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."

Doesn't seem to be a good idea

[heatdeath]

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.

RAZR V3X has Nvidia 3d accelerator disabled

[edxwelch]

Slightly offtopic, but you might find it interesting nevertheless.
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.htm l [petitiononline.com])

gee, great textures on that 2-mm splotch!

[spacefiddle]

Um... okay. So?
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. ...I'll just go back to waiting for the optic nervesplice HUD overlay, thanks :D

High-powered?

[Tavor]

And yet it has 1024x768, and no HDCP support?
Slashdotters seem to have a short memory anyhow. Here's a jogger. [firingsquad.com]

Re:1024x768 is nice, but...

[Otter]

You can get Doom on your iPod [hyarion.com] today...

"Car Computer"?

[corychristison]

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 :-)

It is for a new class of device

[ChrisA90278]

Everyone here thinks in terms of PC games. THis is for something else. Can you imagine a 4 by 6 inch hunk of black plastic maybe 3/8 inch think. It is a featurelass slab of black pollished plastic until you draw a circle on its face with your finger then it comes to life as a frameless LCD pannel that can show video lke an iPod. THere is even a picture of an iPod click wheel on the front of it. Had I turnned it on by drawing an "X" on the face rather then ther "O" it would come to life with a picture of a cell phone on the display and I could use it to make a call. Drawing a "V" turns it into a TV/TIVO remote with a live preview display.

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.

Aqua?

[nojayuk]

I was chewing the fat with a Linuxhead-turned-MacAddict a few days ago, tossing up ideas about where Apple might go in the future. Friend dragged the stinking corpse of the Newton out of its uneasy grave (he has a thing about PDAs, forgive him). I pointed out that the Newt was buried for a good reason or six, then inspiration struck.

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.

H.264+Rumors of new video IPod?

[cmat]

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.