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Nvidia Launches High Powered Mobile Graphics Chip
elbazo writes "Nvidia today launched their new mobile chip the GoForce 5500, which provides a massive jump in graphics technology for handheld and mobile devices. Capable of 'easily' rendering Quake 3, support for 1024x768 graphics output and real time playback of H.264, WMV9 and MPEG4 movies at high resolution the chip looks set to rock the mobile world."
I just wonder, if this chip has really low energy consumption, is it possible to make a videocard out of it (i.e. one that doesn't require extra large heatsinks to work)?
nVidia has been saying they were going to rock the mobile world for years. I'll believe it when I see more. nVidia may have been spanking ATI on the desktop (x1900 not withstanding), but ATI has been proven in mobile and handheld. nVidia's efforts have been too power hungry for anything but desktop replacement laptops. Lets hope things change, but I don't believe nVidia pronouncements of "rocking."
because headshots with railguns aren't yet frequent enough on subways.
...do you really want to play Q3 on your handheld?
:)
...okok, I do
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
While I could see easily the benefits such a chip would have on the tablet PC market, I fail to see how it will help the PDA/SmartPhone market when the idea has been tried again and again, and people have shown that they are simply not interested in watching movies on their 1.5" flipscreen phone, especially when one considers that the battery life would be ultimately non-existant after watching even a short full-length movie...
Maybe they're trying to create a market for multimedia stuff where there currently isn't one, but this doesn't seem like what people want. I'd rather have a cell phone with a long battery life than one that has really cool graphics that drain the battery after 20 minutes.
Maybe they're hoping that fuel cell technology gets small enough for cell phones by the time this hits the market.
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Slightly offtopic, but you might find it interesting nevertheless.m l)
The Motorola RAZR V3X sports a nVidia Goforce 3D 4800 WMP, but for some strange reason it's not used by the KVM. In other words games using the Java 3D API will have the same sucky performance as phones with no hardware acceleration. Some guy even started a petition to get Motorola to change it (http://www.petitiononline.com/v3xpet/petition.ht
Um... okay. So?
...I'll just go back to waiting for the optic nervesplice HUD overlay, thanks :D
I mean i guess it's cool they could do it and all, but... the PSP's screen size, frex, is acceptible. Barely. But my cellphone...? (I like how the articles cites "...the original Quake 3 for the Playstation," btw. Uh...)
I just don't get how it's desireable or even not-painful to be looking at smaller and smaller screens and cramming higher resolutions on them. So WHAT? You REALLY want to watch a full length movie on a moving train/bus/backseat on a screen the size of your hand? Ow. Ugh. Oh what an experience. Nah.
That which does not kill us makes us... st
And yet it has 1024x768, and no HDCP support?
Slashdotters seem to have a short memory anyhow. Here's a jogger.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Quake 3 was released in '99 - 7 years ago. I remember playing that on a 400 MHz G4 with an ATI 128 and being pretty impressed.
1024x768 is THE standard, and it will be for some time. If you want your app to be usable to average joes, it better fit inside 1024x768. I found out the hard way when a customer called to ask why our app wouldnt fit inside their screen, I had an instant revelation that with those new shiny monitors we had bought everyone had developed on 1600x1200 and not even bothered to test on 1024x768. What a HUGE mistake that was... Nevermind that 1024x768 is very high resolution for a mobile device with a small screen.
Well, I suppose that Nokia's Linux based web tablet (770) has a pretty decent 800x480 display, and I bet that something like this chip would be quite a good match for it.
... maybe.
I don't know about mobile phones though - maybe the highest end communicator style phones
Of course digital cameras are multifunction these days, and have large ridiculous DPI displays on them. I wouldn't be surprised to see a 3" 800x600 display on one soon. Again, this GPU would be good for that, and for playback of recorded video, and the 10MP capability suggests it might be targetted (in nVidia's dreams?) at high end consumer digital cameras (which will be 5MP to 8MP for the next couple of years).
You won't see it in a $200 phone though. Not this year or next anyway.
That is off the hook for using the phone as a (video) camera - I'm not much of a gamer, but if anything got me interested about upcoming phones it was the ability to always be carrying a high-def camera with you at all times.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
Luckily most new cellphones will come with an optional 17" monitor (and handy carrying straps, allowing you to wear it like a backpack). The only problem is looking at something strapped to your back, but I suppose you could wear it in the front (upside down).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
That's really the key question here, and the answer will determine how usefull it is. No one wants a mobile device, be it a PDA or whatever that kills the battery in an hour. I see no technical specs on power consumption, which is a bit worrying since I can only assume that nVidia isn't terribly proud of it.
AccountKiller
Now of course this is a statement in a press story so it probably has all the accuracy of well a press story (0) but what exactly does this mean?
Quake 3 was a PC game. It was the game I got a matrox G400 (bumpmapping) for, well that and dualhead, and I think was typically played at 1024x768 resolution.
So when was it released on the playstation. Oh right, never. A version was released for the playstation 2. Big difference right there but even with its improved hardware the PS2 is still not exactly up to snuff. The resolution is TV, wich is far far lower then you would ever accept on a pc.
So what exactly is this new chip capable off? Can it play at 1024x768 OR can it play at playstation (2) resolutions? Why does it compare a pc game with a lesser console version?
I smell a load of marketing. Reminds me of the days on the farm.
It may be powerfull but comparing it to a poor console version of an old console game is not exactly inspiring.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
At first I was going to crack a joke on how hard it would be to circle-strafe-jump on a mobile phone.
Then I realised that kids who can text at 40 characters per second probably won't even blink at the difficulty.
You know you're getting old when you still need a mouse and a keyboard for FPS games...
You were playing Quake 3 on a handheld 5 years ago?
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Okay, the majority of the comments thus far come from a PC-centric mindset, that is, you assume that the consumers of this chip will have PCs so why would they bother? I see this product as far more likely to be aimed at South-East Asian (e.g. Malaysian) markets where people are far less likely to have computers, but practically everyone has a mobile phone. In those markets, a chip that can play Quake 3 is pretty damn awesome.
And let's not forget that video encoding and decoding are vital steps in video calls; if this chip can make those steps faster/better, an increase in the quality of those services is just a step away.
PCI express 4000 mb/s
Also you would prob need an external power supply.
Even Sata would need to double its bandwitdh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwi dths#Computer_interfaces
Perhaps they could push these chips in the direction of "Car Computers." Personally, I think it would be really neat to have a full entertainment system, with a nice powerful LCD display at 1024x768 in my car. If I had kids, I suppose it would make more sense for long trips etc. ... just my $0.02 :-)
But your clearly and idiot. [Image of a defanged viper gumming its prey] That was a pretty effective insult...
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
Yeah, this is going to rock the mobile world, definitely. The phone I had 5 years ago would drop calls. My current phone drops calls and periodically crashes, totally locking up when the bluetooth, camera, MP3 player, or web browser decides to take a shit. Now we have souped up graphics going into these bad boys, and man, it's gonna rock. I can't wait until I have to install a video driver update on my friggin' telephone.
1024x768 is perfect for what I'll call ther "vertual gadget"
THe rumer mills are saying Apple is woring on something like this. Recently filed pattents and trademarks back this up. I fuly expect them to sell some kind of touch sensitiv LCD scren handhald device that does NOT look or act like a small scale desktop.
Apples' range of portables has been, to be kind, lacking in features the past couple of years mainly because of their boat-anchor PPC fetish. Apple's Teh Shiny! has been the iPlod range of jewelry and fashion statements, their premier bottom-line enhancement mechanism. Video, hard disks, flash but no sign of an Apple PDA in the mix.
But... imagine an Apple PDA with Aqua, enough smarts to do the look-and-feel kabuki of its bigger brothers, a coat-pocket tablet-gesture device with a 1024x768 display and a Centrino, a shitload of Flash and no battery-sucking hard drive, able to run those new-fangled PPC/x86 fat binaries native. Of course it would be slow and not exactly the device most people whould run PhotoShop on, but as a workalike sibling to the iBooks with all the wireless connectivity Teh Shiny! comes with as standard today I figure it would fly out the door sales-wise.
The killer for this pipe-dream was fitting enough GPU power under the hood, affordable in power consumption terms, to make Aqua usable in less than geological time -- in independent tests, ten out of ten Apple owners never want to see a spinning beachball ever again. I speculated about Cell as a dedicated Aqua graphics engine but from what I've seen about its power consumption that doesn't fly. This device might just do the job though. Hmmm.
I think that this new chipset is pretty significant. While the ability to render Q3 at 1024x768 seems pretty useless on a tiny screen, the H.264 and WMV9 support stand out. These codecs (especially the H.264) could be used in the future to possibly do things like mobile TVIP from your house using something like a slingbox. This chip could also enable some pretty crazy menu effects/video effects in-phone, which could prove slightly useful. The limitations of the small cell phone screen do hamper this significantly, however.
It seems interesting the timing of this; I wonder if Apple will pick this up if they are indeed going to bring out a new IPod video. It seems to me this chip would be a perfect fit, with its resolution and H.264 capability.
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.