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Comment by aianus | Hacker News Reader

> perceived graphics quality between a $1000 PC and a flagship cell phone is rapidly closing

Is this true? Can an iPhone 6S theoretically run CS:GO or Crysis (an eight year old PC game)?

If you take a look at games like Deus Ex the Fall which was also ported to PC (with mobile assets even though they could have just taken the high res assets from Human Revolution) you'll see that it's not even close.

You may not notice it on a tiny screen but on a monitor or a HMD it's absolutely terrible. It looks like a game from 8 years ago.

Perhaps not the actual CS:GO binary - but one built on Metal could certainly come close to CS:GO on lower settings.

Wow, that's awesome! My 3-year-old video card uses 160 watts of power and roars like a jet engine running CS:GO at 1080p.

It blows my mind that we've come so far so fast.

The trend lines showed a year ago that a high end smartphone in about 3 years from now (mid-way through the PS4's lifetime) will have higher paper specs than a PS4 (paper specs, not necessarily as well-utilized).

An Nvidia Shield tablet is on paper roughly equivalent to an XBox360. The Shield set top box is double that. A few more doublings and the prediction will play out.

3 years from now, the PS4 will be 5 years old and much cheaper than a high-end smartphone.

yes, but a high end smartphone will always be cheaper than a high end smartphone and a PS4.

the point isn't that phones are cheaper than other things, it's that you need one anyways.

You may need a smartphone, though that's debatable, but you don't need a high-end expensive one. And those wont't have paper specs anywhere near PS4-level anytime soon.

>higher paper specs than a PS4 That's not very difficult. My midrange graphics card beat it one year before the PS4 was even released.

Does your midrange graphics card run on a battery that fits in your pocket? That's the hard part.

The GPU in a Shield tablet uses literally the same tech as a 980. But, the best that tech can do on <10 Watts is to keep up with an Xbox360.

Sure, but there is no way the thermals will be there.

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