Epic shows off Unreal Engine 3 running on iPhone / iPod touch
By Donald Melanson 
posted December 22nd 2009 12:21PM
posted December 22nd 2009 12:21PM
There's certainly plenty of good looking iPhone games available these days, but things could be about to get quite a bit more interesting, as Epic has now demonstrated its Unreal Engine 3 (the same one used for games like Gears of War 2) running on the iPhone 3GS and 3rd gen iPod touch to our friend Anand Shimpi of AnandTech. Unfortunately, it hasn't also announced any games or licensees that will be using the engine, but it seems like it has at least managed to get it running remarkably well on the hardware -- albeit in a somewhat limited demo, as you can see in the video after the break. What's more, Epic also reportedly said that it would be showing off the engine running on "another mobile platform entirely" at CES next month, but didn't drop any further hints besides that. Video after the break, and hit the read link for the full scoop.
a little sad for Wii owners, no?
@Rick James not really wii owners are oblivious to technological advances
@nigra Lol! Zing!
@nigra
And you to punctuation. ;o)
@IamDefiler ka-Pow!
@nigra
Not really. Most Wii owners are definitely oblivious to technological advances, since most are in the non-gaming demographic anyway, but I'm in the small group who owns more than just a Wii, and I'm definitely more aware of technological advances than most people (Oh hey look, I'm a regular at Engadget).
In any case, I could care less that there is no Unreal Engine on the Wii... But that's because I play all my FPS games on a PC. My Wii is for Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and other big Nintendo franchises. If I want to play something running the Unreal Engine, I use my PC.
It is a sad day to be a Wii-only gamer, however, because the system itself is a piece of crap. The Wii Remote is definitely an amazing piece of hardware as we've seen with all the random non-gaming tasks people have hacked it for, but the system is one of the most backwards pieces of hardware (and software) that I've ever seen.
Back to the subject at hand, I would never play an FPS on my iPod Touch. The PC is still where FPS games shine in my opinion.
@Rick James
"Unreal Engine 3 is designed for a high level shader architecture and the Wii doesn't have that. I mean, you know, it's just not what we've been aiming for, so it's not something we're looking to do or support."
-- Epic's vice president, Mark Rein
And this just proves he really was saying "We just hate the Wii and won't port our engine so here's some BS argument."
@dan1123 Trying to port UE3 to the Wii *would* suck. At least the 3G S/3rd Gen Touch have unified programmable shader engines. As far as functionality goes, the Wii similar to NV15/R100 era hardware.
@Metayoshi
The point still stands - Most Wii owners are oblivious to technological advances. I have a Wii too - but can admit that it's technologically backwards in this gen of consoles.
@Rick James:
It is, but it's also equally as sad for all 360 and PS3 owners who for years bashed the power of the wii and claimed they needed their supperior processing power for things such as UE3. Appears that's not true. Looks more like they were tricked into buying such hardware. After all, if the iPhone can run UE3, the Wii could too.
@Jordan
Obviously the Wii must be capable of UE3 if the iPhone can do it. However, don't fool yourself into thinking that what you're saying isn't a reach. Sure the Wii has sold lots and lots of units, but look at the crappy video game quality (shovelware galore)--not to mention the fact that software sales haven't been very good. And for the most part the Wii is a joke to a majority of true gamers--heck do you think that I could have gotten a 'highest rank' for my original comment had I been bashing the 360 or PS3? Hell no, I would've been down-ranked to hell because both of those systems have excellent graphics--the Wii does not. End of story.
@Rick James Don't most Wii owners also have an iPod Touch or iPhone? Sounds like good news to me.
Any guesses about the other platform? You figure 1 Windows Mobile handset would be an easy port, or 1 new Nokia.
I'm hoping Android :-) Doom looks good on the Droid, I can't wait to see someone designed a game specifically for the Droid.
@Rick James: Don't try to be an idiot. Everybody knows the Wii has shitty games, but that's not the Wii's fault. People have gone on and on about how low powered the Wii is. Compared to the 360 and PS3, it is. But like you said, if the iPhone can run UE3, so can the Wii. It's not the Wii's fault that developers used it to capitalize on shitty games.
Pretend that Epic had made UE3 to run on the Wii. The Wii is fully capable of handling good games. The graphics WILL NOT be up to par with other consoles of this gen, but it's capable of doing it. The developers are the only ones to blame for the truckload of shit on the Wii.
Had some decent games come to the Wii, I would have been extremely happy. The controller is begging for decent FPS games. Like I said, it wouldn't look the same as high-end systems, but the fact remains that the Wii is fully capable of good games.
@Jordan I really don't know what you're trying to prove. I mean aside from their first party titles, there really isn't a whole lot on the platform. I mean your argument does not make sense considering the fact that it has the largest install base of any current gen console--so why would developers intentionally ignore it? Obviously its because the graphics are not pushing anything! If anything place the blame on Nintendo for not giving 3rd parties incentive to develop for last gen hardware--in Nintendo's eyes, they are swimming in money so why fix what isn't broken?
But back to your point--we can talk about "what if" situations til our faces turn blue. But that won't change the fact that "what if" situations are purely fantasy. And who cares if the system is capable or not--the fact remains that there is very little worthwhile for serious gamers.
@Rick James - Wii is for cartoony nintendo games, and the motion controls are fun for the girlfriend and when family is over.
More sad is trying to actually play a U3 engined game on an iPhone interface.
Not really, no...
@Rick James:
"so why would developers intentionally ignore it?"
They aren't. They're using it as a cash cow to cash in on shitty games. Remember, the Wii is capable of better graphics than the PS2, yet the PS2 had good games. The Wii is capable of better graphics than most of the games running on it. This has been proven by many 1st party games.
Graphics don't really have anything to do with why the Wii has shitty games. If the developer would invest the time and money into making a decent game for the Wii, we wouldn't have this problem.
The iPhone, even running UE3, is still going to have shitty graphics. Do you honestly believe the iPhone is capable of producing better graphics than the Wii? Even if it could, add on the load times and dear god.
Have you seen MW running on the Wii? It looks like shit, comparatively speaking to it's 360 counterpart. Yet, had we never seen the 360 version, the Wii version would look pretty awesome.
UE3 on iPhone doesn't mean much to me. The iPhone does not contain any sort of setup for true gaming and there's no way I'm lugging around and plugging in some sort of damn peripheral. If the device can't do it natively, then it wasn't designed for it in the first place, I don't want it.
@Rick James
You have to remember that the Wii's large consumer base is largely consisted of the casual crowd. The reason developers don't make good games on the Wii is because good games don't sell on the Wii. Look at Madworld, Silent Hill, Zack & Wiki. Those didn't sell. Look at Animal Crossing, Mario Party 8, Deca Sports. Those are in the top list of best selling Wii games according to Wikipedia.
You can use the graphics argument all you want, but last generation completely proves you wrong. The PS2 was the least graphically advanced console of last generation, but people bought the good games! So more good games were created. It has a massive library of great games not because of graphics, but because the consumer base of the PS2 actually went out an bought the good games. The Gamecube was a more powerful system than the PS2, but developers didn't make as many good games that they did for the PS2 and XBox. It was simply because their games won't sell on it.
@Rick James
But an iPhone costs more than two wii's :(
@(Unverified)
Let's be a bit more precise. Here in Finland it goes like this (average price btw, not lowest):
Wii: 223 €
Iphone 3gs 16GB: 795 €
Iphone 3gs 32GB: 935 €
So, 3.5 - 4.1 Wii's for an iphone.
http://hintaseuranta.fi/kori.aspx?sisalto=46847,347281,298892
@Jordan
Its hard to know. Based on what info is available, the Wii GPU should be faster than the iPhone 3GS -- but not by much. But because the technology supported is so much newer on the 3GS (OpenGL 2.x and universal shaders), perhaps the 3GS can use new graphics strategies and tricks to make the perceived graphics better than the Wii. (obviously the small screen and high DPI helps as well vs a 42inch HDTV)
Perhaps someone with more knowledge can comment:
for now here are the specs:
Wii's GPU is an upgraded version of the GameCube GPU running at 243mhz (50% faster than Gamecube)
GameCube GPU Specs (made in 2001, Led to ATI Radeon R300)
codenamed "Flipper" 180nm (90nm updated version in Wii)
162Mhz (est. 243mhz for Wii)
20+ million polygons/s in-game (possibly x2 for Wii?)
648 megapixels/second (possibly x2 for Wii?)
Peak triangle performance: 20,250,000 32-pixel triangles/s raw (possibly x2 for Wii?)
Fixed-function hardware transform and lighting (T&L), fixed vertex and pixel units
4 pixel pipelines with 1 texture unit each
iPhone 3GS GPU Specs
Imagination PowerVR SGX535 @65nm
100/200mhz?
Fully programmable universal shader architecture
est. 28 M Polygons/sec
est. 750 megapixels/sec
four USSE engines
Universal Scalable Shader Engine (USSE™) shader architecture, OpenGL 2.x
Tile-based deferred rendering
i have an iphone and love it...i just can't really understand why people keep making these types of games for it. it has no d-pad...it has no buttons. graphics intense games are better of played on a psp or ds imho.
@EI8HT have you tried modern combat or nova? the controls work pretty well
@EI8HT
+1, No tactile buttons is a huge failure.
@EI8HT as long as the device is popular as a gaming platform (which Apple made sure it is) people will keep developing for it, even if that is not the best platform to run certain things.
@EI8HT I agree. I would say that some games work "surprisingly well" on the iPhone in spite of onscreen controls, but that's it. iPhone games are popular for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the games are relatively inexpensive, always available on wifi, and most people play games on whatever device they have with them.
@EI8HT A game can have good graphics and not be a first person shooter. A game might work extremely well on the iPhone, having no buttons, and still be "graphic intensive."
@EI8HT
The latest jailbreak emulators can link with a Wii-mote via bluetooth.
we'll probably never see this on any "legit" apps, but you never know...
@devitus
hence the lack of a camera on the touch
@Bill Gates
Cocaine's a helluva drug
"Epic also reportedly said that it would be showing off the engine running on "another mobile platform entirely" at CES next month"
-Come on webOS!!!
@dcoaster
I am guessing it will be on WebOS. I think Palm is shooting to own CES like they did last year
@dcoaster I'm thinking Android. Web OS sounds unlikely since it would(in theory) have to be coded in javascript. Android on the other hand...
@MarcusMaximus
Yup, Android is a safe bet. WebOS/Palm doesn't need more games, it needs more buyers. WinMO needs more love.
Well... RIM already demoed opengl support on the storm2, it could very well be a blackberry. I am going to take a "wait and see" stance.
@dcoaster How about Tegra? i'd like to think that possible, would rock on the ZuneHD
@dcoaster
With no current GPU integration on WebOS (and no GPU APIs open to developers) I very much doubt it'll be WebOS.
I'd put money on Android, any takers?
@martynmcfarquhar Exactly. That's why CES should be pretty big this year for Palm. Announcing webOS as a potential gaming platform and Verizon getting Pre/Pixi should get some attention.
@codemaker
Sure it's capable but I don't know any bberry owners that would play fps
@dcoaster Maemo or Android for sure.
@chiragsangani that would be my bet as well.... epic and microsoft are tied at the hip and it makes alot of sense for unreal to become the "default" engine for zunehd like it has for the 360.
@Canucker "WinMO needs more love."
I disagree. WinMo just needs to do itself a favor and disappear. It's heading straight to the toilet faster than the Atari Jaguar
@HighestRanked
haha that's rough,
the jaguar even looked like a toilet, especially with the Jaguar CD add-on
Bring this to the N900 that uses PHYSICAL keys plz.
- Thnx
Clearly the other mobile platform is the Kindle.
@taligent you have just had your identical comment downranked into oblivion. Does the same sentence change meaning when read twice?
@taligent Well if it goes to Android, we'll see it on the nook's color LCD. ;)
@taligent
Clearly, Tassadar has failed us. You, must not.
Like you're saying, a lot of mobile controls kinda suck. Hopefully this will support the bluetooth game controller industry, people like Zeemote. Their product is basically a bluetooth wii nunchuk, just a little joystick with a couple buttons, something that'd be not much harder to carry with you than a pair of headphones. If you can get a decent analog joystick, then a developer has some room to create a worthwhile control scheme, especially on a device with a keyboard like the Droid.
Speaking of Android, that better be the other platform. Oh, please. Dual-development for iPhone & Android. Sweet yes.
Clearly the other mobile platform is the Kindle.