iPad3 Performance < iPad2 Performance - Your mileage?

I’m just about to release my Unity iOS game to the AppStore this week and targeting iPad2 and 3. I have noticed since I started testing on iPad3 that my game performs more poorly on iPad3 than 2. I wondering if anyone else out there has noticed this? I have not had time to benchmark the two, but it’s visually noticeable. This is incredibly disappointing.

Does anyone know if there’s a reason for this? Is there something Unity developers should do to better optimize their games for iPad3? This seems like a huge step back for Apple. Apple is all about “looking good”, but making games perform well doesn’t seem to be a top priority with them even though it’s the UX that matters and that games are their #1 selling app category. Does Unity 3.5 make a difference in this case? I am still working with 3.4.2, waiting for 3.5 issues to be resolved. I’m wondering if setting the resolution in Player Settings makes much of a difference. I don’t detect any.

I reference the following article for detailed info on iPad2/3 CPU/GPU: CPU And GPU Performance: All About Graphics - Apple's iPad 3, Part 1: The Complete Retina Display And A5X Review | Tom's Hardware

Here’s another article discussing iPad2/3 benchmarks: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2012/03/ipad-3-cpu-and-graphics-performance-compared.html

Thanks.

I don’t think it should be a problem.
The reference seems okay but why you are getting the issues in that?

Have you tried for the Samsung Galaxy S9 ?

I made a similar observation a while ago when comparing the iPad 2 (non-retina display) and the iPad mini 2 (which did have a Retina display). I believe Graham is correct when he suggests this is why you’re seeing the slowdown.

Having said all that, my problem was specific to UI performance rather than the performance with the game itself (which was a realtime, action, 3D multi-player game). What I found was that if I turned mipmaps off for the sprites I was using for the UI, the performance hit improved significantly. As my UI was not in World Space, there was no need for mipmaps anyway (they were just on from my previous use of the legacy texture settings. This may not relate to your issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning.