Why PPC Games look so much better?!?

[SirKillalot]

Hi,
A friend of mine bought a IPaQ a week ago and downloaded some games for it. I saw the games and i couldn't believe what i was seeing!! Real 3D Games with a graphic qualities which are as good as the graphics on a Playstation (1)!! Though the IPaQ has 203 Mhz (my TG50 has 200) the games look so fantastic.. but why? Why there aren't such games for PalmOS.. I always thought that PalmOS PDAs would be more powerful. If anyone could inform me, i would be very happy! thanks

Some screenshots of PPC games:
(Ingame graphic, i saw it)

http://trials.pocketgear.com/Product_images/4/4667/AOE%20animated.gif http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/games/images/tombraider2.jpg
http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/games/images/tombraider.jpg http://www.omnigsoft.com/images/products/MiniDogfight/scr8.jpg
http://trials.pocketgear.com/Product_images/2/238/727.jpg

[jjesusfreak01]

Age of Empires is a cool game because MS programmed it for their OS. They know how to make it work well.

[Cyker]

The games market for PPCs is bigger because they've always had faster CPUs and more RAM (From the beginning, the PPC OS *needed* 200MHz CPU and 32MB *just to run*, whereas PalmOS can run on an 8MHz CPU and 256k RAM!).

The Palm market is smaller, but I must say that for the stuff we do have, the games look just as good - WarFare, Insaniquarium, and all the semi-recent commercial games look great. The older ones that are limited to 8-bit colour and 160^2 screen are obviously lacking in the GFX department, but Zap! is still a great Shoot'em'up. The games that support HiRes/HiRes+ screens looks just as good as any PPC games IMHO ;)

The 3D stuff for Palm is less popular - I can only think of one 3D game off the top of my head...
I wish Monkeystone would bring out HyperSpace Delivery Boy for Palm 'tho. Played a bit of that on my friend's iPaq, and it's quite fun :)

[jjesusfreak01]

Not that you said differently, but id like to remind everyone that Insaniquarium is 8 bit. It would be a really great 16 bit game.

There are enough Palm devices right now that have the capabilities to run better games, its just that no-one makes them.

[RD100]

Pocket PC's are currently about the equivalent of old Pentium II & Pentium III systems, so many of the games which ran on these PC's are being rewritten to run on Pocket PC.

One example of this is Virtual Pool Mobile by Celeris (http://www.celeris.com/games/VPMobile/overview.html), which is an unbelievably realistic billiards game.

http://www.celeris.com/images/photo/Shot25.jpg

The next version of the Windows Mobile OS (http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS4643726824.html) will have an advanced graphics processor, so the games will be even better. It will use Direct3D Mobile for graphics.
"Intel has enabled a new generation of rich multimedia and gaming capabilities for D3DMobile utilizing Intel XScale technology with Wireless MMX instructions," said Mark Casey, director of Marketing for the Cellular and Handheld Group at Intel. "Working closely with Microsoft to integrate these enhancements into D3DMobile, developers and OEMs will be able to deploy a new generation of compelling 3-D applications while meeting the battery life and small size requirements of mobile devices."

[blck1jack]

If you want 3 D palm games look to Astraware, they have several, from racing to shooters. Also one of the best 3D palm games is doom like game that is in full blown 3D 1st person shooter.

[Pdaman]

Astraware is pretty big 3d games producer for palm os, but i'm still waiting more 3d games to palm os. For example 3d billiards would be amazing on my th55 !

I have played also with ppc and graphics are amazing even on 320x240 screen. I played doom and some other games. And one thing what was CLEARLY better than palm os, was sounds !!!!!

However we can't do nothing just wait that there will be more palm os games producers in future with better skills to make 3d games ........

[SamuraiCatJB]

any computer can generate 3D graphics using the CPU, in fact that is how it started before we had graphics cards that did more than just raster images to the monitor. The problem is that it severely impacts CPU performance, thus you need a fast processor to generate images.

The next gen PPC platforms will have true 3D. In fact you can actually get true 3D on a couple of phones now too, running java3d and OpenglES.

Time will tell where it goes. I always look forward to advancements in hardware. If palm falls by the wayside I will eventually upgrade.

[xMist]

http://www.nerys.com/zodiacreview/games/stuntcar/stuntcarextreme20.gif

:D

Zodiac. Stuntcar Extreme is amazing. The Zodiac is already capable of Pentium I/II graphcs. If developers are interested, I'm sure it could do even better than the great Stuntcar. Using XForge, some great things are possible. Also, the Zodiac only has a 200mhz main processor (I think) although it does have seperate ATI Graphics and Yamaha Sound chips. That probably helps a lot to reduce the actual work the processor itself has to do.

Games that look (and play) spectacular on my Palm (Zodiac 2):

Gems (PDAmill, great graphics)
MicroQuad (Very good 3D)
Snails (PDAmill, great graphics)
Zodtris (ViciousBytes, great graphics)
Stuntcar Extreme (XForge, Vasara, GREAT 3D)

Not to mention the other 30+ games that I own/have, almost all of them are beautiful HiRes or HiRes+. If a developer wished to, I'm sure that we could have something like Virtual Pool Mobile for the T3, T5, and Zodiac. Also, the flight sim looks pretty doable on the Zodiac. I'm sure that the future is bright in terms of Palm software. The thing is, a lot of people are more interested in puzzle type games than action games. But, if you code it, they will come. :D

Edit: Just remembered something as I looked at the Tomb Raider images above. Tapwave has already said that a Tomb Raider game is already planned for the Zodiac.

[SirKillalot]

Yes, Zodiac can generate very nice graphics but it is the BEST which PalmOS can do.. a _new_ HP iPAQ rz 1710 which can be bought for 100 € at ebay can generate the screenshots mentioned above... i think this is a clear price/power ratio difference between palm and ppc. (I have to say that graphics on a normal 203 Mhz iPaq look better than on a Zodiac). The only reason i wouldn't buy a PPC are the incredible bugs caused by the Windows operating system, but if this will be made better in future, I would really have to decide between Palm and PPC. I hope Cobalt will do it better with the new OpenGL cababilities. So, we just can wait and hope.

[RD100]

I've been using a PocketPC for a year, and I do not think it is buggy ... at least no more than Palm.

Occasionally (but very rarely) a poorly written 3rd party application may cause my PPC to crash, but I've experienced the same problems with my Palm.

So I wouldn't blame Microsoft or Palm Source for either of these conditions. I blame the 3rd party application programmer for not thoroughly testing his code.

I believe that people who haven't tried Pocket PC's are missing out on a really great device !!! :)

[jjesusfreak01]

RD100
Dont worry, with the direction Palm is going, we may all be PPC owners soon.
Heres a question: Does MS have an obligation to keep the Palm OS alive so they do not have a monopoly.