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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."
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".
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?
> 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!
Just remember that the more advanced features these phones get, the cheaper your plain jane phone will be
What plain jane phones?
If only they were available for phones, that is.
If you haven't been shopping for a phone latelty, you may have noticed that most of their promotional items are for the phones laoded up on featuers. Cameras, 10 games, 32-bit color screens, PDA options.. It's sickening. If you want one of those plain jane phones it will cost you more than a phone with all the features I just mentioned above.
Hmmm.
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.
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!!!
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.
...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.
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
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).
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."
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.
No, it means the harder your plain jane phone will be to find.
I didn't want a full color LCD (drains batteries) or a phone with useless background images or a million built in ring tones or any of that frilly stuff. Guess what, there ARENT any new phones that are "plain"
What's more, for all its frills, it doesn't have the functionality to do a simple thing like vibrate, THEN ring. My old motorola, which is at least four - five years old, can.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
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
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.
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?!
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.
So don't use those extra features.
/. so why aren't you hankering after the P900 or Treo 600? Don't you want to SSH to your server while you're on the bus?
Mobile phone companies will subsidise a camera phone in the hope that you start MMSing - thus driving up their revenue.
If you want a cheap, basic phone, try an independant store where the salesman isn't on commision to sell you a phone and contract you have no need for.
Although, you are on
(Disclaimer - not speaking for my employer)
If a square is really a rhombus, why aren't all triangles purple?
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
There's even a free one!
running on my cell phone at a mind blowing 100x80 resolution at 11 FPS.
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.
Sometimes it's not as simple as not using the feature. My sister-in-law's Verizon phone (not sure what brand) sucks down batteries because of her bells and whistles (color LCD, fancy speaker for ring tones, etc). My old Nokia can last much longer without needing to recharge. That comes in handy for situations like when I'm out on my boat.
Why would I want to SSH my server from a bus? My company doesn't know my cell number for a reason.
What kind of reception do they get? How long does the battery last? How long will the phone last before it breaks or is made obsolete? There's nothing on the site about those things, which are the main criteria for most cell phone users. But every phone talks about all the stuff you could do while waiting to get reception.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
This would be true, if they were developing the features that we want in plain-jane phones. If the cutting edge phone was able to get reception inside a faraday cage in the bottom of a missile silo 400 miles from the nearest cell tower, then better reception for plane-jane phones wouldn't be far off.
But since they're developing 3D graphics, 3D graphics (and their battery-sapping performance) won't be far off. Soon every plain-jane phone will have 3D animated menus, so that they sap power from the transceiver, leading to poorer reception and lower battery life.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
When getting my contract renewed recently, the provider I was with also listed only feature filled phones on their page of special.
:) So it seems free with those feature packed phones isn't so free after all.
I asked what else one could get and it turned out you could get many low end non colour screen phones for free as well. The only difference between the free feature packed phone and the free simple phone, was the monthly contract price actually wen't down with the simple phone.
BTW this is in South Africa, so I have no idea how the US service providers do it.
Looking at Nokia USA it seems you can get several black and white and thus long battery life nokias.
East Coast Brewers
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.
Just remember that the more advanced features these phones get, the cheaper your plain jane phone will be.
Very soon the day will come that people can compare the heatsink fans mounted on their cell phones.
My last "it's just a phone phone" was a SonyEricsson T600. Such phones exist if you want them to. As for the vibrate before it rings, it had an editor built in for the ringtones, and that included the ability to set vibrate and lights on/off in the timing, so you could have it turn on the front light and start vibrating, then make a noise after a few seconds...
Seek and ye shall find.
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
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!
One more thought: I think the gain for the antenna in a phone should be clearly marked at the points of sale. If they're going to be an important part of our infrastructure and they don't work without reception, they should have it marked like mileage on automobiles, so that you can compare them based on an actual, tested criteria, instead of mindless feature creep.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
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.
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
It's sickening. If you want one of those plain jane phones it will cost you more than a phone with all the features I just mentioned above.
How are cell phone companies fucking you extra hard these days? They are offering pay-per-use services. Pay to send a photo. Pay to download a game/ringtone. If you get the plain-jane phone, what the hell are they going to charge you for?
What? I always thought Slashdot people would be The People who would really appreciate features such as SSH on the phone.
In my time I've owned three phones that have had the possibility of connecting to the Internet. The first was Nokia 9000 Communicator, in 1998. It's nice to know future was invented more than six years ago.
During that time I've used SSH, Web and e-mail on the phone. Let me give you some anecdotes:
Once I was hurrying to the train station and I missed the bus. I had no idea whether I'd make it in time if I waited for another bus. It was early Saturday morning, so I couldn't call anyone at the Commuter Traffic Center. Instead of calling a taxi, I checked the timetables for the bus from the Net. No need for a taxi, so I saved some 20 Euros there.
(I've done something similar countless times on Friday evenings after the regular busses have gone and I don't know how I'll find a night-bus.)
Another time I was picking up some video tapes from the video shop. Unfortunately when I was almost there, I noticed I had left the note with the orders home. Option 1: turn back, face the rush hour, might not even make it today. Option 2: check email for said note. Option two saved me at least two hours, maybe even a full day.
(And again, other similar incidents have happened.)
I have dozens of stories like these. These features can be a real lifesaver at times! I'm not saying a smartphone is an excuse to be sloppy, but it is REALLY useful when accidents happen.
I haven't even mentioned the entertainment benefits. Tending the fire while camping, everyone else asleep? Play Doom. Stuck in a strange city at a late hour, two hours before the bus/train/plane leaves and no way to spend time? Irc or IM with your friends. Need to do something productive? Take out your laptop and copy some stuff from home server over GPRS.
Although 3D on cellphones is nothing near modern PCs, my current phone (N-Gage QD) is roughly as powerful as the PC I owned 4 years ago. (Granted, it was quite old at the time.) It is more powerful than the computer I used to play Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, and can show more colors!
I wouldn't be surprised, if Nvidia had Nokia as their main client after, say, 5 years.
[ Antti Rasinen ]
"Mine has got Dance Dance Revolution on it."
--Chag
You can get Splinter Cell for your phone. In fact, I have it for mine. It is actually really different from the ps2/xbox/pc version, but it's still a fun game. It's pretty much akin to the old school Prince of Persia. very fun.
It's actually programed by a third party, not the phone company.
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