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."

Applications for Desktop PC's?

[Spy der Mann]

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)?

1024x768?

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:1024x768 is nice, but...

[lanc]

...do you really want to play Q3 on your handheld?
...okok, I do :)

that is, I would love to, If I had a handhaeld, if they weren't so bloody expensive. I just hate to have a cell phone (or two), an mp3 player, sometimes a digital camera with me, all separated. I just want one gadget. An All-in-wonder single one. Is that really that difficult today yet?

Runs games from 1999 with ease?

[appleprophet]

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 ...

[hattig]

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.

I don't know about mobile phones though - maybe the highest end communicator style phones ... maybe.

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.

Super for Camera resolutions

[RiotXIX]

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.

Re:Applications for Desktop PC's?

[Anonymous Coward]

That can already be done by tons of video cards out there (like my old TNT2). Remember, it says Quake 3, when you probably want Quake 4 performance.

But how much power does it use?

[Vellmont]

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.

WHOA! NOT ALL IS AT IT SEEMS

[SmallFurryCreature]

gamers can experience Quake 3 equal to that of the original PlayStation

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.

Re:Can it run Quake 4? BF2? FEAR?

[justins]

You were playing Quake 3 on a handheld 5 years ago?

Consider other markets.

[EvilGremlin]

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.

Big whoop -- a 10MP image from a 10 cent lens

[Anonymous Coward]

The concept of a 10MP image on a mobile handheld with a 10-cent fixed-focus plastic lens blows my mind. Like putting a 400 horsepower engine in a Yugo...

Someone wake me up when they start putting decent lenses in camera phones.

Pretty Significant

[nobodynoone]

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.

Re:1024x768 is nice, but...

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

The engine itself could be used for a variety of things, and is easily modded. That kind of power has many practical uses though, like GoogleEarth-style mapping on your phone (specificly refering to the full 3d mapped areas).

Re:RAZR V3X has Nvidia 3d accelerator disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair to Motorola here, I was involved in a product based on the GoForce 4500 about a year ago. The lack of driver support from Nvidia caused a 6 month delay launching the product, and several features ended up being disabled (the chip had hardware MPEG4 support, but we ended up using a software decoder, the Open/GL drivers mostly worked but we had to give up on the DirectX support). I wouldn't be surprised if the 4800 drivers were similarly slow in catching up to the hardware.

Re:cuts both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

To me, there is just something inherently wrong with a "mobile phone" having a 3D Graphics card... Isn't the purpose of a phone to allow one to *talk* to other people?

1960 - What's up with computer displays? Isn't the purpose of a computer to process punched cards representing accounting data?