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3-D Gaming on Your Cellphone
to_kallon writes "As game devices, cellphones leave something to be desired. Most of the games found on them are rudimentary, with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes.
But that is going to change. Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles."
Sorry, this discussion is about games on cell phones, we don't need to hear it.
Just remember that the more advanced features these phones get, the cheaper your plain jane phone will be.
Anyways... I personally think this is stupid. As the age old /. battle continues, they need to work on making a better PHONE before working
on the features OF THE phone. And besides... Who wants to play PC-type games on a small, cell-phone screen anyways? I think the basic
2D games that pass the time while waiting for your girlfriend to finish getting ready is just fine. However, I thought the majority of gamers
want everything bigger and better?
The only good thing I found out of the article was that they are finding ways for it to use "less than a tenth of a watt for the power" of these games. Ingenious... Make use of this same technology to make the battery life of the phone in general, increase.
Hmmm.
...but could we please get more reliable cellular networks before we work on 3D gaming for cell phones? Is there really that large a demographic for this? Keep it simple: cheap, clear calls. I'll play my games at home
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Or you can read it here without the soul sucking registration...
On a related note, am I the only one who thinks gaming on a cell phone sucks big time? Making it 3D does not make the screen or controls any better. I'll keep my Gameboy Advance thanks...
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
WOW. Imagine Duke Nuke Forever on your cellphone... I can hardly wait.
This is not an automated signature. I type this in to the bottom of every message.
Whoo Whoo, Now I have more stupid people coming at me while I am driving.
Although I'm the first to point out the serious problems with this platform.
The fact is that it already supports allot of elaborate 3D games.
www.enterweb.pt
Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles.
Rivaling, eh? I don't know about that. Besides, would you rather stare entranced at a 1 X 1 screen, or a 25 inch TV? Which do you think is better for your eyes?
As if DWY was not enough, now we can have have a new, potentially fatal phenomenon: DWP
I mean, what's the point? Nokia tried a game phone and even they couldn't do it right. Sony have what looks to be a killer handheld gaming device out soon. Miniaturisation has a way to go before we can fit a decent phone and a decent console in a handy sized package - and by the time it catches up gaming/phone tech will have moved on and so it will still look clunky
> Most of the games found on them are rudimentary,
;)
> with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes.
Yes, because as we all know, the only way to make a fun game is to make it photorealistic.
Sure am glad it took a cell phone to teach me all the fun I've had the past 20 years with gaming really wasn't.
Maybe we will finally see Halo on another platform, keyboard and mouse be damned!
If only they were available for phones, that is.
...to gaming while driving. Hope they make hands-free joysticks for these phones, or the "driving while talking on cell phone" bans are really going to start ratcheting up.
IronChefMorimoto
Why are people not using this:
http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink for the New York times article links..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Like my vision isn't bad enough. Why don't they just combine the cell phone, PDA and laptop into a larger palmtop device?
Can we stop squinting now?
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
The cooling fans for the graphics chip double as rotors so your phone simply flies alongside you. Also available with built-in camera if you need your personal sentinel drone!
Now you can have a cell phone that plays music, takes picturs, surfs the net, plays games , sends email, lets you insant message, and sounds terrible when trying to make a stinkin phone call!!!
It's going to rival my PC?
Will the 3d graphics have 128MB of ram?
Will my cellphone have a 2GHz Athlon in it now? Is it going to have a microdrive in it? What about ram? Where is the 1GB of PC2700 going to fit in?
Since many cell phones are using Java for the applications and games, I would not be surprised if the next step would be to include support for OpenGL, especially given that Nvidia and ATI are playing part. There are already OpenGL bindings for Java, though the one that is likely to show most evolution, given the backing, is JOGL.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles
I just came out of PlanetSide. This baby gives me about 60fps on my 19-inch monitor, with full keyboard controls, a force-feedback joystick, 5.1 surround sound of thunderous explosions, and frantic squad radio chatter in my headset.
When I look at my phone, I don't think I'll be holding my breath for it to catch up with that experience.
What next? A cell with a hole (or pole) to play even better games with?
This is computer-generated and does not require a signature.
As game devices, cellphones leave something to be desired.
As far as I'm concerned, cellphones leave something to be desired as communication devices. I HATE being in constant communication and I hate the way idiots still walk around talking loudly on their cells like we are supposed to be impressed. This PDA, GPS, gaming convergence will NEVER work for me as long as some stupid cellphone and mandatory service plan is required.
...graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles."
I didn't know cellphones now had 640x480 pixel screens (and higher)! That's awesome!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I think that this will be a big issue in the coming years. Many people right now may skoff at the idea of 3d games on something tiny like a cellphone. However, I forsee that hand held gaming, pda, music, video, camera, and pretty much every other hand held device will begin to merge. Sure, there are plenty of these on the market now but I'm talking about the extinction of the standalone devices in favor of the combination devices. Nokia has the right idea, too bad their implementation leaves much to be desired.
It's great that cellphones are getting more advanced, but I'm afraid a mini-3D chip running off of a 2 ounce battery displaying on a 2" screen is not going to be rivaling PCs anytime soon.
Though who knows, maybe the new cell phones will have a DVI connector and a port of Doom 3.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Anybody else find it ironic that the VP for handheld products at NVidia is introducing this 3D-on-the-mobile-phone and is named Carmack? I mean, the god behind all the quake engines is also named Carmack.
:)
It would be great if the first 3D game on it were Diakatana.
The reason the GameBoy line has been so incredibly popular is in part because of the design of the unit; it has a screen, controller, and speaker built in. Cell phones already have all of this- except a good controller. Sure, the buttons on the cell phone can sorta-substitute, but I think you fill find the spacing used makes them very close together and small, especially on smaller model cell phones. I think games are a good idea, but if you cannot play them easily, no one is going to enjoy the experience (and the strain it produces on the fingers).
I see this as a transitional period.
We will have a all in one modular product to satisfy diverse needs.
The first example I see is IBM's antelope still not what we a dreaming for but it's a start.
(And yes indeed, I am not a native speaker so I am not sure how you say "ingenious ergonome" in U[KS]glish)
Ingenious = no problem.
Ergonome = Huh? Only thing I can think of is "somebody who makes things ergonomic", but there is no such word in English, really. From context, I assume you mean like a person who develops a good user interface or something like that. However, again, that's a "no such word" situation. Unless you want to go with "user interface designer".
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Has everybody here missed out on the Nokia N-Gage phone? It sports better graphics than a GBA, rendering the latter obsolete. It has 3-D graphics and bluetooth multiplayer support, and it's a mobile phone as well. http://www.n-gage.com/
Most of the games found on them are rudimentary, with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes. But that is going to change. Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's...
...and in a few years we'll be able to pay a premium to play these "classics".
Anyway, what's wrong with rudimentary, flat, cartoonish graphics, if that's what you're looking for? I live in 3D all the time and would rather take a break in something different, rather than virtual 3D.
So apart from shit screen size and terrible interface for games of any sort, I really dont expect to see a GPU that will scale down that well and not require massive cooling and a ridiculous amount of power anytime soon.
What a stupid article. What a stupid submission.
my other sig is written in brainfuck
Cell phone games as they are currently are fun for a few minutes while trying to kill some time, and I guess going accelerated 3-D is the natural evolution of packing more features into a device to try to stand above the competition, but it's supposed to be a phone. I think the big winners here will be the memory manufacturers. As more games and higher device requirements become mainstream, the phone is going to need more memory. How long till we see entry-level phones with 32MB or more of user ram? Samsung is the only phone maker I know of that also makes their own memory...humm, seems like a competive advantage for them right out of the blocks.
Also, what of battery life? With the screen on all the time (while playing the games, that use chip(s)/memory that require more power), battery life could be an issue. Now with OLED screen technology, that should help, but I don't want to have to carry around 3 spare batteries.
Maybe we'll need to carry more than one phone (if you don't already)...one to play games, listen to music on and one to make calls with.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
A way to play visual stunning games awkwardly AND kill my battery quickly!
"Here's a spoiler: You're will die alone."-Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
I would rather have integrated GPS and some useful applications like driving directions built into the phone. Like what you can get with Nextel + Televigation.
Plus the ability for people to write their own location based services. I want to see what the people will do with GPS linked to a two way wireless network. I am sure that there are some good ideas out there.
Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise.
If the phone had an autodoc like the one Predators use in AvP2, I'd be sold. Till then it's emergency use only for me.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Many of my favorite games are "2D", and don't need all of the fancy-schmancy graphics to get an audience. The blurb talks like 2D graphics are the bane of "modern" gaming.
Personally, I really love how there's a "retro" crowd emerging, focusing on good gameplay, controls, story, and/or plot rather than 3D stuff.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I can just imagine all the imbeciles on the highway playing Grand Theft Auto while driving, because the graphics are so realistic that it really seems like you're driving.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles
uh huh. You might be interested in my new skateboard whose performance will rival that of motorcycles and cars.
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
Don't you hate that shit? Dammit just let us in the site. I think /. shouldn't even post links if you need a password to read them.
1) We are yet to see a handheld game console that can rival the power and graphics of a desktop system. PSP/Gameboy DS is cutting edge and neither is something to write home about.
... right ... am I the only person who thinks hat Nokia should take it's head out of it's ass and fix those god awful designs ... ergonomics have been getting worse and worse ... for what?
Nokia N-Gage
2) Me thinks it will be at least a little bit difficult to play with those damn small buttons and on a tiny screen.
3) When are they going to stop adding stupid features and actually improve on existing technology. Cameras were cool, until you realise that the quality is shit, that you have to pay out of your ass to use 3G and the speed of the network is shit too.
Having 3d graphics is not going to suddenly transform a cellphone into a gaming device to be desired.
It's not just the screen size, it's the controls. People like cellphones to be small. But they like to have controls big enough to hold and use. The two are mutually incompatible. And if you have a seperate gamepad, you might as well have a seperate gaming device.
That's not to say that having 3d graphics won't improve the games on a cellphone. But in general it's not going to make them anything comparable to those on, well, pretty much any other gaming device.
What's wrong with you people Look here: http://www.attwireless.com/personal/products/phone s.jhtml .. Plenty of boring phones there. Pretty much every carrier has a few of those low low end Nokias. What's the problem?
Damn you phone playa haters. We're supposed to be all for cool new technology.
So now instead of only lasting a little over 8 hours, now my cell phone battery will last a little over 3!
The more I think about this, it's very self-defeating. A 3-D game isn't 3-D without 3-D sound capability. I can't see any way you'd get that into a cellphone unless on you had add-on speakers for it which, in essence, would lessen the actual portability of the device (i.e. it wouldn't be a cellphone anymore...).
If I want 3-D gaming I'd rather stick to a computer with the sound quality to match! Quality thought on this device isn't as close as it may appear [to be] (like in rear-view mirror notices).I know of several people in the anti-java camp who have said that they might develop a bit more respect for Java if it were fast enough to make an FPS run at a respectable frame rate.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Nothing like a blazingly fast 3D experience on a 1.5" 300px wide screen.
It's nice that the technology is there, but I can't help but feel indifferent about it.
Who doesn't like free music?
Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles.
Rivaling... as in an approximately equivalent feature set...
Disregarding antialiasing, polygon throughput rates, and the like... let's look at just the single most important feature in any display; resolution, color depth, and refresh rate
Game console: 640x480 (underscanned) 24-bit color with a 60 field per second refresh rate
PC: 800x600 (and up) 24-bit color with a 60Hz+ refresh rate
Cellphone: 256x256 12-bit color with a 15+ Hz refresh rate
Doesn't really seem to rival to me...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
When I read the headline, I expected it to describe an *actual* 3-D display as Sharp/etal have been putting on their laptops - and *not* an age old technology used in most graphics cards to generate 3-D graphics on a 2-D display.
Granted, putting high-end, power efficient graphics cards into a cellphone is nice, but it's nothing new - desk/laptops have been using the same technology for a few years now.
Maybe it's just that my expectation of what the word "3-D" actually means has changed, or maybe it's the slew of *real* 3-D (sans goggles) display technology that is beginning to develop lately, but I certainly wasn't impressed by this story.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The problem here is you have a bunch of "suits" who don't play games at all planning out these strategies. They study the markets, see how big console gaming as become and they think people want to play games "anytime, anywhere". And fine, maybe you do when you're bored and have 5 - 10 minutes to spare in a waiting room or on the bus.
But who's the real audience? The suits would have you believe they need to capture "the gamers". But the gamers won't play games on their damn dinky phones!! Besides, you can't build a solid business model based on games for phones. People just won't pay for them. At best you can hope for $3 a game, and elaborate 3D games are just too cost prohibitive for that piddly revenue! There's a reason sites like Pogo.com and Zone.com are successful: Sell the little games to the casual players, not the "hardcore". There's an old saying... would you prefer 50% of 10,000 sales or 5% of 100,000? A smaller market does not necessarily mean a bigger revenue, and vice versa. So sticky to 2D should be enough. It's the quality of games that matters.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if I had a few of the "classics" on my phone (ie: Pacman, joust, Galaga...) but that's about it. I only need about 5 of them and I'll have my fill.
Mods, c'mon, this is not a troll, it's common sense. Seriously, who the fuck is paying for this shit? Who is demanding this shit (that has a life and a mind capable to constructing thought whilst "waiting for one's girlfriend")?
Seriously, the only thing i see from this is that the small moments people have in the day to perhaps think on their own (shocking, i know) are now filled with playing some shitty, non-imaginative, no-plot having games. Yes, no-plot having...what the fuck kind of plot are you going to build into a game that these mindless morons play for 2 minutes at a time? Yeah, yeah, old NES/atari games...spare me that argument; people should play those at home, or on the bus, anywhere but behind the wheel OR in front of me in line whilst not paying attention.
erm... cant we do this already? on the nokia n-gage for example?
"Hi. This is the year 2003! How are you?
I just called to let you know that while I was on the scene, the Motorola MPX-200 smartphone came out. It supports 3-D games. Check out Interstellar flames at XenGames."
"Yeah, I don't know what the hell is wrong with the article. Sorry about that."
In my experience with mobile 3D gaming so far (Visor, iPaq, Samsung 8100), the only thing that has been truly enjoyable was Dan East's wonderful port of Quake to the Pocket PC. I've been playing it since Beta 0.062 in 2001 and it has really evolved into a very playable game on the iPaq. With a PCMCIA wifi card I was able to walk around a large LAN party fragging to my hearts content. It was especially fun sitting next to my opponents and seeing the look on their faces when they saw that I was playing on a handheld. Hats off to Dan East, you rock.
With Stinger (smart) phones around the corner, and ATI with its latest mobile graphics chips, I expect we might see Quake on a cell phone. I think I saw a demo video from last years E3 of Quake on a 2" LCD for a cell phone, but I remember seeing the Pocket PC interface before the game launched so I'm not sure if the game has been ported.
Dan, if your out there how about some insight?
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
running on my cell phone at a mind blowing 100x80 resolution at 11 FPS.
There actually are a lot of those phones. They are just not seen.
Let's have a all-multimedia enchanced phone with a price tag of $400 on one hand that the service provider would subsidize to you with 2 year contract compared to $50 phone with no extra features.
Guess which one is better business for the service providers and cell phone dealers.
you are forgetting that the phone manufacturers also make the cell towers that the telecommunications companies deploy.
If you can get Splinter Cell on your phone, that means there are developers at the phone manufacturer that are working on that, rather than making the whole system better.
oh, and as an aside, why in the blue hell would you want to be in an "immersive" 3D environment on a 1.5 inch screen? That's more worthless than wanting to watch a movie on your phone!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
But these mobile phone companies know kids will buy these phones. Just go to esato.com or some other kiddie phone site and you'll see lots of OMFG w00t i luve n0kia posts. These guys will have "meets" in new york or toronto where they bring their fancy phones and talk about which new features should be on their online petition for the next firmware upgrade. I know most you us want a plain cellphone to make good calls, but when I see the young business type people playing with their 50cent ringtones and cameras, I realize the times have changed (or these phone companies' strategies).
I have a Treo 600(PalmOS5) and it works with most palm games I have found. As far as 3D games go, it probably couldn't hack it... But I expect that Palm OS6 will change all of that because it seems to be more graphics-oriented.
Along the same line, I don't expect the N-Gage to go anywhere, because with all that processing power, you still aren't running a widely-supported OS. Don't get me wrong, Symbian seems pretty cool, but I gotta believe that more games would be written for it if it were really a good playform. I find new games for Palm every day, and some are more fun than the PC games I pay twice as much for. It's also cool that you can find any program under the sun for Palm. I can also do maps, e-mail, spreadsheets, word processing, and FULL HTML web browsing on the go. If you have the processor, you should be able to use it for more than games...
Take my word for it... there are great things outside of the Nokia Monopoly.
in other words, WHO CARES?
its an N-Gage.
why is anyone excited?
its like holding a taco to your ear.
one world | many people
You should check out JSR 184: Mobile 3D Graphics API for J2ME. This appears to be a "J2ME-ized" subset of Java3D. Nokia has a reference implementation. AFAIK the first commercial implmentation of JSR 184 is Swerve from Superscape.
gool link here
7680 MB Disk,192 GB Transfer,
Now people can drive and play quake at the same time....
I saw an ad for a cell phone that went like this:
...
Guy is at restaurant, pulls out cell phone and starts using the built-in pepper mill.
Want a cell phone with features you really need? We've got 'em! With games, cool ringtones, a camera,
I'd get a hell of a lot more use out of a pepper mill than any of that other crap. I don't want to play gmaes on my cell phone - I want to have a phone conversation. I don't want to take a low-quality picture on my phone - if I wanted a camera, I'd buy one. I don't want to have cool ringtones - if I wanted to get shot, I'd at least do it in style by making a daring daylight robbery of Fort Knox on elephant-back.
Give me a phone that I can use for phone calls. Any feature that does not directly enhance the ability to place, receive, and carry on a phone conversation is entirely superfluous to me.
It's the same thing with Microsoft (or any other company) "innovating" new software: they need change in order to maintain the money stream.
But I don't think it will sell. 3G phones are not selling either. As long as average Joe has a good reliable phone, why throw it away and get a new one ?
And even if mobile gaming has the hottest graphics, it is still not a good platform to play, mainly due to diffult controls and small screen.
I'm a proud owner of an N-Gage. If in doubt you should see some of the first person shoot-em ups and other 3D games which my phone hosts. I use it as a pda, come mp3 player, come video player, come radio and on occaison my girlfriend interupts the fun and by calling me. (It is interesting to note that depending on when you recieve a call, I've seen her crash not just applications but also my phone; although that said, it's bloody Ace.)
There's nothing wrong with the screen, small as it may be. I've used shabbier pda's. It's the perfect toy and if, in anyway, it is a sign of things to come, we should all be very happy.
One also has to note that with such power behind a small screen, the next lesson is to come up with better visualisation techniques to make the most of the space available. I've seen poor games and better thought out ones. Once it has been worked out 'what' you can and can't fit on such a screen, without compromising game-play, we will all sit there gaming and wondering how we ever did without.
To be honest, I avoided owning a phone on principle before this. None the less, I've replaced my gba, pilot and mp3 player with one affordable phone. My pockets have more space for tissues and I'm generally a happy bunny.
This is a bad idea. If the MP ver. of SOF2 ever comes out on a cell phone all hell will break loose! How am I supposed to control my langauge while in a public place after some noob on my team sweeps my head with his AK? And don't get me started on those camping, no-talent, little shits with the auto-shotties. And finally, gaming needs to stay where it belongs....in a cold, dark room with a lock on the door in case you need to switch to porn in the middle of a frag fest. p.s. campers suk, an I'll kill u all! -simple*
"Patience is not a virtue, it's a waste of time."
You can find information on ATI's handheld 3D chip here:
l
http://www.ati.com/products/imageon2300/index.htm
It says it's OpenGL ES compliant, porting may be a possibility with say SD cards since most cells only have a few MB of internal memory.
We already hear of cellphones banned in many areas that people don't want pictures taken. Lately, in Massachusetts, there's news of banning cellphones in class because you can get on the Internet and potentially cheat with them. I imagine schools wouldn't be keen on students playing UT against each other in class either.
keeping yourself cool while you keep running to get your battery recharged every 20 minutes
For those interested in developing 3D games for embedded systems (not just cellphones). You may want to look at OpenGL ES by the Khronos Group.
As a preferred programming environment for embedded systems Java will provide access to 3D graphics through JSR184 a Mobile 3D graphics API for J2ME and more excitingly JSR239 direct Java bindings for OpenGL ES!
CELL PHONES RIVALING PCS WITH 3D GRAPHICS???
I see this only as a good thing... finally a driving force to move pc gaming into 4D!!!!!
The only kind of cell phone game that would be worth a shit would be a multi-player game that somehow involves other LOCAL players. Some sort of hide-and-seek with location radar indicator? Lots of paintball/lasertag possibilities with some good gps integrated. Go wild guys!
one of these cool new cells!?!?
Somewhy I feel Mr. Philip J Carmack would beat Mr. J Carmack
Where's the sungularity? Where's the life altering technologies? Where's the ability to enhance my reality to something that doesn't suck more than the suckiest thing that ever sucked? Where's the sexbots? Even my gadammned wonder-DirecTivo box still misses the beginning or ending of a show when the *F*U*C*K*E*D* *U*P* networks decide that they are going to adhere to a time zone in the Bizarro universe. It's that or search for bitter-torrents on web servers of a dubious nature.
Where's the vast superscience solutions to the world's ailments we were promised at World's Fairs dating back to the late Miocene? "Some day, Ugg, we will control fire, and there will one day be delicious iron skillet seared aged beef steaks as far as the eye can see." Is anyone working on this? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
The technological pinnacle of the Earth's history, and all we can work on is how to put some grotty 3D game into a cheap, plastic phone. More time will be spent optimizing the numer of dropped frames than the number of dropped calls. Intercell handoff, my ass! More like intercell fumble and turnover that lost the big game.
Hey, you could put Madden 2005 on the phone, and a fumble animation can be displayed whenever your phone call is dropped into the abyss, or a referee calling interference when more than 2 dB of background noise makes the person on the other end unintelligible. And if the girlfriend calls, it can show the Star Player[tm] fielding a call about the nine paternity suits aginst him. Just a gentle reminder to wear those condoms, boys, from the SUPERSCIENCE phone company.
--- Ban humanity.
How is it going to be possible for a cellphone to handle 3D games better than consoles or a PC? Whoever stated that comment needs to rethink what he or she's talking about. I mean... how would a cellphone's refresh rate even keep up with a computer monitor's? For one, it's a CELLPHONE, and also, it's an LCD monitor. Even if they do get a faster pace LCD screen for the cellphone, my CRT will still have more FPS (Frames per Second) than it. What's the highest cellphone refresh rate anyway? 5 FPS? It's not going to be possible...
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
tons of fantastic 3d games on the ngage! heck im sure its partially responsible for the ngage's staggering success.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Hmmm... Do you actually game on your PC with 24 bit graphics? I have the integrated graphics card on my $120 motherboard, and even that has 32 bit color. I assume (and up) refers to the resolution. If you're gonna compare, use the cutting edge in PC graphics, since this is the cutting edge in cell phone gaming. *cough*
"Can you frag me now? ...Good!"
--- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."
And you can fit all of 20 polygons on the screen at once! It will be AMAZING!
Proud owner of a Nokia 1100. Small. Not flashy. More durable than a flip phone. Functional.
My girlfriend's flip phone has speed issues, and the games aren't that great anyway. Even if they looked better, the controls suck.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
People are getting too hung up (pardon the pun) on what the poster said about how great 3D games on a phone will be. While I agree that this isn't the most useful place to have photo-realistic 3D graphics right now (my first thought was the lousy batter life of current full-colour, "hi-res" phones) that's not what's important here.
What is important is that maybe nVidia, ATI et al will see ultra-efficient, ultra-small formfactor as a potentially profitable direction for their graphics chips. Then maybe we will see some systems that will rival PC graphics, and yet fit in the palm of your hand - and can plug into a full-size monitor/hdtv/whatever.
I think we will have to go through a few years of phones being the playground for ultra-small but inefficient technology, but in the end we won't even notice that every phone is a tiny powerful PC - if we're even still carrying phones around!
*word*
I was under the impression that this was something already available as evidence by this:
http://sidetalking.com/Images-General/3650ps2.jpg
Seriously though, why not make better phones instead of some half-assed jack of all trades?
Why play on a 1x1 screen with the keypad when you can by the controller and tv adaptor?
Ardente veritate incendite tenebras mundi
Games on cell-phones, which I consider less entertaining than Leisure Suit Larry on DOS, are just another way to hog customers. Those carriers that sign deals forcertain mfg.'s cell-phones will have an upper hand for that arket for a few months. Only to face a huge loss once a better deal comes along. I guess my point is that this stop-and-go promotional stuff over something as unproductive as games is only hurtful to the evolution of these companies.
If Cingular, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint spent less money on advertising, which is in the billions, we would be much closer to 3G, lobbying for higher bandwidth, and other advantages wireless technologies can provide. Instead we're stuck battling it out about who gets more subscribers by luring them with GAMES?!
[Please sign here]
"Mine has got Dance Dance Revolution on it."
--Chag
What's up with the link on the word "able"?
Bizzare linkage.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
First off, Americans: YES, your mobile phone situation is five years behind the rest of the world, YES, we've heard your off-topic and pointless Luddism whenever phones are mentioned hundreds of times before. Get over it.
The article just about qualifies as news, I guess, as hardware acceleration is starting to emerge which will presumably increase the move towards 3D games development on mobile handsets.
The assessment that current 2D games for phones are rudimentary is a bit far from the mark. Bear in mind the vast majority of GBA games are 2D, in spite of the machine's fairly competent (software) 3D capabilities.
The idea of mobile (or any platform's) games 'rivalling' the experience of a wholly different platform is a meaningless one. The key issue with mobile games is for the gameplay and I/O to be suitable to the device, rather than whether the processing horsepower allows for a trillion dynamically lit surfaces. Some genres (notably racing games) are at home anywhere, others are less suited to certain devices.
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Everyone is commenting on how this will not work due to the screen being too limited and framerates being too hard. The way it will happenn is with true 3D displays! That's what will happen: the phone will project a 3D image instead of using a screen. And, the frame rate will be solved becasue a 3D display doesn't use acceration the way a screen does. No heavy math, no backface culling, no transforms. Just plot the points. See, it can happen. no problem.
Next?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Since cell phone makers make cell phones, and cellular providers build the cellular networks leave them alone, let them do their job and soon Duke Nukem Forever on my phone!!!
why do these get modded down? i thought it was pretty helpful. it saved me from having to register. *shrug*
I love FPSs and immersive 3D enviroments as much as the next guy (or FPS loving girl i guess) but people seem to have completly given up on bringing out new 2 dimensional games. ... well... just boring. Far better to have minesweeper, tetris, or snake given that these games are supposed to be short distractions.
Not every game has to tax my hardware to it's fullest to be enjoyable or emmersive. While some gems stand out, there are far to many games that focus too much on being emmersive and non linear and lose any real fun or engenuity.
All i'm saying is, done well, a 3D game can be amazing, but few, if any games, rival Mario 3 or Commander Keen 4 for playability and enjoyment. Unfortunatly, now that we can make things bigger and better, we assume we should. Essentially, we are seeing, video game bloat.
I don't know about anyone else, but the idea of playing a watterd down tomb raider clone on my cellphone seems
Of course, if someone comes up with some cool 3D puzzle game that takes 30 seconds tops a session, i could see it catching on
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
DDR for mobile phones? Hell yeah! But it's too bad the phone mix probably doesn't have "Hot Limit" on it: "Burning cell phone... we drink Ritalin..."
Maybe we'll need to carry more than one phone (if you don't already)...one to play games, listen to music on and one to make calls with.
You only need one phone and one GBA. Use the phone to make voice calls, and use the GBA to play games and music.
we can make 3d-java-mobile-games!
(runs away)
class he-man extends man!
My cell phone crashes and locks up enough as it is (SE T610). Let's iron out the kinks with the cell phones currently on the market before we cram any more useless and half-baked features into the models of the future.
Besides, I think I saw this movie before except it was called the Nokia NGage, and we all know how well that went over...
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Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
>> Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's ...Well a 386 with a voodoo 1 maybe... I think it will be a while before we play Far Cry on our cell phones.
As long as you have a device wired to hundreds of thousands of devices on the planet, why not focus on games that are more interactive? I know that in Japan especially such things are popular. And if it weren't for liability problems, Geocaching on GPS enabled phones would be interesting, at least. But if you're encouraging people to use text messages, maybe you could have chat rooms filled with local people? Just a thought.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I wasn't told the manufacturer of the chip inside the grey palm-sized device but it had one of the new mobile 3D accelerator chips. The graphics were pretty good - the developers said it's comparable to Nintendo 64 which is definitely enough for an add-on feature to a phone.
Apparently the main problem with the accelerator is the power consumption of the chip. Anything faster than the current generation with today's technology would consume too much power and nobody wants their phone to run out of battery after fifteen minutes of gaming.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
Clearly it blows that midlet away :).... I recently got to witness this on a Nokia 7650 and I'm still in shock, amazing!
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Like its not bad enough I can't get a simple Palm (a la M100) anymore, they're all $700 laptop wannabes. Now with this crap, how long before you can't get a regular cell phone (the prices of which are already artificially inflated enough, TYVM) that just makes PHONE CALLS? I'm probably in the minority on /., but I think a device should be able to do one thing and do it WELL (if it can do several things well, thats ok too). I have a cell phone in case I wreck my motorcycle, or a fire at work knocks out the phone system (yes, it happened recently), or something. I don't need a camera, fer chrissakes. If I wanna risk my job and play games on duty, I have a gameboy. I can "lug" the 6 oz. GBA-SP around in my pocket without a problem.
Superscape has been doing this sort of tech for about two years, now.
three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles.
I don't know, it seems that there aren't enough pixels on a cell phone screen to rival any console or pc.. the resolution is just too low.
Kent Simon Multitheft Auto
so what is wrong with just using a cell phone to place cellular calls? i dont get it.
I dunno about the rest of us but personally, I think it'd be better to carry a specialized device for playing games like a GameBoy Advance SP rather than try to game on a cellphone. While small / cute cellphone games are understandable, I think we'll see a lot of folks with RSI injuries on a cellphone if we start getting games like that since cellphones arn't designed for gaming. Otherwise we'll get funny comments like "I broke my hand / cellphone playing a game!"
Commander Keen sounds like a mighty fine argument for phones based on the X86. ;-)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
...wouldn't a Linux port for an A768 be better still?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I think it's fucking lame how Sun support (and attempt to standardise) an OpenGL ES binding for mobile phones when they can't even support an OpenGL binding on the desktop. Assholes.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I make cell phone games. The industry has gone through lots of changes recently. However, it seems unclear as to whether or not 3D gaming on the phone is something the consumer/casual gamer wants. There are still many popular 2D games on the platform (our most popular is a multi-player pool game on Verizon).
At the Brew 2004 conference we showed a demo of our new 3D Kayaking game, and it received quite a bit of attention. Based on that attention, we are putting more resources behind 3D.
However, since most users have multi-year service plans, I think it will be some time before handsets with 3D chipsets become the norm (or even the majority).
So, for now, we are using software only solutions and trying to create first person and other 3D experiences that will work on the majority of phones that are in the hands of users now.
I am certainly intrigued by the comments posted here (on all sides of the discussion).
Jeff Miller
Four Corners Development Group
www.fourcornersdevelopmentgroup.com
Are you sure that you're reading the right website? I love that kind of freedom and once set up an ssh connection to my server from a pub using my palm and nokia 7110 with infra red.
It probably depends on how large a part of your life the geekdom, really is. I still talk to people and sit in the sun. I also want to have access to my server 24/7 for when I do 'need' it.
I lie. About 'needing it,' that is. I just think it's really cool and that's why I'd do it. Because you can. Because its cool.
*scoffs at 5 year old american cell phone technology* *goes back to playing Initial-D in full texture-mapped 3D glory on a Mitsubishi D506i*
I'd be comfortable with the really-old style number LEDs that were common when cell phones (usually called 'car phones') were first becoming popular. I want to have a phone to talk to people. Seriously, just look at some of the stuff built into These phones. I dont want to have the 'built in' cost of:
- bluetooth
- Infrared
- big screen
- color screen
- touch screen
- 3D graphics processor
- Address book
- web browser
- GPS
- Digital Music
- Java processing
- Camera, for streamed video and audio
- RealOne, MP3, AAC, Midi, Wav, and a dozen other formats supported
- A bunch of games (Tony Hawk's Pro Scater, Tomb Raider, Sonic, MLB Slam!, Super Monkey Ball, more...)
- stereo audio output with headphones
All this and more, for the bargin price of under $200 after a $200 rebate with your 2-year Service Contract. When I searched for free phones at several places, the free (after rebate or with contract) phones all had at a minimum:- big screen
- web browsing
- voice dialing
- Phone & address book
- Several games
- vibrating alert
- GPS (for E911)
- TTY/TTD
I'd still be paying for all these features, regardless of whether I want them, even if they payment is every month through the contract. I don't want them. I just want one of the big grey bricks that I had a decade ago, that you typed in the numbers and it called people. Other people could call you.And that's it.
But the major companies WON'T do that, since that means they can't find convenient ways to charge you $50+ monthly. Well, there's always prepaid wireless...
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
I figure there are two possibilities, here.
1.) You're actually Masaharu Morimoto. You've starkly improved your English fluency, and acquired an interest in technology. Rather than focus on running your Philadelphia restaurant, honing your chef skills, or garnering helpful media attention, you choose to piss away precious time posting inane comments on Slashdot.
2.) You're a 14-year-old twit who couldn't muster the creativity to come up with his own handle, so you ripped off someone else's name. Try and find the distinction between these items:
That's right: They're all equivalent!! You win the prize!Unfortunately, you're still a loser.