I’d say there’s a reason PC gaming handhelds popped up when they did and a large part of it is that APUs has reached a level of performance per watt where they actually work, I.e. provide decent frame rate in popular new titles (in 720p). Putting in an older part will give worse performance at the same lousy battery life and you can’t really drop below 720p without getting compatibility problems.
And if anyone wants to say “but the Nintendo Switch is running on super old hardware?” then please keep in mind that there is a world of difference between consoles and PC even with “standard” hardware in them (x86 or ARM). The fact that all Switch games will run on the exact same hardware opens up for a level of optimization that just isn’t realistic on PC and that extremely diverse landscape.
What could, but likely won’t, happen in the future is standardization around one APU per two/three years such that all gaming PC handhelds use the same APU and then differentiate on other parts, like Legion GO vs ROG Ally. Then it becomes feasible for developers to do targeted optimization to that APU.
One huge thing to note is that the Switch has ports specifically for it, meaning game devs make significant changes to support the Switch if they’re porting an existing title (e.g. look at Hogwarts Legacy on PC and Switch, it’s very different). Handheld PCs just play the original release without any tuning.
So it’s not just “optimization” (as in, tailoring the code to the hardware), but actual, meaningful changes to the gameplay to work. So even if handhelds standardize around a single APU, it’s unlikely game devs will craft a custom experience for that hardware like they would with the Switch because it’s not going to generate nearly the same amount of new sales.
For sure, but since PC handhelds will always have quite powerful APUs it’s not necessary like it is for the Switch. I mean the Z1 Extreme pushes tflops like an Xbox Series S, not by any means a perfect metric but still indicative of the level of raw performance the chip actually sports, which is why it can play most titles in 1080p with 30 fps (just like the series S).
The optimistic future, still a few years out, is for games to target an intermediate representation like SPIR-V and let manufacturers handle their own optimizations. Or ideally open their damn drivers and let everyone else handle them.
It’ll never be quite as efficient as deliberate human optimization… but it’ll make everything compiler-optimized for your exact hardware.
I’d say there’s a reason PC gaming handhelds popped up when they did and a large part of it is that APUs has reached a level of performance per watt where they actually work, I.e. provide decent frame rate in popular new titles (in 720p). Putting in an older part will give worse performance at the same lousy battery life and you can’t really drop below 720p without getting compatibility problems.
And if anyone wants to say “but the Nintendo Switch is running on super old hardware?” then please keep in mind that there is a world of difference between consoles and PC even with “standard” hardware in them (x86 or ARM). The fact that all Switch games will run on the exact same hardware opens up for a level of optimization that just isn’t realistic on PC and that extremely diverse landscape.
What could, but likely won’t, happen in the future is standardization around one APU per two/three years such that all gaming PC handhelds use the same APU and then differentiate on other parts, like Legion GO vs ROG Ally. Then it becomes feasible for developers to do targeted optimization to that APU.
One huge thing to note is that the Switch has ports specifically for it, meaning game devs make significant changes to support the Switch if they’re porting an existing title (e.g. look at Hogwarts Legacy on PC and Switch, it’s very different). Handheld PCs just play the original release without any tuning.
So it’s not just “optimization” (as in, tailoring the code to the hardware), but actual, meaningful changes to the gameplay to work. So even if handhelds standardize around a single APU, it’s unlikely game devs will craft a custom experience for that hardware like they would with the Switch because it’s not going to generate nearly the same amount of new sales.
For sure, but since PC handhelds will always have quite powerful APUs it’s not necessary like it is for the Switch. I mean the Z1 Extreme pushes tflops like an Xbox Series S, not by any means a perfect metric but still indicative of the level of raw performance the chip actually sports, which is why it can play most titles in 1080p with 30 fps (just like the series S).
The optimistic future, still a few years out, is for games to target an intermediate representation like SPIR-V and let manufacturers handle their own optimizations. Or ideally open their damn drivers and let everyone else handle them.
It’ll never be quite as efficient as deliberate human optimization… but it’ll make everything compiler-optimized for your exact hardware.