03-01-2003, 07:00 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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3D Acceleration Coming To Mobile Devices
"Lured by the siren call of mammoth shipments for cellular handsets, graphics companies will come to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Jose, Calif., next week to ponder technology game plans for the phone-based game market. There are choices to be made as mobile gaming drives mainstream 3-D graphics into new low-power, high-integration and real-time territory."
I find this quote particularly compelling:
"Although the first-generation 3-D videogames for handsets will render 3-D graphics in Java or software game engines, mobile-phone makers will start integrating 3-D graphics hardware acceleration in their handsets as early as next year, analysts said. Between now and then, there are decisions to be made."
I for one would drool at the prospect of true hardware-based 3D in a handheld device. The million-dollar question is, of course, how to best deal with battery life--we can't wait for near-mythic fuel cells to become reality first, and as such, the article refers to ARM-based graphics chips that are a compromise between rendering power and battery consumption.
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03-01-2003, 07:09 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 725
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Didn't 3D already come to handhelds with the e740? 
Seriously, I've always thought this was sort of a given, we know that nvidia has a mobile chip buried somewhere in the company (being that it was one of the big projects 3Dfx was working on when they were purchased), ATI is hopefully working on a better solution, etc...
What I think most companies are missing is that they simply need to develop solutions that use a lot of power and wait it out. ATI tried compromise and it failed to do any good because they aimed so low that no one cared.
Remember, the first mainstream 3D accelerator on the PC (The Voodoo) aimed higher than was possible at the time (the Card needed $500 worth of RAM to run well) and fate delivered them a success (said $500 worth of RAM dropped in price to be about $175 worth of RAM). Now those looking at portable solutions need to make the same leap and trust that solutions to the power problem are coming.
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03-01-2003, 08:51 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,329
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Unless there is very minimal hit in battery life I would have to pass on hardware acceleration. Pocket PC battery life is only now finally starting to stabilize in 7-10+ hour range. Adding ANY additional hardware would invariably, short of an act from god, cause a hit in batt life. W?BIC! May very we be a cool motto for individuals but not for Pocket PC OEMs. Battery life is paramount to many. (This coming from a poll I did on PPCPassion.)
Then again I suppose I could be jumping the gun on this assumption since the e740 does have some very rudimentary graphics acceleration in it. I just hope an OEM takes batt life into consideration before jumping on the band wagon. Competition in the PPC arena is starting to heat up between Dell, HP It wouldn�t be out the of realm of possibilities for someone high up in these companies to think they could get a edge on the other by getting the latest and greatest chip in their PDA no matter what the cost all in the name of being able to slap a sticker on the front that says �Now with 3d acceleration!�
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03-01-2003, 08:52 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 541
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All these companies (big ones at that) have promised true 3D accelerators in mobile devices, and NONE have came through.
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03-01-2003, 09:00 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 276
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To heck with 3D graphics. What we need first is a decent directional game pad that works well. I've pretty much have played around with all of the current PDA's out there and every one of the directional pad's feel cheap and easily breakable. If you put a 3D graphics chip into a PDA/Phone, make sure the device can take the abuse first :!:
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03-01-2003, 09:10 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 168
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I agree, if people want to get a PDA to play games on, I tell them to get a GameBoy Advance SP.
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03-01-2003, 09:11 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jonathan1
Unless there is very minimal hit in battery life I would have to pass on hardware acceleration. Pocket PC battery life is only now finally starting to stabilize in 7-10+ hour range.
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Here's an idea... and what do you guys think?
Have a "dual-mode" Pocket PC with 3D normally turned off. Then, you can plug in your AC adapter and play 3D without any problems. This would work OK for car trips or just playing at someone else's house if you could make the AC adapter really compact.
--janak
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03-01-2003, 09:20 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,329
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Janak Parekh
Here's an idea... and what do you guys think?
Have a "dual-mode" Pocket PC with 3D normally turned off. Then, you can plug in your AC adapter and play 3D without any problems. This would work OK for car trips or just playing at someone else's house if you could make the AC adapter really compact.
--janak
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Or what about on the fly acceleration? Where the actual hardware is physically powered down until an application calls for it? But that would take OS support for such a thing?? Is there ACPI in the Pocket PC OS?
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03-01-2003, 09:28 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jonathan1
Or what about on the fly acceleration?
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Well, I was avoiding the technical aspects of the power management, but sure, you could do it on-the-fly -- and probably without something like ACPI -- you just need intelligent power control on the silicon itself. Have you seen reports of the GeForce FX, for example? When the unit goes into 3D mode, the power draw kicks up a couple notches and the exhaust fan goes into turbo/vacuum-sound mode.
--janak
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03-01-2003, 10:10 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 4
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They are getting it all wrong. The phone should always be the phone with primary function of communicating with other devices. That means compact design, long battery life, etc. What they really want is a gaming device with phone capabilities: large screen, high-performance GPU, special controls, *some* phone functionality, etc.
I would not want 3D on my phone for the simple reason that 3D rendering needs more CPU instructions packed in the same time-frame. That means more CPU cycles at higher frequency. Power consumption is proportional to square of the frequency. You increase CPU clock twice you shorten battery tine 4 times and increase heat dissipation 4 times.
That means if you play Doom3 on your phone you won't be able to hold it without gloves after 10 min session. 
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Linear Mode
