点评亚马逊平板电脑Kindle Fire游戏运行性能

作者：  Eric Franklin

亚马逊平板电脑Kindle Fire性价比颇为理想，该设备堪称iPad 2或华硕Transformer Prime等高端平板电脑的替代性选择，但从玩游戏角度来看，Kindle Fire究竟是否再次印证了便宜没好货这个道理？

主要硬件配置

Kindle Fire是不是只适合运行较为简单的2D游戏，还是能够兼容高端的3D游戏引擎？我们先从硬件规格来看看Kindle Fire究竟适合运行哪种游戏。

多数平板电脑都采用了电容触摸屏，加速计和陀螺仪功能。这是当今平板电脑游戏控制系统的三大要素，但我们发现Kindle Fire仅具备其中两者，并不支持陀螺仪功能。

据iFixit网站所称，Kindle Fire使用了德州仪器公司制造的1GHz OMAP 4430双核CPU（游戏邦注：黑莓PlayBook也采用这种CPU），另外还配置了PowerVR SGX 540 GPU，因此其多边形生成能力不逊于任何一种基于Tegra 2的平板电脑。

目前多数Tegra 2平板电脑配置的是1GB的RAM，但Kindle Fire仅配置521MB的RAM，虽然这一点多少令人失望，但该设备使用的是更高速的双通道RAM，而非Tegra 2所使用的单通道RAM。其屏幕的分辨率也达到了1024X600像素。

单从硬件规格角度来看，Kindle Fire可以算是合格的游戏设备，可轻松运行一般的2D益智游戏或多边形赛车游戏。

亚马逊Appstore游戏内容

多数Kindle Fire用户都得通过亚马逊应用商店Appstore下载游戏，该平台已可供应《愤怒的小鸟》、《割绳子》、《Where’s My Water？》等游戏产品，但众所皆知，这种简单可爱的2D游戏即便是在最次的智能手机上也能运行。

kindle_fire_gaming(from cnet)

可是我们在这个应用商店却很难看到3D游戏的踪影。虽然能够找到《激流快艇》这款3D游戏，却无处下载《Shadowgun》这款在2011年因炫酷视觉效果而著称的游戏。

除此之外，《Blood & Glory》、《GT Racing》和《N.O.V.A. 2》等其他Android基准游戏也同样尚未登陆亚马逊Appstore，不过我们还是能够找到具有魔兽风格的《混沌与秩序》以及带有《神秘海域》元素的《Shadow Guardian》这两款Gameloft游戏。

亚马逊对游戏入驻Appstore所设置的门槛并不高，也许那些高端游戏不是正处于亚马逊的应用审核阶段，就是已经被拒之门外。

游戏运行效果

如果你的Kindle Fire已经安装了心仪的游戏应用，下一步是不是得看看游戏运行效果如何，它们是否已针对该设备进行优化处理？画面帧率是否过低？

这种设备7英寸的屏幕面积已经远超智能手机屏幕，可提供便捷的游戏操作方式。但还是有些游戏要在10英寸的屏幕上运行，才可达到最佳效果。例如《Assassin’s Creed: Recollection》这款iPad平台的卡牌战斗游戏，它就是充分利用屏幕实际面积的典型，如果投放到更小的屏幕就会丧失部分可玩性。

从总体上看，Kindle Fire的7英寸屏幕、1024X600像素已经足够流畅运行多数游戏内容。

kindle_fire_gaming(from cnet)

但令人意外的是，该设备尚不支持三个手指同时划动屏幕的操作方式，因为我们在iPad或三星Galaxy Tab 8.9平台上可以使用三个手指切水果的方式，在Kindle Fire最多只能探测出两个手指的操作。

《激流快艇》在Kindle Fire上的画面效果与在其他Tegra 2平板电脑上一样出色，但不幸的是，其加速计控制方式却极不敏感，以致操作游戏时缺乏准确性，常让用户碰壁。

而在其他7英寸平板电脑上体验这款游戏，其控制方式和反应灵敏度都要优于Kindle Fire。

在电池续航能力方面，无论是玩2D还是3D游戏，Kindle Fire的耗电速度与其他平板电脑并无多大区别，但也别指望能够其电池可以持续让你玩三四个小时的3D游戏。

尽管我们在Kindle Fire上可以获得许多游戏乐趣，但该设备的游戏体验仍存在一定改进空间。在推出下款平板电脑以创造更良好的用户体验之前，亚马逊现在至少可以采取一项措施改进这一点——增加Appstore的应用，为用户提供更多选择。

我们希望下款亚马逊平板电脑能够满足以下条件：

更快速的CPU：目前的Kindle Fire已配置了双核处理器，令其下款产品采用四核CPU似乎也并不算是一种苛求。

Transformer Prime已经可支持针对四核CPU设计的游戏，而四核CPU现在的价格也不算贵得离谱，而且在未来半年的价格还有可能再下降（游戏邦注：亚马逊届时有可能发布下款平板电脑），所以亚马逊应该无需担心其下款平板电脑售价会因采用四核CPU而过于昂贵。不过，我们尚不知其新产品的其他硬件配置，因此还不可过早下此结论。

更宽的屏幕：更宽的屏幕对平板电脑来说，意味着设备可兼容更多种类型的游戏。《Assassin’s Creed: Recollection》尤其适合10英寸的屏幕。

更卓越的触感控制：要提升赛车游戏体验，就必须采用灵敏度更高的加速计。如果配置了陀螺仪，效果还会更妙。

支持输出 游戏 的HDMI：Transformer Prime最棒的功能之一就是允许用户接入HDMI线路，直接在更宽大的屏幕上体验游戏，甚至还支持《激流快艇》等特定游戏将平板电脑作为摇控器使用。

支持三个手指操作方式：并非所有游戏都会用到这种设置，但它却可以为《水果忍者》的游戏体验加分。

高清屏幕：据传除了iPad 3，明年还将有其他平板电脑推出超高清屏幕，这种设置可以为游戏体验增色不少。

结论

综上所述，Kindle Fire很适合玩一些休闲游戏，但如果真的想在平板电脑上玩一些好游戏，Kindle Fire并非理想的选择。Appstore游戏产品的稀缺已经很能说明问题，因此在平板电脑游戏领域，iPad 2仍是王者，居于其次的是Transformer Prime。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2011年12月8日，所涉事件及数据以当时为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Kindle Fire: Got game?

by Eric Franklin

Riptide GP runs at a decent clip on the Kindle Fire. Good luck controlling it with any kind of accuracy, though.

The Kindle Fire tablet is a very good, cheaper alternative to the likes of, say, a full-featured iPad 2 or Transformer Prime, but does being cheaper preclude its becoming a great gaming device?

What’s this thing capable of anyway, exactly?

Should you expect your Kindle Fire gaming experience to be overrun with unsophisticated 2D games or are bleeding-edge 3D engines able to run on this thing? Let’s first take a look at the specs to determine just what types of games the Fire’s capable of running.

Most tablets include a capacitive touch screen, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope. These make up the current trifecta of gaming controls on tablets today. While we can confirm that the Kindle Fire includes two of the three features, there’s no evidence supporting the inclusion of a gyroscope.

According to iFixit, the tablet uses a Texas Instruments 1GHz OMAP 4430 dual-core CPU as its brains. That’s the same CPU found in the BlackBerry PlayBook, and thanks to its PowerVR SGX 540 GPU, the Fire is (give or take) as capable at pushing polygons as any Tegra 2-based tablet.

Now, while most Tegra 2 tablets include 1GB of RAM, the Fire’s 512MB of RAM is disappointingly low; however, unlike the single-channel RAM used by the Tegra 2, the Fire uses faster, dual-channel RAM. The screen runs at a resolution of 1,024×600 pixels.

Purely from a specs perspective, the Kindle Fire makes for a more than decent gaming machine that can easily run your average 2D puzzle game or a polygonal racing game.

OK, it seems capable, but are there readily available games capable of distracting me from real life?
Most Kindle Fire owners will get their games from Amazon.com’s curated Appstore for Android. From here you’ll have access to games like Angry Birds (and its expansions), Cut the Rope, Where’s My Water?, and so on. You know, all those ridiculously cute, 2D games that barely tax even the most pathetic of smartphones.

That’s not the Kindle Fire. It’s the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 running Shadowgun, which we easily downloaded from the Android Market. Not so easily done on the Kindle Fire. In fact, unless you have access to the game’s APK or are interested in participating in some illegal activities, it’s damn near impossible to get.

However, 3D games (polygonal, not stereoscopic) are a bit harder to find.

Though we did find Riptide GP, a 3D Jet Ski game that’s become a kind of graphical benchmark around CNET Labs of late, Shadowgun, one of the most graphically impressive mobile games of 2011, is nowhere to be found in the Amazon store.

Curious, since there’s convincing evidence that Shadowgun can be sideloaded onto the Fire without actually rooting the device and played smoothly. However, Shadowgun costs $4.99 in the Android Market, and downloading APKs of apps that cost money is illegal and obviously not something we support.

In addition, other benchmark Android games like Blood & Glory, GT Racing, and N.O.V.A. 2 are also missing from the store. I did find a Kindle Fire version of Gameloft’s WoW-clone, Order & Chaos, and the Uncharted-”inspired” Shadow Guardian, however.

To get games into the Appstore, Amazon has only a few, reasonable-seeming requirements, but these games either have not been submitted, are still in the approval process, or have been rejected. This matters little to someone who just wants to play the games on a new tablet.

Looks like I have a few to choose from, but how’s the playing?

Once you actually have the games you want on the Fire (or the ones you want that are actually available), how well do they play? Are they optimized? Are frame rates too low?

That’s also not the Kindle Fire. It’s the iPad 2 running Assassin’s Creed: Recollection, whose liberal use of screen real estate makes a great case for gaming on a 10-inch tablet as opposed to a 7-inch one.

(Credit: Eric Franklin/CNET)
Well, as you’d expect, games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope play pretty much perfectly. Not surprising, given the simple nature of these titles.

The 7-inch screen is larger than smartphone screens and makes certain games easier to play; however, there are still games where I prefer a 10-inch screen.

Assassin’s Creed: Recollection on the iPad, a card battle game that liberally makes use of that screen’s real estate, is an example of a game that would lose some playability in the transition to a smaller screen. Overall, though, for most games, 7 inches, at 1,024×600 pixels, works quite well.

A surprising detail we stumbled upon was that the Fire doesn’t support three-finger swiping. So, games like Fruit Ninja, which supports three fingers on the iPad and other Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9, can detect a maximum of two fingers at a time on the Fire. Attempting to swipe with more than two fingers results in no swiping at all.

Although 3 fingers are supported on the iPad and other Android tablets, here’s the Kindle Fire’s 2-finger-max swipe support in action. Or in ‘nonaction’! Right, everyone?!…No? Fine.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Riptide GP looks as good graphically as it does on other Tegra 2-based tablets. Unfortunately, I found the accelerometer-supported controls to be severely lacking in sensitivity. There’s a noticeable lack of finesse and precision when playing the game on the Fire, and I found myself bumping into walls. A lot.

When playing on other tablets, even other 7-inchers, we experienced controls that were tighter and more responsive.

As for battery life, we didn’t find that playing games, 2D or 3D, sapped power any faster than it does on other tablets; however, don’t expect to get more than about 3 to 4 hours of play time with a 3D game.

Sounds like a pretty good experience, but I think I’ll wait for the next ‘Fire’
While there is a lot of gaming fun to be had on the Kindle Fire, there are also many ways the experience can improve. Before we get into how gaming on the next Amazon tablet (not officially announced) could be more enjoyable, though, there’s one big improvement Amazon can make now to help matters: more apps in the Appstore.

The Fire obviously has the hardware to run these cutting-edge games, and although we can speculate as to why some of them are missing, the bottom line is that there needs to be a wider selection, plain and simple.

What I want in the next Amazon tablet

A faster CPU: The current Kindle Fire includes a dual-core processor capable of running an advanced game like Shadowgun, so I don’t think I’m asking much here by hoping that the next version will come with the quad-core CPU.

We’ve seen what the Transformer Prime can do when developers code games with quad-core in mind. Quad-core CPUs aren’t crazy-expensive now and will likely decrease in price as their yields increase over the next six months to a year (when the next Amazon tablet will hopefully be launched).

So, Amazon wouldn’t necessarily have to worry about its next tablet being too expensive because of the inclusion of a quad-core CPU. We can’t yet speak as to other components that may be included, however.

A larger screen: More screen real estate would mean more types of games the tablet would be suitable for. Seriously, Assassin’s Creed: Recollection is awesome and needs to be played on a 10-inch screen.

Better motion controls: A much tighter and more responsive accelerometer is needed in order to improve the experience of playing racing games. Also, a gyroscope would be nice.

Game-supported HDMI out: One of the coolest features of the Transformer Prime is that you can plug an HDMI cable directly into it and play games on a bigger screen. With some games, like Riptide, you can even then use your tablet as your controller.

Three-finger support: Not useful in every game, but when beating your buddy’s Fruit Ninja score is paramount, you’ll take any advantage you can get.

Higher-resolution screen: It’s rumored that the iPad 3 won’t be the only tablet to debut next year with a super-high-resolution screen, and if there’s an area that benefits greatly from increased resolution, it’s games.

The verdict

As it stands now, the Kindle Fire is great for doing some casual playing, but if you’re at all serious about gaming on a tablet, don’t even think about making it your primary portable gaming system. The lack of games in the Appstore alone is enough reason not to take it seriously. For tablets, the iPad 2 is still the gaming king, with the Transformer Prime a great second choice.（ source:reviews.cnet）