Forecast: the SMACH Z is not going to succeed. The reasons? Criticism and communication.
First, they have willfully closed themselves off from criticism because they fear backlash and ridicule. It is statistically proven that creativity flourishes best in startups when they make themselves vulnerable and open to criticism. The perfect example: Eve V. Eve was completely open and transparent from day one about all their goals and vision as well as their issues and setbacks. Not only did they accept criticism from the public, they encouraged it from the start and put themselves in a position to receive it often. Did they let criticism get them down? No, they always saw opportunity and growth in it! The results speak for themselves.
Second, being capable of open, enthusiastic, detailed communication is key. Believe it or not, the vibes you get from the way a company generally communicates is an accurate reflection of their internal state. If they are unenthusiastic, they are likely also not passionate or optimistic behind closed doors while working on their product. If they are not clear, they are likely unsure of what they are doing themselves and donât have a way forward or the necessary competence. If they are not open, they are likely not open with each other and do not know how to share ideas, work on problems together, or even be friends with fellow team members.
Interestingly enough, everything I see that the SMACH team has neglected to do is what Eve has tirelessly sought to do, with a passion and a love for what they do.
Iâd never heard of this thing, but I can already tell itâs pretty useless⌠In the IGG promo video, it says Play any AAA game natively. However, the same clip shows them playing Just Cause 2 (not even the newer JC3 from last year) at 720p medium settings and getting 35 FPS not exactly what PC gamers are looking for. Honestly, nobody should expect a good computer for $350, an Intel i7 already costs close to that, without anything else.
I still think it has incredible potential to be a gaming changing product for handheld gaming. The AMD chip they are using is actually faster than competing 15 W Intel Core processors with Iris Graphics in gaming performance. For 720p gaming at low settings, this is excellent and a welcome step up from the GPD Win. Now, this is all well and good on paper, but they are just not managing themselves in the right way. They already moved their original April release all the way to October. What is worse is they never really explained what they miscalculated or the unexpected turn of events that led to this. They also are not doing well in updating their backers on progress, either. That leads me to believe that they themselves are not quite all together as far as direction or planning. It all comes back to those few simple things I mention above.
I have no clue where this silly name came from. Still⌠The Nintendo Switch uses a severely downclocked Tegra X1 chip. In raw performance terms, the clocks are so low it underperforms compared to Nvidiaâs Shield Tablet K1 with the prior generation Tegra K1 processor. Compared to the SMACH Z, the Switch isnât even close. In fact, I would gladly take a GPD Win over a Nintendo Switch any day.
It came out at around the time of the original Surface Pro when Windows 8 was still new. I havenât heard of this device since, and Razer has stopped selling it. I canât help but think that thereâs a problem with marketing the full desktop PC gaming experience in a small/portable form factor that has no visual appeal and poor battery life.
But you have to consider that the switch only runs things that were specifically coded to run on it, with no other system in mind, which means that the boundaries are clear, and there is no competition to make it run better elsewhere. Meanwhile, PC games are made to run best on high end systems costing thousand(s) of dollars, and everyone knows that a cheap system wonât get you to high quality gaming, which is why I think it shameful that they would lie to naive customers like that and claim it can run âany AAA titleâ, because while it probably can, a game like Battlefield 1 will probably run at 15-20FPS at medium or low settings.
Wow! Talk about calling back old memories. I remember looking at the Razer Edge Pro when I was considering all my options for my very first premium tablet purchase. The Surface Pro 2 eventually won (a $700 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD model, refurbished, which, unbeknownst to me, still had over two years left of Microsoft Complete!), later on a Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140, afterwards a Surface 3, and finally a Surface Pro 4 m3 which is my current main tablet today.
The Surface Pro 4 i7 with its Intel Iris Graphics can play Battlefield 1 at low settings, 720P, and gets about 30 fps. The AMD Radeon graphics has been shown to outperform Intel Iris Graphics. So it actually should be quite playable on the proposed hardware. Though I would have hoped they waited for the Ryzen Vega APUâs that are scheduled to come out by the end of this year. Those chips promise up to a whole 2 teraflops of combined CPU/GPU performance on only 65 W of power. Scaled down, the performance improvement will likewise be incredibly high. There will even be 4W passively cooled models of these APUs.
Fair enough, but as I said earlier[quote=âanon99772972, post:2, topic:6242â]
clip shows them playing Just Cause 2 (not even the newer JC3 from last year) at 720p medium settings and getting 35 FPS
[/quote]
I really donât think that leaves a lot of room for actual current AAA games, unless the hardware has fundamentally changed from their promo video.
That should mean about 40 fps and higher with low settings in Just Cause 3. While this is quite clearly a huge step down from full gaming PCâs, this is about as good as it gets as far as tablet processors. I think people going into this know that this isnât a full-fledged gaming PC experience. But it is the very best handheld gaming experience that is possible at the moment. Again, the upcoming AMD Ryzen/Vega APUs are poised to push these numbers up quite a bit higher. If this project surprises and manages to not fail, the SMACH Zâs ClickARM socket would allow CPU upgradability. The upcoming Ryzen/Vega APUâs would be the natural candidate for an upgrade module. But like my original post states, current signs point to something not working out right in the end. Maybe Eve would be able to fill that gap should SMACH team go belly up or bomb at it?
What makes you think a higher end game with more graphics requirements would run that much better?
Even if, they are kind of marketing it as such. Whether or not people know that isnât remotely true doesnât change the fact itâs false advertising on some level
Ok, but while thatâs true (Ignoring the fact that they still score lower than the intel i7 7700k for gaming) have they definitively stated that they are looking at that? Because if not, itâs like Mercedes-Benz promising that maybe they will look into making a sedan with 800hp, because itâs technically possible. That doesnât mean they can or will.
Because I went through and verified what those frame rate numbers were for the Surface Pro 4 i7 under medium settings and the specified screen resolution, and then I noted how that Surface Pro 4 i7 performed with Just Cause 3 under the screen resolution I cited at low settings. Perhaps you missed the part where SMACH Z is running Just Cause 2 at medium settings, and the numbers I quoted for Just Cause 3 were for low settings? Clearly, the SMACH Z will outperform the Surface Pro 4 i7 in low settings in one game (Just Cause 3) if it is outperforming it consistently in other games, including Just Cause 2. That is why I made my statement but I did not give the entire backstory since I thought it was already relatively clearly established in this forum that I have a very sound understanding of computer metrics and performance, particularly as far as benchmark analysis is concerned. I will make sure to be more verbose and less turse in going forward.
As far as false advertising, there is plenty of benchmark data and information in their project story to properly inform the user as to its performance. For example, they have a chart explicitly showing that while the performance is a bit faster than the Xbox 360, it is still behind the Xbox One and PS4 by a wide margin. They also list the benchmark data explicitly with actual numbers and configuration information so there is no doubt about what its relative performance is. They also state in no uncertain terms that it is â[p]owerful enough to play almost [italics added for emphasis] any game on Steam.â The data and wording is all there in plain view to examine. At this point, it all comes down to backer reading comprehension. Of course, there are some people who will not read for understanding. But that is on them for not paying attention and doing their homework if the clearly posted information did not make sense. I may not agree with the way they manage their company, but I certainly donât see any false advertising going on here.
Comparing one industry to another can be incredibly useful when helping users get a feel for how computers and the tech world works, but it has its limitations given the differences in culture, tradition, and precedence just as comparing Mercedes-Benz to AMD. Unlike automobiles, processor engineering samples usually have already been shipped in limited quantities six months or more in advance before their commercial release. How else would computers featuring them be available for purchase day one unless the manufacturers were given sufficient time to test and design their products to use those processors in the lab? Traditionally, as far as processors go, unlike concept cars, when a CPU manufacturer showcases a product and quotes benchmark numbers, it is not merely a technical tour-de-force and show of strength but they typically fully intend to deliver that product to market.
Maybe Razer has stopped selling it because itâs 5 years old, havenât you thought about that?
Anyway, it was really heavy and overpriced (typical Razer prices) so no surprise it didnât gain tractionâŚ
Awe so cute the noble pursuit of hand held gaming. Again and again people try it and hordes of people come in hopes and support it most often leaving with a bit of sour feeling. Donât take this as troll post though, I am all in hopes that someday we can truly have hand held gaming that is awesome and can play anything we throw at it. Better yet it will be augmented reality headset!!! but the reality today is that modern title mobile gaming sucks until you get to something like Razer Blade 14 and even that thing has its limits. If you pop it open you will see that it is crammed inside with hardware. Yes, you can get modern titles to run on much lesser hardware, but getting it to run just for the sake of running it is not how those games are meant to be enjoyed. Playing with anything lesser is like taking a Trabi on the Nurburgring, yes it will ride it, but will be hardly enjoyable
So will SMACH Z succeed? I certainly wish them the best and hope that they take their marketing more towards playing older/classic titles and build enough followers. Otherwise they risk failing where countless others failed before them, once the novelty wears off people will realise that it sucks playing modern titles in lowest settings on the small screen and the sales will dwindle.
Not gonna happen. As technology advances, youâll be able to fit more processing power into small devices. But youâll also be able to build even more powerful desktops. So game requirements will rise, inevitably. So, itâs just not gonna happen. Someday youâll be able to play Crysis 3 on your typical smartphone, I believe that. But by that day, Crysis 3 will be what PSP games are nowadays.
Yeah, thatâs likely the case as thatâs what kept happening over and over in the last two decades.
Unless of course we all move to a completely new format, like say AR headsets in the future
No offense, but you appear to me sometimes as a nay-sayer just for the sake of saying ânoâ.
Of course requirements will rise, and of course handheld devices - most likely - will not hold up with these requirements. But how can we say this is never going to be the case? Just look at the history of improvement in the IT sector and how much better it got from a raw calculation machine that was as big as a room in the 50s to todayâŚ
