Older PC games on Win8 tablets \ VOGONS

Older PC games on Win8 tablets

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First post, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-18, 21:52

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I picked up a Dell Venue 8 Pro. It's one sweet little tablet - very fast and not terribly expensive if you find it on sale. Of course I've been curious about how the new Baytrail Atom runs old 3D games... I also ran some 3DMark runs and compared to results I have stored on Futuremark's site. Look at how this handheld fan-less SOC compares to the game furnaces of old.

13DMark05                 Atom Z3740D    Athlon XP @ 2.5 GHz
2                                        (6600GT 500/600)
33DMarks                  3295           3997
4GT1 Return to Proxycon   14.6 fps       16.7 fps
5GT2 Firefly Forest       10.5 fps       11.7 fps
6GT3 Canyon Flight        14.9 fps       20.9 fps
7CPU Score                8473           3803
8CPU1                     15.13 fps      11.72 fps
9CPU2                     26.22 fps      21.72 fps
10
11
12
13
143DMark03                     Atom Z3740D              Core 2 E4400
15                                                   (Radeon 9800 Pro)
163DMarks                       4862.0                   7646.0 
17GT1 Wings of Fury              107.1 fps                249.6 fps 
18GT2 Battle of Proxycon          35.1 fps                 50.1 fps
19GT3 Troll's Lair                30.5 fps                 44.9 fps
20GT4 Mother Nature               34.8 fps                 48.0 fps
21CPU Score                      919.0 marks             1091.0 marks
22CPU 1                           75.4 fps                134.8 fps
23CPU 2                           20.9 fps                 17.2 fps
24Fill Rate (Single Tex)         829.0 tx/s              1741.8 tx/s
25Fill Rate (Multi Tex)         2156.9 tx/s              2945.6 tx/s
26Vertex Shader                   33.9 fps                 26.5 fps 
27Pixel Shader 2.0                44.2 fps                 59.4 fps
28Ragtroll                        25.1 fps                 25.2 fps

From the results of the benchmarks and some game experiences, it seems to perform not unlike a Radeon 9700 or some such. It does relatively better with more complex scenes.

CPU power is surprising but remember it is a quad core and the CPU tests seem to benefit somewhat from more cores. Still, it has amazing CPU performance I think. All of this in under 5W power consumption.

Reply 1 of 31, by F2bnp

Posted on 2013-12-19, 01:02

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Nice! Are you able to hook it up to a larger screen?

Reply 2 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-19, 02:08

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F2bnp wrote:
Nice! Are you able to hook it up to a larger screen?

It can use a wireless display tech called Miracast but I haven't looked into it. I really only care to use it as a tablet.

Actually I am mostly experimenting with turn-based, RTS and adventure games on it. Any games that primarily use mouse control can work extremely well. For example, Master of Orion 2 and Blade Runner play perfectly.

Reply 3 of 31, by Private_Ops

Posted on 2013-12-19, 02:22

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Is this relevant? (Although expensive)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16813157475

Reply 4 of 31, by d1stortion

Posted on 2013-12-19, 03:08

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Normally I really don't give a damn about tablets, but I have to admit... the thought of playing MoO2, HoMM on the go like this sounds interesting, and then even multiplayer 😀

RTS games may be where its usefulness ends though... from what I've heard it detects a right click when holding the finger down for a while, which sounds too cumbersome and delayed for games requiring this all the time.

Reply 5 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-19, 04:44

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Right click is tricky in RTS yes. So is map scrolling. Still, I have beaten a few Tiberium Sun missions.

I think Total Annihilation will be quite playable. It uses left click. Drag-selecting works perfectly too. These combined with VirtualGamepad for map scrolling, shift key (queuing), and a few hotkeys should make it very playable. I am waiting on the VG developers to add a locking button so I can set up a locking shift for queuing. Coming soon.
http://palmtime.net/virtualgamepad/

Reply 6 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-19, 04:56

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Private_Ops wrote:
Is this relevant? (Although expensive)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16813157475

Not exactly. Avoton uses the same CPU architecture but has no IGP. It is intended for servers. That board actually has a basic discrete GPU.

Reply 7 of 31, by cdoublejj

Posted on 2013-12-19, 04:57

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this only further proves how good of a CPU the Athlon XP is and how usable it can still be.

Reply 8 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:05

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cdoublejj wrote:
this only further proves how good of a CPU the Athlon XP is and how usable it can still be.

Actually I think it shows how vastly far we have come when a SOC on a <5W max budget has a quad core CPU and a GPU that can rival a ~70W Athlon XP with a ~60W GPU!

Reply 9 of 31, by Half-Saint

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:12

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All that for only $299. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

Reply 10 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:16

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Half-Saint wrote:
All that for only $299. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

Got it for $210. They have been on sale occasionally lately. $200 is the point I start considering a tablet and the ability to run any Windows app is so much nicer than Android and Apple options.

Reply 11 of 31, by d1stortion

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:26

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Since we are talking about gaming here, you really can't beat a Vita for $200 as far as the current devices go. Buttons > x86 compatibility for the games that you'd usually play on the go. Now if they'd just finally hack that thing 🙁

Reply 12 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:30

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d1stortion wrote:
Since we are talking about gaming here, you really can't beat a Vita for $200 as far as the current devices go. Buttons > x86 compatibility for the games that you'd usually play on the go. Now if they'd just finally hack that thing 🙁

Maybe. I haven't done portable gaming like that since Gameboy. I have tried PSP, Vita, 3DS, DS, etc. Not into the console games much and can't stand the miniature screens. I love being able to do PDFs, CBZs, web, email and the occasional real PC game though. I'm posting from it right now. I probably spend most of my VOGONS time behind a tablet for that matter! I'm probably alone on this 🤣

Reply 13 of 31, by truth_deleted

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:37

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The Venue Pro could be used with a mouse and keyboard, it's an impressive tablet. Its rival, the Toshiba Encore, is generally higher priced but includes HDMI out. The CPU/GPU performance is excellent in this Bay Trail line, and seems to be the first "miniaturized system" which supports fairly modern Windows games (to 2006 or so). The previous Atom chipsets had worse GPU performance, sometimes a result of the driver which caused a host of compatibility problems.

Another great advantage of these Windows USB-enabled tablets is that inexpensive gamepads will work. On Android, there are more limited options and the configuration of keys is not so well established. Also, an existing PC gamepad can be used with the Windows tablet, saving $40 typically.

The desktop has already lost much ground to the laptops. I still prefer desktops, but I could see these tablets coupled with "adapters" to replace the desktop computer. 😀

Last edited by truth_deleted on 2013-12-19, 05:46. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 14 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:45

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truth5678 wrote:
The Venue Pro could be used with a mouse and keyboard, it's an impressive tablet..

The desktop has already lost much ground to the laptops. I still prefer desktops, but I could see these tablets coupled with "adapters" to replace the desktop computer. 😀

Yup you can go bluetooth or get a USB OTG dongle and run any USB device. Unfortunately you can't easily charge if using the USB port though and that is dumb.

Indeed the PC landscape is changing. Most people are satisfied by Core 2 level power and Baytrail isn't far off of that. Few people seem to consider desktops anymore. Laptops are the main choice. Tablets with wireless peripherals are becoming a new and surprisingly adequate choice.

Reply 15 of 31, by d1stortion

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:53

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A lot of sites nowadays are darn slow even on >4 GHz desktop CPUs that it can't be any worse on some tablet honestly 🤣 and if one happens to be one of the about 1% who are still using Firefox, it'll also have less RAM to waste via memory leaks than on a PC 😀

Reply 16 of 31, by truth_deleted

Posted on 2013-12-19, 05:54

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Yes, I was thinking the same about the peripherals and was editing the prior post. 😀 It's a cost saver to use existing x86 devices. I agree, too, that the Core 2 level power with the decent GPU is a critical advance (especially for PC gaming). I resisted the laptop because of the keyboard and the attached display; also, I thought the desktop would be super-reliable. However, I would think a well constructed tablet should be even more reliable than the best constructed desktops, given no moving parts (and that the solid state electronics proves as hardy in other situations). Perhaps the lower power requirements allows for longer life of parts, too - I don't know much about this factor yet.

Reply 17 of 31, by Half-Saint

Posted on 2013-12-19, 07:10

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Let's not turn this into a tablet vs. Laptop vs. desktop thread 😀 unless the OP doesn't mind of course 😉

The biggest issue for RTS on a tablet for me would be the ability to group units and assign shortcuts to fast group switching.

Reply 18 of 31, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-12-20, 19:36

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Controlling an RTS is definitely tricky. The worst issues are map navigation and any right clicking. The most playable game I've found is Total Annihilation because it primarily uses left click. However, TA needs the Shift key for queuing. The solution is VirtualGamepad, once they add support for a locking button so Shift can be toggled. VirtualGamepad also supports an on screen dpad of course which makes map navigation easy. Modifier key combos are also coming soon so on screen buttons for complex hotkeys will work as well.

http://palmtime.net/virtualgamepad/

Reply 19 of 31, by nforce4max

Posted on 2013-12-20, 19:54

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Not bad and wonder how my HP elitebook 2730p that I bought for just $10 stacks up against this, C2D sl9400 with gm45/gs45. Atoms were never fast and unthinkable for gaming except for a few with the Nvidia Ion but pointless when cheap c2d laptops can be had for the price of a chicken.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

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