Storm CPU graphics capabilities: is this real?

Hello,

regarding the technical capabilities of the RIM Storm chipset, I found this article on smape.com for the series inside our phones and it seems that this chipset has got an Ati graphic subsystem capable of 4M triangles/s and opengles fixed function hardware. Surely if it will be used by programmers it will be capable to create good accelerated 3D enviroments.


http://www.smape.com/userfiles/qualcomm10.jpg

http://www.smape.com/userfiles/qualcomm11.jpg

http://www.smape.com/userfiles/qualcomm13.jpg

What do you think about it?

Bye

I'm going to port over Crysis now.

I think people will be far surprised but what kind of graphics this machine will be able to pull off ;)

All in due time my friend...

Sweet. Most games nowadays run at 30/60fps depending on how much is on screen, so we should get good graphics with a nice frame rate. I don't think we will see PSP type graphics, but it may come close. Those demo pics are a bit misleading. When you factor in collision detection, AI and other things that are taking place during game play, you're not going to see graphics quite to that level. It's funny that our Storm has more RAM than the current video game systems out on the market.

this is very interesting indeed.

I wonder how well these games will translate over to a touch screen phone? I'm guessing your average game like a FPS or sports game won't do too well with the lack of control options the Storm offers.

whats the iphones video processing like compared to this?

From the article I cannot post right now of the march/april 08 of that site, it seems that all the 7xxx series has got 3D ATi subystem. This would proove that this phone could easily outperform other not-accelerated ones. Not the Iphone because it has got a MBX PowerVr one, (I think) more powerful chipset, but anyway it should give us a good accelerated environment capable of surely wonderful games similar to the Quake2 type of complexity.

Originally Posted by Berserk87

whats the iphones video processing like compared to this?

Well, the MBX of the Iphone should be more powerful regarding the triangles rate peak performance and the strong PowerVr experience in this kind of mobile stuff, but we're talking about mobile acceleration and you should not see any differences from a game with more or less polygons on screen on a so small lcd like the one on the phone.

I'm going to investigate on this stuf and I'll let you know if it's real. This would defeat the talks about "underpowered" chipset of our phones...

Hmm... I found another data sheet that seems to agree with what you found:

MSM7600 datasheet (Storm's chipset)

Oddly, the main CPU is listed as 400MHz, while I was under the impression the Storm's CPU was just above 500MHz.

If this iteration of the BB is so great, Why the clunky acting O.S.? Did they just not have the time to make a custom O.S. for the storm :confused:

I've been experimenting with video codecs and frame rates and bit rates, and I'm pretty impressed how much it can handle. Far more than what I expected. This is only a test of the CPU to decode the compression and the graphics subsystem to handle the frame rates, but wow- you can get some awesome looking action at full frame rates.

I'm using Sorenson Media Squeeze, a professional compressor tool.

Originally Posted by crashberry

If this iteration of the BB is so great, Why the clunky acting O.S.? Did they just not have the time to make a custom O.S. for the storm :confused:

This may or may not be the case in this instance, but poor software optimization can bring the most powerful of desktop CPUs to their knees, to say nothing of your average cell phone processor.

Originally Posted by crashberry

If this iteration of the BB is so great, Why the clunky acting O.S.? Did they just not have the time to make a custom O.S. for the storm :confused:

I would guess that they wanted to get the phone out for the Christmas buying season.

Originally Posted by Jaysus Cutler6

It's funny that our Storm has more RAM than the current video game systems out on the market.

That's funny... I was under the impression the Storm only has 128MB of RAM, while I know for a fact the 360 has 512MB, the PS3 has 256MB, and the Wii has 88MB (though that's from Wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt). So it would appear to have more than the Wii, but half that of the PS3 and a quarter of that of the 360.

The original Xbox had 64MB of RAM, PS2 had 32MB, and I think the GameCube was also 32MB, so the Storm has more RAM than the previous generation of consoles.

Don't confuse storage with RAM. The Storm has 1GB of internal STORAGE, but only 128MB of RAM.

Originally Posted by crashberry

If this iteration of the BB is so great, Why the clunky acting O.S.? Did they just not have the time to make a custom O.S. for the storm :confused:

I would say because Verizon pushed the phone out the door before RIM had a chance to properly optimize the OS. As soon as it got to a barely usable point, they kicked it out the door so they could cash in on black friday and all that last minute holiday shopping. I still sometimes wonder if the fact that the clock in all the ads was set to 12:21 means they weren't originally planning a Dec 21 release. If nothing else, it would have been a clever marketing move to set the time on the clocks in the ads to 11:21 before there was an actual date set, and maybe run a contest where if people can figure out the clue in the ad and guess the right date they could win a free Storm.

If Crucial wants to weigh in on this, and has any inside knowledge on the subject, my guess would be that the .83 release is along the lines of what RIM wanted the Storm to be like at launch. IMO, .83 is what the phone SHOULD have been like at launch. We should all be thanking the RIM developers who've been working pretty tirelessly on improving the Storm software since launch.

But long story short, Verizon and Vodafone pushed the phone out the door before the software was ready.

Originally Posted by bigman2

That's funny... I was under the impression the Storm only has 128MB of RAM, while I know for a fact the 360 has 512MB, the PS3 has 256MB, and the Wii has 88MB (though that's from Wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt). So it would appear to have more than the Wii, but half that of the PS3 and a quarter of that of the 360.

The original Xbox had 64MB of RAM, PS2 had 32MB, and I think the GameCube was also 32MB, so the Storm has more RAM than the previous generation of consoles.

Don't confuse storage with RAM. The Storm has 1GB of internal STORAGE, but only 128MB of RAM.

The Storm has 128MB Flash Memory, 192MB RAM, 1GB On�board memory.

Originally Posted by ryanbg

The Storm has 128MB Flash Memory, 192MB RAM, 1GB On�board memory.

While I'm pretty sure the official spec sheet said otherwise, not to mention a few others here who would know... Even if that's true, it still doesn't change the fact that the 360 and PS3 have more RAM. And given how Sony likes to divide up the RAM into separate dedicated pools while Microsoft just makes it a free for all, the PS3 probably has around 512MB of total RAM spread out over different parts of the system.

It also doesn't change the fact that the person I was responding to appeared to be confusing RAM/memory with storage capacity.

Originally Posted by bigman2

While I'm pretty sure the official spec sheet said otherwise, not to mention a few others here who would know... Even if that's true, it still doesn't change the fact that the 360 and PS3 have more RAM. And given how Sony likes to divide up the RAM into separate dedicated pools while Microsoft just makes it a free for all, the PS3 probably has around 512MB of total RAM spread out over different parts of the system.

It also doesn't change the fact that the person I was responding to appeared to be confusing RAM/memory with storage capacity.

I agree with you 100% and I was just stating the facts. My source is the FCC.