Hi Guys,
I just purchased a Dell Venue 8 Pro on eBay. I’m wondering if anyone has tried to install Unity on this little device? I know it might be a little unpractical, but I think it might be an interesting benchmark.
I have and it runs fine (meaning usable for such a small device) but yes obviously not practical in most situations. Desktop mode on the device touchscreen is too small so if you were using it while traveling you would want to get Bluetooth/USB mouse keyboard. Actually using the touchscreen to try and use the menus is not usable way to small. If you do get one it runs ok (I just used a USB mouse) and the plugable dock on YouTube looks cool (haven’t used it or got one but the video had it powering 4 monitors!). The bay trail processor has been a pleasant surprise in general and I’m sure the 8" competitors to the dell are a similar experience. The only thing that irks me is they are 32 bit uefi so you can’t use it for the windows phone sdk (windows store is fine) but other than that I like the device.
As you said not practical but assuming you have a dock or external mouse it would actually be comparable to a low end regular device but in a small form factor.
One other note is the storage (it has very little after the os especially the 32gb version). External sd is almost a must. Luckily you can mount the sd on the primary drive to let you install apps directly on the sd. I’ve tried unity both ways and it is still happy when installed on the sd. Obviously the install is slower and things like baking light maps take longer (sd cards have ok read times but horrible write speeds) but shockingly it was still ok. I was just trying this out for fun obviously if I was serious I would plan on installing critical things like unity on the primary drive and move others to the sdcard.
If it does actually run, and is somewhat usable, ideally I’d like to use it to just play around with Unity while on an airplane or check on our project in dropbox to see how things are coming along.
Thanks for the information.
Since it’s the only 8 inch Windows tablet that has an Active stylus, it makes an easy pick if you would like to use Unity on the go, Dell Active Stylus makes things easier despite driver issues, was just hoping for a 3770 Baytrail and 1080p display.
I have Lenovo Miix 2 8 , same specs as DV8P .I’m developing a complex game in Unity 3D and its running awesome , I am also using Blender.
Really surprised by its perforemence .
However , a keyboard and mouse is MUST .
I use wired keyboard and mouse connected to a USB Hub and then to tablet with OTG.
I’m interested in giving Unity a shot on a Windows tablet/hybrid. I’m mostly interested in scripting on the go. How is 3D performance, though? My games are typically fairly light in the graphics department, and a low frame rate wouldn’t bother me for testing stuff, but is the Editor comfortably usable?
If I do get myself a tablet it’ll be a 10 or 12 inch one. Unity won’t be the only thing I do, but being able to run actual desktop apps on something so portable and having a keyboard when needed are (I think) what would make it genuinely useful for me rather than the novelty that iOS/Android tablets are.
I’m buying a Microsoft surface pro 3 this week sometime. I’ve been using my more power full windows laptop for a few years now and have never had to use the dedicated graphics card in my unity work, or any of my work for that matter only full screen tech demo’s does the HD4000 graphics fail. The Surface pro has the HD4400 so it should be faster(Though it seems there’s different clock speeds for the mobile versions vs laptop versions) though even if it was a fair bit slower it would be fine.
I’ll be getting the 256gb core i5 version that has 8gb of ram, I’m not sold 4gb is enough as often windows pesters me of running out of ram on 6gb in my laptop. I’ll report back when it comes.
Why wouldn’t you just get a Macbook Air? It’s more powerful and has a way better keyboard.
Because the new form factor interests me at least as much as updated hardware. I already have a Macbook Pro that, albeit nearly 5 years old and getting a bit dated graphics wise, is still quite usable.
3D performance is simply great…
I’ve done couple of modeling and animation stuff without any problem ,
and my project is Resident Evil fan-made game so its definitely not a light one , I haven’t faced any problem so far , the project is going great.
And my tablet Lenovo Miix 2 8 has 1.86 ghz Quad core processor , 2gb ram and 1 gb Intel HD graphics…
These are medium specs and I’m pretty surprised if you ask.
However , if you have hella lot Polygons in your model , then it might lag a bit while developing.
Dang. According to this review the i5 Surface 3 Pros have heat issues when under load for extended periods. Their performance is initially great, but drops significantly over time to keep temps manageable, and actually results in lower performance than its predecessor.
I can’t believe this OMG!
Even Dell Venue 8 Pro/Lenovo Miix 2 8 Runs Diablo 3 at 35 fps.
41 fps on low settings and on Surface Pro 3? Thats really disappointing 
btw , what system do you usually use?
Me? Mid- to high-end desktop workstations. I’ve not used a low-spec PC in any significant way for years. Hence my questions.
I’m not worried about most of what I’ll want to do on a tablet PC, which will be documents, web browsing, email, etc. However, I want to cur down the electronic devices in my life, not add to them, so I’d want this to actually replace my iPad and my now aging laptop, and to last a fair while. To do that it’ll need to run some level of 3D graphics - I don’t need high performance at silky smooth frame rates to do my work on the go, but I do need things where I do the actual work part (writing scripts, playing around with middlingly complex scenes, low level image editing/modelling) to be reasonably responsive.
And also, after more reading yesterday those complaints about the SP3 are pretty common and consistent. People who actually need the performance find that it drops off quite quickly under sustained use - it’s only good for “burst” performance. Most of those people are gaming, which won’t matter much to me in and of itself, but I suspect the performance characteristics will be the same in Unity.
Though something potentially worth note is that most benchmarks are done with the i5 version.
Also, it looks like the unit was designed for a set of Intel processors that got delayed and are only just now coming out. Instead of ~6W CPUs they had to use ~15W CPUs, which means they output far more heat. Now that those chips are becoming available people are expecting that a revision with the new CPUs will be on the way in the coming months. So, I think I’ll hangout for one of those. (Or, pick up one of the alternatives which may be cheaper anyway, depending on availability here in Australia.)
Ah , I get it now…
As far as the Unity is concerned , I think Surface Pro 3 will be showing pretty good performance.
However , I think getting a Surface Pro 2 will be better since there aren’t much issues about it , it has almost the same performance and I hope you can get it in lower price than Pro 3. Isn’t it?
There’s one tablet I’m interested so much about … And that is “Razer Edge Pro” , 3.0Ghz Core i7 , definitely a beast.
The only bad thing I’ve seen about it is its Price lol and Battery life.
The main thing with the Surface 2 is the aspect ratio. The 16:9 aspect ratio renders vertical use pretty much impossible. Other then that the larger size, kickstand, digitizer and pen are all supposed to be better. Just buying a damn surface pro is hard though, the Microsoft student verification is completely non functional.
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I’m not a student, so that won’t be an issue to me.
It did cross my mind to get an SP2 for superior performance, but the aspect ratio is indeed a turnoff, as is the price - which isn’t much lower at all over here. So I’ll check out the alternatives (though they don’t seem easy to get over here) but probably wait for the surely upcoming Broadwell version of the Surface Pro.
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I would like to see the future of 8" windows tablets lol
I think waiting for a Core M implementation with a decent screen and some sort of mouse/touchpad + keyboard input is a safer bet (coming in spring perhaps).
One thing worth noting with the benchmark I linked earlier showing the SP3 being “slower” at 3D… it doesn’t mention what resolution the games are running at. If they’re both at native, the SP3 has 50% more pixels than the SP2, meaning that the drop in frame rate doesn’t necessarily reflect any sort of drop in performance.
I do wish that there were higher quality reviews around. Most of them seem to be glowing to the point of reading like an advert, or not include enough information for meaningful comparisons. And aside from the linked one, none touch on the seemingly prevalent heat issues and/or the update that “fixed” them (How? By throttling more, or making built-in software run more efficiently?).
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