Pandora Potential


Death_Pigeon

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I know you guys may toast me for asking this but would like to know anyway.
If a commercially developed game was made for the Pandora that pushed the hardware how good would it look?
Compare it to graphics of any console for reference.
 
hey

I'd tend to think it would be something like the original xbox or somewhere amoungst the last generation of videogame consoles, but this is a complete guess and I could be way off. Well I think it's quite tricky to compare such things as the architecture is so different.

cyas
 
i'd probably say xbox too, you should check out some renders that use open gl 2 es, im guessing they'll be like that, unless someone makes a software/game engine that can do more. Also check out pics of ioquake 3, cuz thats a pretty high end game that will be ported for the pandora.
 
I'd have to say DC or Gamecube, because the Pandora is supposed to have as much processing power as a GC, and I don't know how well the Pandora's PowerVR compares to GC's graphics cards.

EDIT: Although if you had someone from .theprodukkt working on it, it might be better than Xbox for graphics.

-God Ginrai
 
schnitzelboy said:
i'd probably say xbox too, you should check out some renders that use open gl 2 es, im guessing they'll be like that, unless someone makes a software/game engine that can do more. Also check out pics of ioquake 3, cuz thats a pretty high end game that will be ported for the pandora.
I'd hesitate to say X-Box (The GPU in it was a bit beefier than the one we have... ;) ); but it might reach that high for some things. Definitely Gamecube class ability though. In the end, it's a little difficult to class hardware that differs- so it's all a rough guess.
 
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Well - I'd have to say better than PSP level graphics is a given. And, to me, GTA VCS looks as good as the PS2 version, but I'm sure I'm missing something.
So, at least PS1 level graphics, probably closer to PS2. But at least better than PSP.

But I hasten to add.... that's a mighty big "If" you got there. Don't expect Xbox quality graphics on the average homebrew game.
 
Thats the thing though, it might have the potential but how many people are going to be able to realise it outside of emulation? And even then it won't get GC emulation so that won't necessarily do it.

So we'd have a handful of open source ports like Quake 3, but what else?
 
there are quite a few 3D engines that could be ported to run on the Pandora, so when it comes to graphic quality it should be as high as the 3D engines that can be ported.
It all just comes down if people or teams are interested in creating games based on those engines.

this is mainly about homebrew games, and not commercial developed games.
 
InsertFaveGameNameHere said:
So we'd have a handful of open source ports like Quake 3, but what else?
....

You'll take what you are given, and YOU WILL LIKE IT! :angry2: :excl: :blush:

At least you'll be able to emulate N64 and PS1 - and a bunch of old keyboard driven machines (Atari 800, Apple ][, C64, etc.).

(Disclosure: I'm more in it for the UMPC stuff than the gaming stuff). The power is very important to me, because it will run desktop level apps - like Firefox 3, AbiWord, VLC, maybe even OpenOffice.org! (OOo doesn't list a CPU requirement on their site for Linux, or Windows for that matter - but the CPU for Mac is 400 Mhz or higher, since the Pandora can/will be overclocked to 900 Mhz {natively 600 Mhz} it more than qualifies. The only problem might be the resolution - OOo wants 800 x 600, Pandora is only 800 x 480. Although it runs on the Eee PC, which is the same resolution as the Pandora, so... go figure.)
 
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Yeah, that 800x480 on a small 4.3" screen is what doesn't have me convinced that this is really that great for UMPC apps.

Sure, it will suffice for some occasional UMPC use, but for regular use I will probably be using one of those nifty little netbooks (I'm looking at the MSI Wind these days). As far as basic computing apps go.

That's why I still see Pandora as an emulation/gaming device for the most part. I just don't think such a small KB and screen will be practical for many productivity apps. Great in an emergency, yes. Useful for quick last minute edits, probably. Some bedtime surfing perhaps, sure. But I doubt anyone will be typing a paper on it (not often anyway).

Note: I feel the same way about all those tiny devices. I even think the original eeepc is a bit too small. So I'm not singling out Pandora.
 
chad78 said:
(OOo doesn't list a CPU requirement on their site for Linux, or Windows for that matter - but the CPU for Mac is 400 Mhz or higher, since the Pandora can/will be overclocked to 900 Mhz {natively 600 Mhz}
ARM MHz ≠ Power PC MHz
ARM MHz ≠ x86 MHz
ARM MHz ≠ x64 MHz

You can't just compare the numbers like they are the same thing. I'm not too seasoned on the details and differences that make them incomparable, but just ask some of the more knowledgeable devs around here, and they should be able to explain it to you.

-God Ginrai
 
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chad78 said:
Well - I'd have to say better than PSP level graphics is a given. And, to me, GTA VCS looks as good as the PS2 version, but I'm sure I'm missing something.
So, at least PS1 level graphics, probably closer to PS2. But at least better than PSP.

But I hasten to add.... that's a mighty big "If" you got there. Don't expect Xbox quality graphics on the average homebrew game.
Well PS2 would not be a bad goal to shoot for at all! Though I dunno how the GPU stacks up to the EmotionEngine.

Oh yeah, you were missing something in that comparision... GTA:VCS was ported to the PS2 from the PSP and they didn't do an engine overhaul, that's the explanation for the similar level of graphics quality between the two platforms. ;)
 
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God Ginrai said:
chad78 said:
(OOo doesn't list a CPU requirement on their site for Linux, or Windows for that matter - but the CPU for Mac is 400 Mhz or higher, since the Pandora can/will be overclocked to 900 Mhz {natively 600 Mhz}
ARM MHz ≠ Power PC MHz
ARM MHz ≠ x86 MHz
ARM MHz ≠ x64 MHz

You can't just compare the numbers like they are the same thing. I'm not too seasoned on the details and differences that make them incomparable, but just ask some of the more knowledgeable devs around here, and they should be able to explain it to you.

-God Ginrai



Even within the same architecture, Mhz comparisons are not very usefull. A very good example of this was the A64 vs P4. When you start making comparisons across different architecture, you start to fall into a whole hay-stack of different measurements and resulting effects.
There are a few measurements such as Integer and Floating point performance, but even then you have to take into account the application and whether or not you need or will even be able to use the full processing performance.
Often in mobile applications, memory is a bigger bottleneck then the processor. This is mostly due to the lack of cache, which mitigates much of the latency from the main memory bus. The main reason for this is that cache uses up a lot of die space and is powered on even during idle cycles.

Although ARM procs are getting quite powerfull, for today's architectures, X86 procs have more processing power clock for clock. They are also more likely to utilise a larger portion of that processing power over the full spectrum of applications due to better bus systems and fewer bottlenecks.
 
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I would actually put the capabilities closer to that of the Wii. Xbox has half the RAM of the Pandora, a slower processor when you account for differences in architecture, and a fair bit of bloated Windows 2000 OS code powering the thing. The Wii is about twice as powerful as the Gamecube and probably about 1.5 times (or maybe even a bit more) powerful than the Xbox.

OpenGL ES 2.0 has much greater shader support than the modified version of DirectX 8.1 used in the first Xbox, so it is entirely possible that we could see better graphics than an Xbox on this thing!

I don't know much about the capabilities of the PowerVR SGX, but it's definitely much more powerful than the GPU in the Dreamcast--it used a series 2 PowerVR chip, while the Pandora uses a series 5.
 
The Wii is not more powerful than the Xbox 1 (they're about equal apart from the lack of shaders on the wii, so I hear).
 
Well I know the gamecube is better than the PS2, which would mean that the XBox is stronger than both
 
The Xbox 1 and the Wii aren't even in the same ballpark.
The Wii GPU is capable of 33 million polygons per second(full effects).
While the Xbox is capable of a respectable 2.1 million.
Some best guess estimates made by TI put the Pandora's PowerVR SGX GPU at several million polygons per second. By "several" I'm guessing 2-4 million. I'm sure that someone out there has done the real numbers on this.
Some sources out there say that the Gamecube pushes 6-12 million polys, but I think that's marketing's numbers.
The Dreamcast pushed around 7 million, but often showed far less performance in game.
The Emotion Engine of the PS2 was a electronics marvel capable of pushing an insane 66 million polys per second, but the machine was stifled by limited ram (thus the crappy textures).

So while the Pandora is certainly not going to match the Wii as far as sheer pixel pushing performance (not even close). It is at least as capable as an Xbox as far as poly pushing, plus it has the nice shaders available.

The bottom line is, the Pandora isn't "like" any console at all. It has some great new technologies such as nice shaders, and a killer new CPU but doesn't performance match with any current or past consoles. It falls somewhere between the 6th and 7th generation as far as performance.
 
mindlord said:
The Xbox 1 and the Wii aren't even in the same ballpark.
The Wii GPU is capable of 33 million polygons per second(full effects).
While the Xbox is capable of a respectable 2.1 million.
Some best guess estimates made by TI put the Pandora's PowerVR SGX GPU at several million polygons per second. By "several" I'm guessing 2-4 million. I'm sure that someone out there has done the real numbers on this.
Some sources out there say that the Gamecube pushes 6-12 million polys, but I think that's marketing's numbers.
The Dreamcast pushed around 7 million, but often showed far less performance in game.
The Emotion Engine of the PS2 was a electronics marvel capable of pushing an insane 66 million polys per second, but the machine was stifled by limited ram (thus the crappy textures).

So while the Pandora is certainly not going to match the Wii as far as sheer pixel pushing performance (not even close). It is at least as capable as an Xbox as far as poly pushing, plus it has the nice shaders available.

The bottom line is, the Pandora isn't "like" any console at all. It has some great new technologies such as nice shaders, and a killer new CPU but doesn't performance match with any current or past consoles. It falls somewhere between the 6th and 7th generation as far as performance.
Actually, according to Wikipedia, the Xbox can push 30 million polygons a second.
The Wii really isn't that powerful. The thing can't even render true 480p (it just stretches 640x480) so the Pandora has the superior resolution limit. As for the Gamecube, the numbers are about 20 million polygons, which makes sense considering the Hollywood GPU in the Wii is just an overlocked 1.5x version of this basically.
 
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"If pigs could fly, would they fly as fast as a duck, a pigeon, or a hawk?"

That's pretty much the question you're debating here. This question is totally unanswerable for several reasons, and even if you could answer it, there is not likely to ever be a game that really pushes the system to it's limits. Oh sure, you'll have ports that max out the CPU, but nobody is going to code a commercial quality game from scratch specifically tailored to the Pandora hardware to wring every last bit of 3D awesomness from it. A project like that would cost millions. They'd have to charge in the neighborhood of $10k per copy just to break even.

But just for the sake of argument, if somebody had that kind of money and wanted to throw it away on making GTA: San Andreas or Halo 2 for the Pandora, it could be made to look very similar (possibly indistinguishable) from the original PS2 / Xbox versions. This is assuming your budget included paying TI and Imgtec and anybody else involved to hand over everything about the CPU/GPU/DSP, probably writing your own optimized drivers (none of this "binary blob" nonsense), definitely writing your own 3D engine, etc.

But if you want to bet on which happens first - Halo4Pandora or Porky buzzing the tower - my money's on the pig.
 
Chip said:
"If pigs could fly, would they fly as fast as a duck, a pigeon, or a hawk?"
Obviously they'd fly as fast as an unladen African Swallow!
 
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