Pocket HL2, Pocket Quake, pocket UT, Pocket Battlefield 1942... and wi freakin fi!!!

[grapeape]

Thats a game I havent thought about in a long time..geez i loved that one, the control and zoom was completely revolutionary for its time, good story too. Thanks for the memory I may have to dig that one out of the vault.

As for PDA's not being gaming devices, while that was intially true..much like the cf vs sd price gap things have changed. The latest stats that I have seen showed that consumers held over 70% of the market on them now. Devices such as the tapwave only further blur the lines. I would bet that after the first wave of media center devices and the release of Direct3d support the lines between pda and handheld gaming device will be blurred to the point of practical merger. Ever wonder MS didnt go for the throat with a handheld after the Xbox overtook the gamecube? Many belive that MS has a long term strategy to completely dominate the handheld market by slowly evolving the pocket pc to an all in one device. I think thats the main reason we are seeing companies like EA trying to make small footholds in the market already.

[MichaelX30]

lol I want Pocket Quake III!!!!!!!

lol I want Pocket Quake III!!!!!!!

That actually reminds me, how fast does PQII run on an X30H?

That actually reminds me, how fast does PQII run on an X30H?

Lets move beyond that, OK?

Lets move beyond that, OK?

Huh? It was a serious question... I don't even know how PQII runs on any device.

[xgambit]

just get a PSP or a gameboy DS. no waiting.

except that this is a hell of alot faster than those, and psp will have quite a bit of wait as i understand it as the pushed back the release

[tsaimelv]

Ever wonder MS didnt go for the throat with a handheld after the Xbox overtook the gamecube? Many belive that MS has a long term strategy to completely dominate the handheld market by slowly evolving the pocket pc to an all in one device. I think thats the main reason we are seeing companies like EA trying to make small footholds in the market already.

I think a much stronger trend, and a smarter strategy for M$, is their migration towards PDA-like smart phones. PDA sales as a percentage of the overall handheld market are basically nonexistant, and PDAs as a concept have not been as susccesful as you might think. Palm, the market leader, is basically a sinking ship that is scrambling to maintain a viable business model. This is why so many players (sony, toshiba, sharp, fujitsu, etc.) either never entered, or have recently exited, the US market for PDAs. Smart phone sales, on the other hand, are taking off like a rocket, and this is where the market is headed. 3D graphics accelerators on future smart phones is virtually guranteed.

I see little evidence that microsoft is going to position traditional PPCs with windows mobile as a platform for handheld gaming. If they want to sell a machine for gaming, it will look nothing like PPCs today, and run something very different than windows mobile. The nice new crop of high-end handhelds such as the X50V, hx4700, and Tungsten T5 are certainly not positioned towards gaming, they cost way too much. I read a while back that the crappy Zire (perhaps the Zire 21?) has sold more units than all other palms combined, ever, due to its low price point. Make no mistake, a shiny new PDA with a graphics accelerator that costs $500+ is being bought primarily by business users who care nothing about games. M$ would have to sell their hardware at a loss, something that only barely worked with the XBox, and they could easily follow the fate of Nokia and their disastrous NGage. It's a risky high-stakes business for sure!

just get a PSP or a gameboy DS. no waiting.

Lets see ... how many emulator's can a ppc run ... sega, snes, ps1, gameboy, gameboy advanced, it's own game's, zodiac port's ( 2700g ), dos games etc ... i bet that i forgot a few dozen others ...

How many game's can a psp or gameboy ds run? Just it's own type, and that's it ...

Now, how advanced is a psp compared to lets say the x50v...

Cpu+Gpu: 620mhz & 2700g vs Twin 2-bit MIPS R4000 microprocessors 333mhz
Memory: 64mb + 16mb vram vs 32mb shared ram
Screen: 3.7" vs 4.3"
Resolution: 640*320 vs 480*272

etc ... Now based on the specs & expected published power of the twin cpu of the psp, and based on the specs of the 2700g, i feel that even psp emulated game's will be able to play on a x50v. Hell, even ps1 game's can be run only on a 400mhz cpu with no gpu at all ...

Some food for discussion :)

[OC Noob]

just get a PSP or a gameboy DS. no waiting.

I have to wait for them to come out:p


I'll get one or the other once both are out, but gaming on the PPC still interests me considering I'll have it on me all the time for work.


I'm going to check out that Yeti link. It sounds pretty cool, but I don't see how the X30 can render 3d stuff. Maybe it will work on my X5 as well.

[Ranma13]

PSP and Gameboy DS isn't released yet, which means there is no development, which means no emulators. Pocket PC launched without any game emulators so your claim is null.

Your claim to the specs is null also, the PS1 had a 7.5 Mhz processor (I think) and a 625Mhz device can't emulate it at full speed. A PS2 runs at 200mhz but not even a top-of-the-line 3 Ghz computer can emulate it above 5 FPS.

It's all about the developers and the quality of the software that they develop, NOT the hardware.

Major companies are NOT going to develop for something that belongs solely in the niche gaming market. Prime example, look at the GP32 and the Zodiac. Hardly any games available and none from big-name companies (the ports of Duke Nukem and Doom 2 on the Zodiac was done by a different company than Id and 3D Realms). You can expect better emulators to come out for these devices but definitely nothing from Square Enix, Capcom, Namco, etc...

This is why so many players (sony, toshiba, sharp, fujitsu, etc.) either never entered, or have recently exited, the US market for PDAs. Smart phone sales, on the other hand, are taking off like a rocket, and this is where the market is headed. 3D graphics accelerators on future smart phones is virtually guranteed.

Really? A year ago ppc where non existent here ( my country ). The best you saw was a few palm owners, and bussiness user's the biggest customers. Now, you can find a lot of differende ppc brand's in store's, with or widout gps systems.

It may sound strange, but it's the gps systems that have put ppc's on the map for most people. Nobody knew about ppc's, but the moment those litte ppc's started showing up for 399 - 499 euro's with gps & software, while any car gps's cost's double or more, people started to buy them around here.

More & more people have gotten ppc's, yet, at the same time, they discover that ppc's hold more then just organiser's & gps.

When i look at smart phone's, i can't help but wonder about some there price's. Having a smartphone is all nice & well, but if you know that people trow out there normal cell phone's everytime a new model shows up ( while costing a lot less then smartphone's ) ... tja ... It was on the news a while ago, they buying behavier in regards to normal cell phone's.

I see little evidence that microsoft is going to position traditional PPCs with windows mobile as a platform for handheld gaming. If they want to sell a machine for gaming, it will look nothing like PPCs today, and run something very different than windows mobile. The nice new crop of high-end handhelds such as the X50V, hx4700, and Tungsten T5 are certainly not positioned towards gaming, they cost way too much.

You forget ... the x50v is the first model with gpu. Thhe hx4700 is just another bussiness model oriented ppc ( shown clearly by lack of gpu, and touchpad design ). More will follow, and after a while, the gpu's will start to show up in low price ppc's. Hell, even the x50v is already getting discounted to 420$ and it's only out for a few weeks.

Also, the fact that MS started to included D3DM in WM2005 is a big clue that they are also going gaming on ppc's. MS never has the habit of adding stuff onless they are planning something for the future. They know, by enhancing ppc's with a GPU, you can not only market them to bussiness people, but also to the more average gaming joe. It's a commen mistake that all gamers are children with no money. The first large gaming youth group, is now in there 20's ( those that rised up with the 386sx & onward ). Seen several studdie's, poll's etc showing that there are more "adult" ( 18+ ) gamers now then teen gamers. And those people have the money to buy ppc's.

And let's face it, even handhelt gaming platform's are expensive. See my post above about handhelt gaming console's vs ppc's ... what is more value for money ... a gameboy or a ppc that can emulate a gameboy, and a dozen other game console's/handhelts ...

Major companies are NOT going to develop for something that belongs solely in the niche gaming market.

Really, then what do you call EA ... a small company?? They just released there first title for the x50v ( Madden 2005 ).

Your claim to the specs is null also, the PS1 had a 7.5 Mhz processor (I think) and a 625Mhz device can't emulate it at full speed. A PS2 runs at 200mhz but not even a top-of-the-line 3 Ghz computer can emulate it above 5 FPS.

Atleasted get your specs right.

The PS1 has a 32-bit R3000A working at 34mhz. I added the cpu + gpu comparison vs the PSP to show the 2 differende architecture's.

And no emulator can emulate ps1 ... lol ... What do you call FPSEce then? People are running title's at full speed even with 400mhz cpu's ( and the emulator is speeding up with every release ) ...

And PS2 emulation, do a search, there is one out there, that already does it, and with lower specs.

Do not underestimate the power the 2700g hold's. There is a pdf on Intel's site, and you will be surpriced.

[OC Noob]

http://www.theteahouse.com.au/gba/index.html
here is the link for Yeti3d..homepage..it looks really really well..can't remember where was the install pack..it is somewhere there

Wow, that is just amazing what that guy is doing. Its too bad there are no games using it yet. To get gfx that nice with software rendering on something like a GBA is fantastic.


A nice link with info about the 2700g.


Thanks for the linkage.


ps the engine supports the OpenGL built into the 2700g, so it should be kick butt if someone ever makes a game with it.

[tsaimelv]

Now, how advanced is a psp compared to lets say the x50v...

Cpu+Gpu: 620mhz & 2700g vs Twin 2-bit MIPS R4000 microprocessors 333mhz
Memory: 64mb + 16mb vram vs 32mb shared ram
Screen: 3.7" vs 4.3"
Resolution: 640*320 vs 480*272

etc ... Now based on the specs & expected published power of the twin cpu of the psp, and based on the specs of the 2700g, i feel that even psp emulated game's will be able to play on a x50v. Hell, even ps1 game's can be run only on a 400mhz cpu with no gpu at all ...

Some food for discussion :)

You're leaving a ton of stuff out. Quite frankly, based on the rumored specs of the PSP, it will simply blow the X50V out of the water for gaming.

Here's some of the reasons:

1. The PSP's main CPU will supposedly have a 2.6 GFlop/s vector floating point unit. The PXA270 cannot do floating point at all, and will be destroyed by games that make use of such operations. This is a LOT of processing horsepower.

2. The PSP's "media engine" (the second R4000 MIPs processor I think) contains 2 megabytes of 2.6 GB/sec embedded DRAM. It might even be larger, this was an early spec and I think I've read that it will be over 8 megabytes. Anyway, 2.6 gigabytes/sec is WAY faster than the PXA270 can access its external memory. Access to such an incredibly fast and relatively large buffer of memory will give it significant advantages on resource-intensive games. In contrast, a 624 MHz PXA270 can only access its 256 kbytes of on-chip SRAM at comparable speeds. Once you go off chip, you're stuck at < 400 mbytes/sec, a 6X slowdown that will bring the PXA270 to its knees on many intensive games.

3. The PSP is rumored to have TWO graphics accelerator chips, each performing different functions. I can't say for sure, but my guess is that they're equal to, or better than, what the 2700G provides.

4. The PSP has a dedicated 166 MHz DSP just for sound processing!

5. The PSP may have less total memory, but remember that games actually don't need all that much memory. They tend to use huge amounts of memory in PC games, but this is not representative of memory requirements in console games. Remember that the playstation 2 only has 32 megabytes of total system RAM.

6. Finally, and this is a big one... Games for the PSP use 1.8 gigabyte UMD (universal media device) disks. This is a CRAPLOAD of data, and will allow games for the PSP to be extremely media rich. Try that putting that much data on a PPC without carrying around a pocket full of $100 CF cards...

The bottom line is that people are predicting that the PSP will be even more powerful than the playstation 2 in several ways.