Cellphone Games Take a Big Leap Forward Into 3D
June 17, 2004 | Levent OZLER
As game devices, cellphones leave something to be desired. Most of the games found on them are rudimentary, with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes.
But that is going to change. Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles.
Companies are working to introduce more sophisticated games to mobile handsets, which will have powerful graphics chips to make the realistic images possible.
The switch from stubby cartoon figures to graceful golfers and lifelike superheroes is likely to be swift, said Neil Trevett, the president of the Khronos Group, an industry association that works on 3-D standards for cellphones. "The same thing that happened in the mid-90's to bring 3-D graphics to PC's is happening now with cellphones," he said, "only it's all happening about three or four times faster. We call it cellphone time."
The rapid move to 3-D graphics will also get a boost from increased screen quality and faster computing capabilities, he said.
The new graphics processing units on the handsets do all the computations necessary to render the highly realistic drawings, adjusting for constant changes in shading and shape. The chips also can handle video.
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