Pandora mobile gaming platform

[blakespot]

A post by ZodTTD:

http://www.zodttd.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4845

The Pandora mobile gaming platform. More or less the same CPU and GPU hardware as the iPhone, but with a full-clocked 600+MHz ARM processor (the iPhone's is underclocked to 412MHz). I'd not mind getting hold of this unit.

I'm a GP2X user, which is a unit in the same spirit as the Pandora (but older).

Great work, ZodTTD, btw. The master of homebrew.



blakespot

[Frand]

Actually, there's a generation difference between the 3D hardware of Pandora vs. iPhone. PowerVR SGX, which is in the Pandora, is a shader-capable 3D chip. PowerVR MBX in the iPhone is a fixed pipeline chip.

In features (not performance) it's like the difference between Geforce 2 and Geforce 6.

[blakespot]

Ah, yes. In my mind it was "MBX" in the Pandora. A difference, indeed.

Interesting read about the SGX and Apple...

When doing research for my article, Under the Hood: The iPhone’s Gaming Mettle, I noted an interesting upcoming use for the SGX in an "Apple unidentified" unit, on the Wiki page, and in one or two other locations.

Intriguing...



blakespot

[Frand]

It's interesting to see how the iPhone platform will develop. Basically as a developer I would hate to see the platform fragment itself, but seeing how it's not a game console I'm sure higher resolution screens and shader hardware will arrive at some point. It's not like network speeds improve at a yearly rate, but Apple still needs to sell the new iPhones somehow.

My wild guess is that SGX would be more useful in another category of device than iPhone.

[Knight]

Its also open platform right? Meaning any one can dev for it, pretty much anything? Thats good and bad, but if there is a way to promise quality control on it, then the bad might not be so bad.

[Frand]

I don't expect the Pandora to have any kind of quality control outside of that provided by its enthusiast community. It's not exactly a commercially viable platform for game developers when the first batch of devices sold are 4000 in total

[Freegoo]

Well too be honest, how much quality control do we have in the app store? I am rich made it through, about one thousand tip calculators and flashlights, and mobilechat certainly wasn't very impressive. There's also the dev DS Effects - enough said about them. Apples submission process seems to be more about keeping out competitors (opera and podcaster) than garbage apps.

[Knight]

Originally Posted by Freegoo

Well too be honest, how much quality control do we have in the app store? I am rich made it through, about one thousand tip calculators and flashlights, and mobilechat certainly wasn't very impressive. There's also the dev DS Effects - enough said about them. Apples submission process seems to be more about keeping out competitors (opera and podcaster) than garbage apps.

I meant QA as in apps that are guaranteed not to brick the device, or be mischievous in any way. At the moment, we can guarantee that any app on the AppStore has gone through some sort of QA by Apple in regards to these issues. Or even if something leaks through, Apple would have a solution in hand to take care of it (I hope).

Pandora is a $600 device that you wouldn't want to brick.

[Freegoo]

Originally Posted by Knight

I meant QA as in apps that are guaranteed not to brick the device, or be mischievous in any way. At the moment, we can guarantee that any app on the AppStore has gone through some sort of QA by Apple in regards to these issues. Or even if something leaks through, Apple would have a solution in hand to take care of it (I hope).

Pandora is a $600 device that you wouldn't want to brick.

ahhh yes that's a good point. Generally the user community does a pretty good job weeding out the malicious stuff, but $600 is an investment I would hate to lose on. I didn't even know the Pandora was going to be that much... definitely out of my price range.