3D graphics benchmarks aren't the 'be all and end all' when it comes to games playing performance, but they're a good clue as to how capable a device is. So it was interesting to find out about a regularly updated and bookmarkable table of OpenGL ES benchmarked smartphones. It's topped by the 'if you believe Nokia' obsolete N93 and the N-Gage 1st access smartphone, the N81, comes in a lowly 22nd. Read on for comment.
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Well Steve, as AAN readers will know, Nokia have now said they definitely will be doing two versions of some games, one version that uses the 3D chip and one version that doesn't:
http://www.allaboutngage.com/news/item/6771_Nokia_talks_3D_hardware_finall.php
What is truly weird is that they released the N81 without a 3D chip while simultaneously promoting it a gaming phone and charging a very high price for it.
The lack of a 3D chip means the N81 won't be able to run the enhanced versions of games, and the high price put off people who were looking for a low cost next gen N-Gage phone.
Having played games on both the N81 and N93, I would wholeheartedly recommend the N93 as a much better gaming phone. The N93 has a far better button layout in horizontal mode, a much more comfortable direction pad, and as Steve notes it has far superior 3D graphics too.
3D accelerated graphics certainly being dominated by PowerVR at the moment, and these are only the 1st generation Open GL ES 1.1 devices. Open GL ES 2.0 phones later this year.
I think its well worth pointing out at that OpenGL is actually very little used on mobile currently.
The one area where it might have an impact is N-Gage. However even here, as krisse, note Nokia have said they'll be doing software rendered version. How big a difference there will be between hardware acceleration and software acceleration is open to debate. For OpenGL 1.1 I think (on the faster processors phones - such as the N81) the difference wont be nearly as big as people imagine in the real world (sure there's a numerical difference). For example in those tests I assume they're using 'raw' OpenGL and not doing any software acceleration - if they did the non 3D chip phones would run better.
Its probably a different matter with OpenGL 2 of course.
With that said I do think its a bit strange than the N81 does not have a 3D chip.
Nor does the latest "Flagship Device N96"
I think the results are subjective, I mean shouldnt the N95, N82 and N95 8gb be the same?
Variations in software must cause the slight differences.
Does anyone have any clarification on the N96 situation?
On the N93 and N95 I'd understood that the same chip provides TV Out and 3D acceleration.
Given that, why would the N96 have TV Out but not 3D acceleration? Why didn't they just use the same chip from the N95? If they did use the same chip, why are people saying it can't do 3D acceleration?
Somewhere on the Mobile Review forums someone has commented that the N96 does not use the TI OMAP 24xx SoC. That maybe why? I am not sure if it uses the same Freescale chip as the N81 since the N81 has lower "other" features so in conclusion this must be a new unnamed SoC.
The N81 doesn't have TV Out but the N96 does, so I don't think it can be the same chip on the N96.
I'm just baffled why they didn't use the N95 chip on the N96.
One thing is definitely for sure, the gap between the N96 and other upcoming Nokia models isn't as great as it was during the launch of the N95.
N93 has only got 264k screen, and only device with 330 mhz arm cpu with has such screen , meaning that it has less root of 2 calculations to do than for eg, n95, which has 16.6 million colour screen, hence n93 is on top, though on n93 the user experience isn't as good, hence a 264k screen, the difference is minmial. N93i has got the 16 million colour screen, though auto underclocking feature is not employed.
Also Newer fp1 generation devices has dynamic underclocking to save battery, plus more function overhead, despite having backported ram improving features off v9.3, so its not necessarily as fast, even there are on the same hardware, again, the difference is minmial. n81's got newer generation od DAC than that of n91, whats what it's selling on, not multimedia or gaming experience as such.
junchao8 wrote:N93 has only got 264k screen, and only device with 330 mhz arm cpu with has such screen , meaning that it has less root of 2 calculations to do than for eg, n95, which has 16.6 million colour screen, hence n93 is on top, though on n93 the user experience isn't as good, hence a 264k screen, the difference is minmial. N93i has got the 16 million colour screen, though auto underclocking feature is not employed.Also Newer fp1 generation devices has dynamic underclocking to save battery, plus more function overhead, despite having backported ram improving features off v9.3, so its not necessarily as fast, even there are on the same hardware, again, the difference is minmial. n81's got newer generation od DAC than that of n91, whats what it's selling on, not multimedia or gaming experience as such.
You seem to be confused man
Either you're tokin off topic or you're confused or you're not able to convey your point
Either way, the point is moot as it doesn't account for the miniscule difference between the N93 and the N93i whereby the latter does have a 16 mil colour screen.
But what I wonder is how hardware-driven 3D graphic acceleration impacts battery life. Any thoughts anyone?
ayush3090 wrote:You seem to be confused man
Either you're tokin off topic or you're confused or you're not able to convey your point
The colouring bit is confusing, fine, but it like that in these types of benchmarks, like same hardware 6630 has higher mark (65k)than 6680 (262k), there will be performance hit using more coloured screen; n93 repeat the history. look at this:
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=364143&sid=0902218d1e5d65027d151649fccbc664
Anyway this may not be representive, as in most of other benchmark, there is a bigger difference in terms of performance between n93 and n93i.
N95 and later phones are all more optimised interms of power usage.
krisse wrote:Does anyone have any clarification on the N96 situation?On the N93 and N95 I'd understood that the same chip provides TV Out and 3D acceleration.
Given that, why would the N96 have TV Out but not 3D acceleration? Why didn't they just use the same chip from the N95? If they did use the same chip, why are people saying it can't do 3D acceleration?
They're not using the same chip as the N95 because of the DVB-H. Generally DVB-H is delivered in H.264, therefore it made sense to have hardware decoding support / acceleration for this format (because of power management issues). That wasn't provided in the TI OMAP 2420 (used in the N95).
I assume they're using the TI OMAP 2431 with the IVA 2. IVA 2 provides the extra video and audio stuff that has been mentioned a few times.
The 2D/3D hardware acceleration stuff that is referred to is an additional chip (Imagination Technologies Power VR) which effectively sits next to the main ARM11 processor (as a graphics co-processor). This is not used for TV-Out as such (though it may power some of the graphics displayed via TV-Out). TV-Out is part of the 2420/2430 OMAP platform as a whole not the graphics co-processor.
Why they are using the 2431 and not the 2430 is open to debate, but as I noted above you don't necessarily need the 3D chips. I will try and get some clarification on this.
I'll cover some of this in the N96 preview which should go up some time tomorrow.
I cry out to Nokia!! ;+)
It would be nice to have demand size paging on the N93 tho. Would be stylish of Nokia if they'd upgrade the firmware of their former flagship, and first proto with the OMAP 2420 chipset. But looking at some topics on the N93 forums here, chances are slim.
I still love my N93. I've had a new symbian smartphone every year since the 7650. The N93 is the first one that lasts me longer. There's no vaiable upgrade yet. The videocamera is just to good, and the form factor is perfect for me.
And really, it's the best for gaming, because you have so many buttons at your fingers when you turn the screen in landscape mode. I also use the camera buttons as left shoulder buttons in some games.
In the forum that you linked to you say that the E90 has the hardware to support tv out, but nokia chose not to use it...
Does this mean that the E90's lack of tv out could be fixed with something as simple as a firmware update and an adaptor cable?
I really wouldn't get too hung up on these very narrowly focussed stats, everybody.
What matters is actual experience when you're playing a game etc. You can have a great processor but bad coding and thus poor performance. I think we should all credit Nokia with *some* intelligence here - regardless of what chip's in where they wouldn't have gone to all the time/effort/cost with new N-Gage if the phones weren't going to give users a great experience, and a better one than earlier handsets.
Also, I could look at those stats and think my 6120 Classic isn't up to much, but luckily I've already played Quake on it extensively and was amazed by the speed and power of the 3D graphics and lighting in real time, which were WAY better than I'd expect of the phone, and gave an amazing frame rate and playable experience, and incidentally, use OpenGL. I am really looking forward to the increased power and TV out of that 6120-sized device, the forthcoming 6220 Classic - should be fantastic.
Jules_N93 wrote:I cry out to Nokia!! ;+)It would be nice to have demand size paging on the N93 tho. Would be stylish of Nokia if they'd upgrade the firmware of their former flagship, and first proto with the OMAP 2420 chipset. But looking at some topics on the N93 forums here, chances are slim.
Yes, unfortunately, that slot in time for further N93 improvements seems to be gone now. Demand size paging is the "plaster" for what really is a faulty design choice by giving the first 9.1 devices way too little RAM. They all deserve this fix by Nokia, and especially N93 because it's still so capable and uniqe in many ways (and not only because I still hold on to it and Steve often records his show on one). Due to N95's broad popularity they left the former king and N95 brother behind, sadly.
Well, good to see it's still officially best at some things. 😊
UffieG wrote: Demand size paging is the "plaster" for what really is a faulty design choice by giving the first 9.3 devices way too little RAM.Well, good to see it's still officially best at some things. 😊
Get this straight, n73, n93 and n93i are on V9.1; fp1 makes n95 and others V9.2, fp2 makes n96 v9.3. N81 its just suppose to be another music phone, its not suppose to directly completing with n95 8gb as a multimedia computer, hence it cost half as much as n95 8gb.
SO WHAT? 4 times less performance in some benchmarks doesn't mean s**t in short term, N73 is supported on the n-gage list, with same 220 mhz CPU as one on 6630, alone with future flagship of n96, which ain't got built in accelormeter, it's not like they got frigging crysis porting to symbian tomorrow, and in short term; and they, the game developers for n-gage, are yet to take advantage of the hardware of those 3D accelerated devices, the chances are, when those game titles do take off, that is to say if they actually do, then graphic on n81 and n95 will look the same.
junchao8 wrote:Get this straight, n73, n93 and n93i are on V9.1; fp1 makes n95 and others V9.2, fp2 makes n96 v9.3.
Yes, sorry, you are right. I meant 9.1 and not 9.3. But regardless, the N95-1 (fp1) wasn't shipped with ROM demand paging and the new better mem management. Are you saying this was possible only because it is an fp1 phone and the same couldn't technically be done for n73, n93 and n93i?
UffieG wrote:Yes, sorry, you are right. I meant 9.1 and not 9.3. But regardless, the N95-1 (fp1) wasn't shipped with ROM demand paging and the new better mem management. Are you saying this was possible only because it is an fp1 phone and the same couldn't technically be done for n73, n93 and n93i?
It can be done
Infact its been implemented in n73's new firmware AFAIK
Bt its 'nokia'......partial n biased people
N why have they forgotten 5700 ????
Im totally pissed at them
Rafe wrote:They're not using the same chip as the N95 because of the DVB-H. Generally DVB-H is delivered in H.264, therefore it made sense to have hardware decoding support / acceleration for this format (because of power management issues). That wasn't provided in the TI OMAP 2420 (used in the N95).I assume they're using the TI OMAP 2431 with the IVA 2. IVA 2 provides the extra video and audio stuff that has been mentioned a few times.
The 2D/3D hardware acceleration stuff that is referred to is an additional chip (Imagination Technologies Power VR) which effectively sits next to the main ARM11 processor (as a graphics co-processor). This is not used for TV-Out as such (though it may power some of the graphics displayed via TV-Out). TV-Out is part of the 2420/2430 OMAP platform as a whole not the graphics co-processor.
Why they are using the 2431 and not the 2430 is open to debate, but as I noted above you don't necessarily need the 3D chips. I will try and get some clarification on this.
I'll cover some of this in the N96 preview which should go up some time tomorrow.
You were close. The N96 uses an STmicroelectronics chipset from the nomadik line of application processors. The part name and number is stn8815. We can tell it's not an OMAP2431 because the N96 has an ARM9 core unlike the OMAP2431's ARM11 core. Unfortunately this SoC is quite inferior compared to the omap2420 in terms of performance, but it's less power consuming. Like you said, it has hardware H.264 decoding as well as a 24bit DSP for audio processing (omap 2420 has a 16-bit DSP). This chipset, however, lacks a dedicated GPU, but its successor Nomadik stn8820 has an ATI OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1 compliant GPU with a 528 MHz ARM11 CPU.
The N81 uses the freescale i.MX31L chipset, that lacks the GPU (MBX lite) that the i.MX31 has. The two chipsets are identical except the lite version doesn't have a GPU. If Nokia had used the i.MX31 instead of the lite, the N81 would also have a GPU. I don't know why Nokia decided to use the lite version.
[QUOTE=Rafe;365924]I think its well worth pointing out at that OpenGL is actually very little used on mobile currently.
QUOTE]
Not strictly true. As far as I know the iPhone uses OpenGL ES for its menu animations and cover flows/visualizations. There are also many Japenese PMP's that have 3D graphic chips and use OpenGL ES for the UI and visualizations. The N95-1's multimedia menu also uses the GPU. What I'm trying to say is OpenGL ES isn't limited to games; many applications could take advantage of this API for instance navigation applications to show 3D rendered view of maps. But as far as Nokia is concerned, very few applications have been made to actually use the opengl es API.