Is this time to play games in 3D on your mobile phone or your PDA? Not yet, but soon, according to this article from ZDNet UK, "ARM takes 3D to phone makers."
UK-based chip designer ARM has integrated advanced 3D graphics technology into its hardware development boards, a step toward making 3D graphics widespread in mobile devices such as handheld computers and mobile phones.
ARM has been pushing the PowerVR MBX core, developed with Imagination Technologies, as a technology for building realistic 3D graphics into mobile devices. It is in a good position to promote the technology as its chip designs power handheld computers such as Palm OS and Pocket PC devices, as well as the majority of mobile phones. Chip builders and device makers, for their part, are keen to tap into attractive features that will keep consumers interested.
Will this keep you interested? I'm not sure, but chipmakers are.
Several chipmakers are already licensing PowerVR MBX. Texas Instruments, a leader in wireless chips, said in April that it would license the core for use in its OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) family of application processors, which power Palm handheld computers, Windows CE devices and Symbian smartphones, among other devices.
How much will this cost? Maybe not that much.
The technology has low memory requirements, a factor crucial in highly integrated devices like phones, and one directly related to power consumption.
PowerVR achieves low memory bandwidth through a technique called tile-based rendering, which is now beginning to catch on in the high-performance graphics world, as a way to combat memory bottlenecks in PCs and gaming consoles. The technique economises on memory bandwidth by communicating only the pixels that need to be rendered.
The first models should appear as soon as 2004. So you'll be able to play games in 3D for the next holiday season. But as usual, I suspect that the pornographic industry will be ready before the gaming industry.
Finally, you can find more information in this press release from ARM.
Source: Matthew Broersma, ZDNet UK, October 24, 2003
1:35:05 PM
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