Improve mobile gaming hardware

[Brian Paradis]

I have an idea but don't know where to share it besides here to hopefully get some developers to think outside the box - I just watched LTT's video "Your new iPhone can play AAA games" and it got me thinking... What if there were a piece of hardware that fit most flagship phones containing USB-C/DP, controller functions, active cooling, internal battery, and a hefty graphics card (Nvidia?) that ports the video back to the phone's display?? I understand you'll still be carrying around extra hardware but my thoughts are to decrease power consumption and heat transfer while utilizing the least amount of redundant hardware. Thoughts? 

[RONOTHAN##]

So basically a Steam Deck with extra steps?

 

There's a couple problems with this type of thing. The biggest one is just the GPU requirement. Getting a GPU much more powerful than an AMD APU is not really feasible, mostly coming down to there isn't enough space for it. If the GPU isn't going to be much more powerful than a Steam Deck, then there isn't really a point when you can already get a controller attachment for phones from companies like Razer. 

[Eigenvektor]

You would first need to convince Google to add external GPU support into Android. Then you'd need to convince phone manufacturers to support it in hardware (and not remove software support in their variant of Android). Then you would need to get mobile game developers on board to make use of the extra hardware. Unless that results in more sales, there's no real incentive for them to do the extra work.

 

And the hardware itself couldn't be that powerful, since you're constrained to roughly Steam Deck size. Except you now need to also be able to fit your phone into it. Which means you're left with less space for the actual hardware than the Deck has, so you'd end up with lower performance.

[BrandonLatzig]

I gotta ask
Why do you need your phone to play these games? Games that admittedly, NEED YOUR ATTENTION, these arent games you can play for 5 minutes then put away
at that point, why not just have a switch or something?

[Smithfield]

On 12/19/2023 at 10:20 PM, BrandonLatzig said:

I gotta ask
Why do you need your phone to play these games? Games that admittedly, NEED YOUR ATTENTION, these arent games you can play for 5 minutes then put away
at that point, why not just have a switch or something?

There are people who do not play crap games that you play for a few minutes then realize you wasted five minutes. There are people who play games like Minecraft or Persona, games that require your attention.

 

Although I still agree that adding external GPU support to Android is dumb, although I still want to see it happen anyway. There are those who use external GPUs on laptops for virtual machines, and I suspect very few people will do that on Android.

 

To some people, buying a Switch is not a real solution as it the Switch cannot take a SIM card. Some people just want one device that Only Does Everything™.

[BrandonLatzig]

3 hours ago, Smithfield said:

Some people just want one device that Only Does Everything™.

well then you are either gonna need to fork over serious dough for such a device or expect things that wont be great.
A phone isn't designed like a game controller, so the best game on mobile right now
Is Bloons probably