Graphics Acceleration: the Price of Progress? Let's hope not

It's a disappointing step back for mobiles as a platform for computing. The chip in the N95 was on par with my first every PC, running at 333Mhz if I remember correctly. The TI OMAP processors are astounding but surely costly. However I didn't expect Nokia to remove this from their very top line phones like the N96. I agree with your conclusion, this will come back to bite them.

I should buy good old N95-2 as well.

You may remember that Nokia had several business groups, including Multimedia and Mobile Phones. Well, they also had several platforms, including the dual chip OMAP based "Multimedia" paltform (N93(i), N95(8gb), N82), and the single chip "mobile phone" platform (the rest).

Well, Multimedia is no more. It's all mobile phones from here on in, no matter what branding is actually put on it.

That's why there has been what seems like a huge big standing still for 2-3 years. You are spending time catching up to where you already were rather than pushing on.

I was about to buy the N85 today, your article atleast made me stop and reconsider.

I had been thinking about the lack 3D graphics acc. on the new-er devices ..the SP mark test numbers really shed some light on the subject....

guess i will wait a little more on the N85/N79/N96 ..too early to make decision.

The new N Series phones are still multimedia devices despite what internal division of the company they were in. I think if they can manage to pull off multimedia without the expense of the superior chip, then for costs they would. However I would of course prefer to have better technology in my hand. I'll still buy an N85, whenever they actually come out on contract in the UK, as I don't think there'll be far superior handsets for a year or so. At least that's why I read this website. The N97 doesn't appeal to me.

Do you have any (reasonably reliable) estimate of what the cost difference might be?

Even if its significant (and by significant I mean even $10.. multiply a little by a lot and you get even more... 😊 something that Nokia cannot ignore even in the high end), I suspect "blaming it" on price alone may be too simplistic. There may well be a multitude of other reasons (organizational, logistical, supply contracts and relations etc.).

It is disappointing, especially since the iPhone does have graphics acceleration, and the N97 is supposed to be its competition. Apple has finally broken into the games market in a big way, and Nokia is taking a step backward.

Steve, I think another reason they dropped the 3D acceleration hardware is battery life.

I think its Knights Of The Dark Edge(K.O.D.E.) not aged.

Not everyone who have n95 use it to play games, youtube videos. I for one would be shocked if more than 5% of total n95 variant owner ever tried a 3D accelerated games intentionally.

Yes, n85 variants are underpowered graphically, but they are made for the masses, by not having omap 2420, the advantages are more than evidental:

2-3 longer music playback time than the likes of n95 at much better sound quality, in particularly much improved dynamic range, and far superior sonic detail; where as you'd have to worry about empty battery, even on n95-2 while trying to enjoy music, so much for smart.

They can playback wmv files without braking a sweat. Something that n95 variants with their outdated Image & video accelerator v1 (IVA) cannot touch.

They are physically smaller, allowing better internal arrangement and eventually lighter, more attractive mass-centric phone with bigger battery or xenon flash in 6220c.

Being single core, they are far cheaper per yield, allowing greater rate of mass usage.

They allow far greater general processing power by utilising higher dynamically clocked ARM11 cores, extra 33 mhz does make quite a difference.

Also I'd like to remark upon the tiny numbers of app that actually takes advantage 3D hardware. Pc version offer greater quality at lower costs.

I somehow noticed this experiment tends slightly single sided, which I would more than- gladly understand and sympathise and as a frustrated n95-2 owner, who is not pleased with lack of technological advances.

However, merely taking one benchmark, is far from conclusive, in physics degree, the concept of fair experiment is heavily weighed; I dare say you know this well.

Thus while strong correlation exists to prove your hypothesis correct, that omap 2420 is stronger than single core solution, the process by which you used in judging is highly synthetic and proprietary in nature and cannot conclusively reflect the real world model of behaviors.

I can confidently say, that in general process, menu interface speed for eg, Omap 2420 handsets like n95 are all slower than n81 or 6120c (feature packs 1), if you compare time taken to uninstall some app,the difference is actually pretty shocking.

I stress this again, not every person use their phone for 3D accelerated tasks, those who do is seen as outliners by nokia.you may say the likes of n85 are toys, but for some, I mean most people , who use their phone as phones, the one that opens new text faster; the one that does not run of battery when boss calls; that actually works when one wants it to is better than a n95.

I think that while new phones have flaw in lacking 3D backbone, you are forgetting the flaws of omap 2420 themselve, at this time especially for their sluggish, underpowered complementary ARM core, seriously, what the heck is the good of a 3D accelerated phone without 2D power? Thats like running before one learns to walk.

Also for taste for battery, their cost. The devices using omap 3 series along with improved graphics are begining to surface, which is good. 65nm will and hopefully 2-2.5 times efficient core with greater performance per cycle will be nice for the battery. Additionally likes of Archos have decided to sample omap 3 @ 600 mhz in this years refresh thus I'd imagine mass production will bring greater number of devices to utilise it at lower price point.

My point is that single core solutions in n85 have improved back to basic performance in nokia phones, not getting too smart, but tends back down to earth. hopefully the next logical step would be improved 3D hardware, as well as the numbers of apps that actually takes advantage of them.

Thanks, juncha. Yes, I was focussing on just one specific aspect of a phone's performance, of course. And yes, I do understand all the other benefits of everything now being on a single chip. But it just seems such a huge shame to have been going backwards in this one high-profile department for the last 18 months....

And I know that people like me are edge cases. But we're by FAR the most vocal. And also the most likely to spend money as early adopters and then tell others what we think.

OK, so perhaps the OMAP2420 had its flaws. But my N82 runs rings around the N85 in several important (to me) areas - and that surely can't be right. My N95 8GB similarly out performs the N96, etc etc.

Is that second table correct? It looks to be a copy of the N78 row from the first table.

People saying "It's not worth having 3D acceleration because nothing uses it" are completely missing the point. The reason that nothing uses it is because few handsets support it!

If people thought like that, no new features would ever be added to phones, as there won't be any applications that use them until there is a large enough user base to make them profitable. 3D accelerators can be used to make great looking user interfaces as well, which Nokia could have taken advantage of.

Importantly, to game and 3D application developers, OpenGL (ES) just increases productivity so much, especially for new entrants to the platform. Yes, some n-gage developers have shown that you can get some nice results without 3D acceleration, but they will have had to work very very hard to optimise the engines to work that well. Publishers don't want to optimise everything per-device. The higher level API, the better. The more code that they can re-use across platforms, the better.

I believe the 3d hardware was an experiment, and Nokia just didn't see enough advantage in using them to keep going.

As for GLES for user interfaces, GLES 1.1 isn't that well suited for UI stuff, its feature set is much more angled at gaming. GLES 2.0 on the other hand, with non-power of two texture sizes etc. is much better for UI usage.

Oops, yes, the second table got ctrl-Z-ed one too many times after I'd messed up the formatting. Fixing it now....

Top stuff, Steve. I actually thought the N97 looked more like an E-series. Let's hope they've got a flagship model lined up that's specifically aimed at gaming and video, and includes a graphics chip.

I remember something similar to this happened with desktop computers and math co-processors back in the early 90's. Eventually, of course, the co-processor was just rolled into the CPU and no one thought any more of it.

Open CL (Apple's Grand Central) will surely find its way into iPhone OS X next year which could provide a healthy performance boast for all kinds of applications not just games.

So yes, in my opinion, Nokia's decision to axe the 3D graphics hardware support was pretty short sighted, not so much for the 2008 models, but certainly for the N97.

GLS 1.1. isn't suited for UI??

err what about Iphone, Ipod Touch, Nano they all use OpenGL ES 1.1 and seems to work far better than the average S60 UI to me!!!

Steve - but is this any surprise to you? I seem to recall you saying elsewhere "Nokia�s strengths are in telephony, connectivity and imaging/video - and it pains me when they go chasing after competitors in races which they�ve no hope of winning". Graphics hardware acceleration is not really required for those.

I think we'll see a return of graphic hardware when the whole OS actually really benefits from it - or, in other words, when Symbian 9.5 will finally become used in devices.

@chrsfrwll: Can you please stop trying to cause trouble by playing my words on one site against words on another? Articles on each site are naturally aimed at slightly different readers with different interests and different tech skill sets. Thanks.

In response to your point, I said that imaging and video were among Nokia's strengths. And graphics acceleration certainly does help here. Have you tried comparing video playback or running Mobitubia on different Nokia S60 phones?

A few of us Nokia fans have always been bashing nokia since they pulled the 3D hw off the N96. It could be seen easily from that point nokia was to remove 3d from most of their handsets. which is exactly what they have done.

These are not your average S60 handsets these are Nseries Ngage handsets. If you ask me, every ngage nseries handset should have 3d HW. no excuses. Its the very reason that nokia went the cheap way, to get more profit per unit they have stripped the 3d HW off all the future handsets. Now of course with Iphone releasing app store and 3d games, there wasn't enough time for nokia to bring the 3d HW back.

it has been severely disappointing, that people keep telling us , nobody every used the 3d hw in the phones , or its just a battery drain....but really the n95 8gb has better battery life than your n96...... and its powered by the powerful omap, that will make it the fastest 3d phone in the nokia range (well ok the omap 2420 phones all have 3d HW). dont tell me its going to be a battery drain....... you do notice that the n95 is 20months old as Steve has mentioned and the N93 was even older.. This 2420 chip is VERY VERY old. Think of what a new up to date chip can DO.

The 5800 has been a very big disappointment since the it does not contain the 3d HW. it has a larger resolution there is really much no reason why such a large screen phone can do without 3d HW.

its those very people , who keep telling us we dont need 3d in phones are the ones that give nokia excuses.

I would laugh if the Iphone took the gaming market from nokia. serves them right for trying to save a few $.

N Series phones need 3d HW.

N97 needs 3D HW!!!!!!!!. you have 3-6 months to put it in Nokia. please start the design and rework the PCB again.....

It was obvious that when a new phone comes out this 3D HW question gets raised...... cant you see...... we all want 3D.

I just watched a video of the 5800 with that 3d racing game that was running at 1fps LOL. nokia why do you even bother that game isn't even playable.

All this, along with the fact that the N95 has an installed user base of over 15 million reminds me of what a great opportunity Nokia passed up...

They could have made the N95 Classic a platform in it's own right, with it's own App Store and N-Gage games, etc.

Just think, in another part of the multi-verse the N95 now has legions of developers making bespoke apps all using the accelerometer, GPS, graphics co-processor, etc, etc.

In this universe, that platform is the iPhone.

2009 is going to be a tough year for us Nokia fans. Hold on tight, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

Here's to hoping that Nokia have a stealth project waiting in the wings for the Conference in Feb. Something beyond N or E series would be nice, how about something with a name that people can actually feel some connection with?!!?

Steve - apologies. I am honestly not trying to cause trouble.

Whilst I see two sites have two different readers, I do not understand why the base information has to be different. It doesn't make sense to say in one breath Nokia is the best thing since sliced bread but then, because someone else might be reading, actually it isn't, or rather not quite as good. Either you believe it should be doing one thing and is good at it or you don't.

I wish it was, as I've been a symbian user for many a year. But this political-style double talk doesn't help make an informed choice if there is conflicting information. Either swing one way or the other.

Sorry.

Steve, im glad you wrote this article.

However, the damage has been done. I wonder how long till Nokia gets their act together and change things.

I think they should start with N97.... I seriously dont want 3d games to run at 1fps............ ................

Totally agree, 3d hw is a must in high end phone like nseries, nokia is really F***** people, the biggest problem is that most consumers accept and just buys phone with a older cpu in it. I hate it when people say " well ONE looks great in sofware no need for hardware " PFF the demo in 2006 live on a n93 looks better then what came out 2 1/2 years later, how do you call that??

Iphone is killing nseries/ngage on all fronts, nokia is to big headed to admit they made the wrong step with leaving HW cpu's in their high end phones. On the other hand I can see their market share drop quarter more winmo's are getting sold and guess what the new HTC, sony winmo devices all have hw ( not optimal ) but just search for call of duty 2 on htc diamond and you get the point

btw where is the fifa07 hw version???

As mentioned in the piece, it's significant that Samsung's newest S60 handsets DO have graphics hardware in them - maybe the INNOV8 and i7110 can be the new N96 and N82 of 2009, now that Samsung are finally sorting out their firmware update system?

chrsfrwll: I can see where you're coming from, but it's not quite that simply really. Not everyone is as embracing as you.

As you know, I write for Nokia Creative and All About iPhone. If I write anything positive about the iPhone on Nokia Creative I loose about 5% of my audience... forever! Why? Because 95% of my readers don't visit the site to read about the iPhone, they visit to be reminded of just how good the Nokia devices are at video capture and photography and (hopefully) be inspired to use their devices to their full potential.

Now, because I'm a massive geek and I do happen to believe the the iPhone is quite possibly the greatest gadget ever made (for far too many reasons to mention here) I do from time-to-time, despite my better judgement, mention the iPhone on Nokia Creative. As I've mentioned, this does lead to me loosing readers, but that's okay and it was never a popularity thing for me anyway.

I guess what I trying to say is this. Truth is not always absolute, it takes on different shapes depending on your vantage point. Old Obi Wan knew the truth, apparently! ^_^

Great article and lays down the gauntlet to Nokia to respond positively - I say use OMAP3430!! Guess that will become apparent as Freeplay can use OpenGL ES 2.0 and will be part of S60 9.5 which I think we might see in handsets in H2 2009?

I agree that this is bad for gamers, but I disagree with some other points made in the article. All in all, you seem to be very confused about what 3D hardware acceleration actually means. Take this sentence for eaxample:

"So far, RealPlayer has been tweaked enough that many users many not notice that their phone is underpowered".

Realplayer is used for video playback, and doesn't really get any improvement whatsoever from the hardware in question. No tweaking was even required. Same goes with stuff like Mobitube. 'SPMark 3D score , Helicopter graphics demo animation (frames per second), Thousands of graphics 'Triangles' calculated and plotted per second' are also all related to 3D performance. Any difference on video playback performance is related to slower processor, badly implimented software/firmware, less memory or possibly some of the older models having two CPU's (one for telephony and one for all other tasks).

And even 3D performance is more complicated than just simple 3D calculation performance. N93, for example, gets mighty numbers from simple 3D tasks, which are done by simple programs with very low memory footprint. All that power is mostly useless though, because N93 is cripled in real life use by very low amount of memory (most likely the reason why it still doesn't have Ngage client). I.e N93 would be fine for simple 3D tech-demo, but not so great for complex 3D game