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Razer Developing a Gaming Handheld Featuring Snapdragon G3x and 120hz HDR OLED Screen

CamHostage

Member
Also some surfaces have high end snapdragon chips, wonder how they fare with gaming?

As MrFunSocks said, not great, especially since few PC games have versions supporting ARM. So it has to go through an emulator (which can only translate X86 32-bit applications even though there is now ARM64 ,) and then also often translate from DirectX to Vulcan, finally running on a battery-optimized mobile chip that the game has no optimization. But you could get there on down-the-line games, if you had to; the two-year-old original Surface Pro X can play Skyrim and Batman Arkham City mostly fine with some hitches, so it's capable in that gen of software (which is a while back, and even if you wanted to see how more powerful games ran, you can't because most mainline games today roadblock at the 32-bit limitation.)



Razor's device would be the next-gen iteration of that, with improvements expected in the leap of power but also a lot of the same hurdles. (You're still stuck out of x86 64-bit apps.)
 
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CamHostage

Member
18-bit color? We're talking about around 2-5GB PER FUCKING SECOND!
shave some dolla off by removing that totally unfuckingneccessary rear camera

I think Lunatic_Gamer Lunatic_Gamer or WindowsCentral have some confusion in interpreting the leaked slides?

The first two apply to the Razor G3x, but the rest look to be generic breakdowns from the Snapdragon unveiling. (Some specs look familiar, then some don't, plus there's that difference between the "G3x" chip versus the standard "8 Gen 1" models which doesn't get discussed in these slides or by Qualcomm.) The original article also doesn't say anything about a rear-facing cam. The 18-bit color 8K HDR camera support bulletpoint set (which is a max spec... and feels like crazy overkill as Bo said, but that's if you're shooting RAW and also I'm assuming is the input but not necessarily always the file it writes?) is something the chip supports, but the actual Razor handheld may only have the 1080p front-facing camera.

We may see more of this later today, as Qualcomm has a second day of its Snapdragon Tech Summit happening in a few hours. Razor's handheld wasn't shown yesterday, but maybe it'll be there in Day 2 coverage.

 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
They worked with Razer to create a "Developer Kit".. there seems to be no indication this is a real product coming.

It's an advertisement for the chipset, hence all the 8K/18-bit stuff.. the chipset is capable of powering incredibly high end camera equipment, that won't be in this "developer kit."

Their sentence about it being advertised as an XCloud streaming device.. I mean.. if a machine runs Android it can do that, and it benefits little from having the latest chipsets lol

They also claim that's on some unseen slide.. I dunno, I remain unconvinced.. they are taking a slide for what Qualcomm had Razer build to send out to devs and acting like it's a product in development.
 
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Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
18-bit color? We're talking about around 2-5GB PER FUCKING SECOND!

Kenan Thompson Reaction GIF
Excuse Me Reaction GIF
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
They worked with Razer to create a "Developer Kit".. there seems to be no indication this is a real product coming.

It's an advertisement for the chipset, hence all the 8K/18-bit stuff.. the chipset is capable of powering incredibly high end camera equipment, that won't be in this "developer kit."

Their sentence about it being advertised as an XCloud streaming device.. I mean.. if a machine runs Android it can do that, and it benefits little from having the latest chipsets lol

They also claim that's on some unseen slide.. I dunno, I remain unconvinced.. they are taking a slide for what Qualcomm had Razer build to send out to devs and acting like it's a product in development.
Yeh it could be like the Qualcomm snapdragon phone that they’re now making that’s purely for showing off their features and not for retail.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
Razor's device would be the next-gen iteration of that, with improvements expected in the leap of power but also a lot of the same hurdles. (You're still stuck out of x86 64-bit apps.)

Didnt I read somewhere that windows 11 ARM brings x86 64bit translation?
 

CamHostage

Member
Day 2 of the Snapdragon Tech Summit is happening now. Probably the G3x will be there since it's officially announced, and they'll talk about the gaming version of the 8Gen1 chips.



There's a whole bit in the Day 1 coverage of Qualcomm's unveiling where they talk about Snapdragon Gaming. They go into all the features that the newest gen of processors is playing with (mentioned in the OT slides,) show a Unity Engine demo, and also teases an bringing an optimized version of Unreal Engine 5 they're working with Epic on for Snapdragon devices in 2022 (albeit I assume that's whatever the mobile UE5 is/will be, not necessarily Lumen and Nanite and everything exciting in there.) No mention that I heard about PC compatibility plans, so we're still talking PUBG Mobile and Real Racing and a slew of Chinese-market MMORPGs made for phones, so it is what it is, but that's what we're talking about here at least. Check out Snapdragon Tech Summit Day 1 if you want some of that.

Yeh it could be like the Qualcomm snapdragon phone that they’re now making that’s purely for showing off their features and not for retail.

Yep, IntentionalPun read it right.

Didnt I read somewhere that windows 11 ARM brings x86 64bit translation?

Seems like you did:

And Qualcomm re-announced at its Tech Summit the company's own x64 emulation support via Windows 11 for "Snapdragon Compute Platforms".
 
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CamHostage

Member
Day 2 of the Snapdragon Tech Summit is happening now. Probably the G3x will be there since it's officially announced, and they'll talk about the gaming version of the 8Gen1 chips...



...Don't watch. The segment on the Razer device sucked, even if you are interested in Android-only Switch knock-offs.

However, there are some hands-on reports of the actual handheld developer kit device:



cool but if it’s true why the rear facing 8K camera?

That seemed to be a mistaken assumption from the leaks. The actual developer kit doesn't look to have a rear facing camera (and the main camera is 1080p.)
 
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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Yeah, kinda this...if you're going to spend any more than $200-300 (which this is guaranteed to be) you really don't have much justification for not just waiting for the steamdeck.

Yah but the Epic fans don't want to support Steam
 

ToTTenTranz

Banned
It's just another Android device with embedded controllers and we've had dozens of them. None of them ever went above very niche markets and sales.

All the best hardware in the world will be worthless as long as the only thing publishers put on Android are casual F2P titles.
 

Fbh

Gold Member
Actually, emulation on android is surprisingly advanced. I'm guessing many potential customers would use a device like this entirely for emulation on-the-go.
I certainly use my phone, at least a couple of hours a day, for emulation (subway, breaks, toilet, good times).

If that's the case what I don't get is why buy this instead of a mid to high end phone with some controller accessory?

Like sure this might have better hardware than a similarly priced phone, but most people still need a phone anyway so instead of buying a $500 phone and a $500 Android based gaming device just buy a $1000 phone with high end specs and some controller accessory and enjoy having all your mobile needs being fulfilled by a single device.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
It's just another Android device with embedded controllers and we've had dozens of them. None of them ever went above very niche markets and sales.

All the best hardware in the world will be worthless as long as the only thing publishers put on Android are casual F2P titles.
The problem with android/mobile gaming is that the second you allow games to be played with full controllers you instantly make anyone playing with touch controls useless. In games like PUBG if you played touch vs controller you'd lose literally every time.
 

CamHostage

Member
If that's the case what I don't get is why buy this instead of a mid to high end phone with some controller accessory?

Like sure this might have better hardware than a similarly priced phone, but most people still need a phone anyway so instead of buying a $500 phone and a $500 Android based gaming device just buy a $1000 phone with high end specs and some controller accessory and enjoy having all your mobile needs being fulfilled by a single device.

You could do that. And I think that's one of the reasons why this is a developer tool, not something that Razer is immediately announcing as a consumer device to buy. There's no killer-app use for it. And even if this thing happened to come in under the Steam Deck baseline price, it'd still be a device made to play Android games (and PC games through layers of translation.) The controller accessory for phones seems to have never taken off, but it's a perfectly viable solution. (It seems so easy, just get a controller cradle, your phone has so much power to tap and also most people have outmoded phones that could still be awesome Xcloud or emulation devices... yet how many of us actually have one of these add-ons?)

But there are places where people play mobile games like mad. PUBG Mobile, CoD Mobile, Honor of Kings, Clash of Clans... all these games that GAF would laugh at if we started a thread about them, they gross billions of dollars more than whatever's usually the popular console or PC game of the month. Those people put their phones through work; they may have multiple phones even, or phones separate from their work/home phones, with no extraneous apps and no notifications. Having a device always powered up around the house, comfortable to hold for hours, with good controls for an edge over the competition (where that matters,) that might be worth the money in places where mobile means gaming. If it were more cost-effective to get this than the next Red Magic or Asus ROG Phone if you're running through 6,000mAh too easily, maybe you'd go with something like this.
 
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ToTTenTranz

Banned
The problem with android/mobile gaming is that the second you allow games to be played with full controllers you instantly make anyone playing with touch controls useless. In games like PUBG if you played touch vs controller you'd lose literally every time.
Not all the games need to be multiplayer.
And the ones that do, well they also allow PC gamers to play CoD and Battlefield with a touchpad. What input they allow shouldn't fully define all genres of games that go into a whole 4-5 billion people platform.
 
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