Nokia N93 four times faster at 3D graphics than N81

[slitchfield]

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.

Read on in the full article.

[krisse]

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/it...are_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.

http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?ID=710

[Rafe]

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.

[yade]

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.

[krisse]

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.

[krisse]

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.

[junchao8]

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.

Originally Posted by junchao8

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?

[junchao8]

Originally Posted by ayush3090

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/foru...151649fccbc664

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.

[Rafe]

Originally Posted by krisse

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.

[Jules_N93]

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?