Ok...I'm really starting to hate having having the Adreno 225 in the American Galaxy S III (I have Sprint). I keep seeing, however, that this GPU CAN outperform the iPhone 4s if they are played on the same screen resolution (which the 4s my standard for mobile gaming right now...in the US anyway since the Mali in the Intl. Galaxy S3 kills the 4s 543MP2). I wonder if it is optimization, but I read reviews on the Play Store for only the Galaxy S3, and there are mixed reviews of lag and smooth gameplay, and it makes me wonder if the smooth gameplay reviews are from people using the international version because games like N.O.V.A. 3 and Modern Combat 3 lag on my Sprint GS3 (smoother on Modern Combat 3, but not the performance it should be for a flagship device, and N.O.V.A. 3 is unplayable basically). Also, a lot of games aren't even available in the Play Store for the One X/EVO LTE with the same exact SoC (Snapdragon S4), so there is a lot of mystery going on.
I have read of others changing the build.prop to be able to pull down the right files from other devices that have the same S4 processor as ours for mobile gaming, but I don't feel like rooting just to do this and shouldn't have to go get a game that is optimized for our GPUs (although, I will anyway since I don't want to go back to the small screen of the 4s for gaming). I just can't believe Gameloft would leave the incorrect files for this phone out on the market if it runs so poorly on a flagship device (apparently, the most popular in the US). I don't know when their release cycles are for updates, but I've known Gameloft to have terrible support and frankly not care if the games work or not. If this is the case, I'm afraid I'll have no choice but to trade this for a 4s again since it is properly optimized for its GPU, even though I HATE that small screen and no expandable storage....
Personally, this is why I hate Android right now and am sticking with Windows Phone 8 when it's released due to optimization on multiple hardware devices. Not trying to troll (I have a Galaxy S3, Lumia 710, and had an iPhone 4s so I'm not biased), but Apollo will have various form factors with all of them sharing the same processor. Although the first batch of devices will ship with the weak S4 processors to start, Windows Phone 8 (and up) will support up to 64 cores while at the same time allowing developers to code for ONE processor instead of like 500 under the Android model.
Another funny thing to note: when I had a Galaxy Nexus on ICS, it lagged on these games. However, when I put JellyBean on it (and soon after the official JellyBean that was just released) the games sped up and ran fine (although they still didn't run as smooth as the International Galaxy S3). I tried putting CM10 on my Galaxy S3 to test, but the games ran poorly still. Who knows though....maybe official JellyBean will fix this problem (whenever carriers get around to releasing it.....)