPs activity in the profile,OP tend to talk and comment,on and about Apple products.

There is also the title: "[RIP PCMR?]"

 

Happy 2021 to you too, lol.

 

Sorry for the clickbaity title, itself quoting the preview picture of the youtube video.

 

We’ll see in 10 years if x86 PCs will go the way of Flash. (dead 10 years after Apple dropping it in iPads and SJ writing the famous “Thoughts on Flash” letter)

 

But I digress, this thread was mostly about the beginning of a new chapter in iPad gaming, objectively this opens new grounds. The rest is just speculation and won’t happen overnight. If people get excited about cloud gaming, I have every right to speculate that some kid/teen/freshmen may decide to use an iPad as its main and only machine, gaming  included.

[saltycaramel]

56 minutes ago, Arika S said:

i wonder if we should tell OP that this has existed on android for....at least 2 years natively and 6 years using a variety of different methods?

The year of Android tablets worth buying over the iPad will be the same year of desktop Linux finally making it. 

[leadeater]

16 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

If people get excited about cloud gaming

Not on this forum they don't 

 

17 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

We’ll see in 10 years if x86 PCs will go the way of Flash.

I'd stake my life x86 will be just fine in 10 years. The Flash situation is vastly different thing and less complicated to migrate way from, and basically everyone wanted to and were/had developed alternatives.

 

22 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

But I digress, this thread was mostly about the beginning of a new chapter in iPad gaming, objectively this opens new grounds

Certainly does add value to the iPads, adding more new things it can do is great. I'd be more interested in console emulation on it though, like I have a PS Vita and can play classic games directly on that or using PS Remote but the screen size sucks so I have hardly used it since I got it. iPad and BT/wireless controller would be sweet for portable/holiday gaming.

[Master Disaster]

40 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

 

Happy 2021 to you too, lol.

 

Sorry for the clickbaity title, itself quoting the preview picture of the youtube video.

 

We’ll see in 10 years if x86 PCs will go the way of Flash. (dead 10 years after Apple dropping it in iPads and SJ writing the famous “Thoughts on Flash” letter)

Wait, you think that Apple has the power to kill off the X86 architecture simply by dropping support for it?

 

Can I have some of what you're smoking please.

40 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

 

But I digress, this thread was mostly about the beginning of a new chapter in iPad gaming, objectively this opens new grounds. The rest is just speculation and won’t happen overnight. If people get excited about cloud gaming, I have every right to speculate that some kid/teen/freshmen may decide to use an iPad as its main and only machine, gaming  included.

True but we also have the right to disagree and as long as mobile game devs focus more on squeezing every last penny out of their customers over making fun and compelling games, mobile gaming WILL NEVER replace desktop/console gaming.

[Video Beagle]

1 hour ago, CircleTech said:

But if I throw an iPad at you, the worst I can do is give you a bruise. 

not if you throw it right. (or if you sharpen up the edges a bit).

 

I think @saltycaramel might be getting a little carried away with predictions based on M1racles™ , but this is a pretty cool development to see.

 

4 hours ago, like_ooh_ahh said:

Because why not? As survey shows, people using iOS are more likely to pay for apps and in-app purchases

I wonder, though, how much of that is because you can't sideload on iOS, you can't thus get games from..ahem..alternate sources.

[captain_to_fire]

15 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

I wonder, though, how much of that is because you can't sideload on iOS, you can't thus get games from..ahem..alternate sources.

Unless your name is Epic Games, those who would really want to port a AAA title to the App Store will probably just say "suck it up" to the 30% tax from in-app purchases for the reason that owners of iPads are more likely to pay for an in-app purchase.

 

Maybe not now and probably not by a lot of titles will be seen on the iPad. The AS Macs on the other hand will probably see some AAA titles if the rumors are indeed true that the 2021 16" MBP will have 8 performance cores and double the GPU cores and the 2021 iMac will indeed get 32 performance cores. Because AS Macs can run applications outside of the Mac App Store, game devs can just recompile and optimize for AS and they can bypass Apple's 30% tax because it's a Mac, not an iPhone or an iPad.

[Video Beagle]

15 minutes ago, like_ooh_ahh said:

Unless your name is Epic Games, those who would really want to port a AAA title to the App Store will probably just say "suck it up" to the 30% tax from in-app purchases for the reason that owners of iPads are more likely to pay for an in-app purchase.

Not those alternate sources....think more sea faring, peg legged ones

[Jet_ski]

59 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

MI wonder, though, how much of that is because you can't sideload on iOS, you can't thus get games from..ahem..alternate sources.

The graph is worldwide which makes interpreting it a bit difficult. There are several regions where Apple has almost no smartphone market share. And in those markets people typically spend less on apps. For instance iPhone market share in India is 3.5% and so the android users there bring down the average app spending.

 

If people could side load apps, assuming they don’t pirate, the difference would be that the revenue would go to someone other than Apple.