Graphics On Handhelds: Richness Excelled

I know that last Friday I said I was done writing about ARM CPUs and graphics cores for a while, but that was before I took a chunk out of my left index finger with a sharp knife while cooking dinner Sunday night. Several layers of bandages plus a splint currently make keyboard typing difficult, to put it mildly, so I hope you’ll excuse me for choosing a video- and still image-heavy (and correspondingly text-light) writeup for today.

Last June, I discussed the hardware enhancements of Apple’s latest-generation iPhone 3GS versus its iPhone 3G predecessor (which I own), both in the areas of respective system processors and multimedia accelerators. Courtesy of Gizmodo, check out the result if these evolutionary improvements in the form of Realtech’s upcoming title, Iron Fist Boxing 3 (iPhone on the left, iPhone 3GS on the right):

Speaking of the iPhone 3GS (and OpenGL 2.0), last December Epic Games’ Mark Rein met with Anand Lal Shimpi and showed him a demo of the Unreal 3 game engine ported to both it and the latest-generation iPod touch. Keep in mind that this is the same engine that powers not only Unreal 3 but also PC and living room game console titles such as BioShock, Gears of War, Gears of War 2 (in an enhanced form), Mass Effect and other titles. Here’s a video:

Check out Anand’s writeup for more details, including screenshots.

Here’s more on the iPhone 3GS, this time of a competitive nature versus the Google Nexus One. Mobile developer Distinctive Games did an interesting 3D game engine analysis of the two platforms, which gave the nod to the iPhone 3GS in spite of its slower-clocked and comparatively archaic ARM CPU. Reportedly, the iPhone 3GS’s more advanced PowerVR graphics core still delivered superior overall results, along with the fact that Apple’s development tools suite (unlike Google’s, even with bypass of the Dalvik virtual machine in lieu of native hardware compilation) provided access to ARM’s Neon floating point code optimizations. Don’t underestimate the greater pixel-pushing necessity (and consequent performance impact) on the Nexus One versus with the lower-resolution iPhone 3GS alternative, either. Thanks to Engadget for the video link:

Finally, I’ve got a few tidbits for y’all on id Software game engines and titles for handhelds. First off, check out the details of how the company ported the 1993 PC title Doom to the iPhone platform. Next, here’s information on how a hobbyist ported ten-year-old Quake III (and its Quake II predecessor) to Android. And here’s a video of the results, running on the Motorola Droid:

Keep in mind that all of the above demonstrations take place on small-sized and low-resolution cell phone displays. Now, imagine what this and similar content will look like on a larger-screen, higher-resolution tablets such as the upcoming Apple iPad. See why I’m so enthused about the potential for gaming applications on such devices, and why I consequently believe that the era of dedicated-function handheld gaming consoles is nearing an end?

Granted, smartphones are fundamentally still first and foremost communications devices, and consumers will consequently resist running expanded-function applications on them that prematurely drain batteries and therefore limit the primary function’s usefulness. But evolutionary platform and subsystem improvements will sooner or later solve the battery life issue, as has been the case with a host of functions already absorbed into the smartphone, and as such I can’t ignore the two-widget rule I mentioned in last Friday’s other post.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go rest my lacerated finger.