Tegra might power Zune HD, definitely does augmented zombie reality
By Ross Miller 
posted Jun 16th 2009 10:44PM
posted Jun 16th 2009 10:44PM
In other news, a group of researchers from Georgia Tech and Savannah College of Art and Design are showing off some of CPU's impressive potential with an augmented reality game ARhrrrr. Using a Tegra-powered mobile dev kit, the game projects a 3D town based on a two-dimensional diagram where you tap the screen to shoot zombies, or lay Skittles in real life to serve as virtual bombs. We've seen similar implementations before, but we're admittedly quite infatuated with this one, and as a bonus, there's video of the demo after the break.
Read - Zune HD uses NVIDIA Tegra processor
Read - Augmented Environments Lab: ARhrrrr!
What a waste, having Tegra on a HVGA device.
This chip can easily display 720p video on a WVGA screen...
yea tegra sucks balls. most people dont know that it is really ARM11. Cortex A-8 is waaaay better than tegra even though it only does 720p. This game looked kind of crappy and really awkward to play
What do you think the 720P video out is for?
"it'd be one helluva 'screw you' from Microsoft to Windows Mobile fans..."
Really? If this was coming to an iPod it would be hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread, poised to take over the DS and PSP, but somehow it's a bad thing for Microsoft?
Seightan wrote:
"This game looked kind of crappy and really awkward to play"
You mean like 90% of iPhone games?
D-UH I know there's an HDMI port.
But a big part of the Tegra appeal is playing HD video on the mobile screen on WVGA resolution with no skipped frames. Wouldn't you want to play your DVDrips and TVrips on the go, on WVGA resolutions?
it can play HD videos in 720P allegedly but when it comes to gaming the lower the resolution the more you can do with it,
any graphics chips have been available forever, it's Microsoft's fault for not cashing in on it with WinMo, they never made a standard API like DirectX, and many manufacturers didn't pick up on
I actually remember seeing a 3D puzzle game in the App Store that was originally released on the Dell Axim 5 years ago running at twice the resolution of the iPhone to show of intel's then new 3D GPU
@ Jim
Yeah, they remembered a dig at microsoft, and ignored what could be the most important line in the piece from PC perspective.
"Tegra will be the first chip that supports Adobe Flash acceleration"
If the browser works, this could be the first true mobile net device.
That's right, Jim. Tegra will support Flash.
Which makes the HVGA resolution a shame as well, as you won't be able to watch HD Youtube at full quality on your Zune "HD", even though the Tegra chip can play it smoothly with no skipped frames.
Hence the "what a waste" comment.
@TareX
No offence man, but when you're making this particular argument, please, don't agree with me.
The screen is 3.3 inches, WVGA is a waste. To see the difference, you'd have to stick the thing in your eye.
Also, WVGA won't play YouTube HD vids at full resolution either.
Seightan is at least right in that Cortex A8 is way better than ARM11. But the point of Tegra is the GPU, not the CPU so much. And it is sort of a shame that MS didn't one-up Apple with a higher resolution device (and chose to further cheapen the "HD" label) but it's not like it's completely useless this way.
Have you not heard of the best-selling HTC device, the Touch HD? It had a WVGA screen, and it was marvelous. You could zoom in more if you want, or you can leave it zoomed out and still see all the details.
WVGA would show youtube HD at twice the quality and details of HVGA. What's your point? Disagreeing for the hell of it?
Tegra IS a waste on a HVGA screen when almost all high-end "phones" are WVGA, not to mention MIDs.
JohnTitor, Yah and computers these days are no faster then computers 5 years ago. The mobile sector has been moving at a pace that out matches the PCs. Your comparison is akin to plopping a PS2 next to an Apple II running Oregon Trail and then stating that the Apple II's graphics suck. It's fucking insanity let alone the fact that you just spewed that argument in the Troll equivelant of Jibberish.
The biggest problem in the mobile sector has been licensing. Drivers are incredibly proprietary and each new generation from each new manufacturer has it's own API. No one, until recently, has been able to make a unifying API. OpenGl ES is not Apple's product, so I'd stfu before you start to give credit to them because thats a huge insult to real the movers and shakers that are responsible for this technology: ARM, ImgTec, Khronos, TI, Intel, Samsung, etc.
Tarex, the only thing worse then a fan boy is an inherent pessimist. Nvidia while a big player in the GPU market, is relatively new the mobile GPU market. They have to break into the sector first before there is mass adoption. The ZuneHD will be a nice device and there is nothing wrong if they use the Tegra chipset. What's even better for Nvidia is that there is a huge marketing name now involved which means that a lot of doors will open up if in fact the ZuneHD is powered by the Tegra. This is business, theres a lot more at stake then your opinion, get used to it.
The Touch HD has a massive 3.8" screen and uses a standard LCD.
An AMOLED helps to reduce the gaps between each pixel, making the display much more "fluid", making even a low resolution device like this look much fuller than a high resolution device like the Touch HD.
The funny thing about the TouchHD is that the screen resolution actually hurts the device. Having WVGA pixels to render takes a deep hit on the processor. Thats why the Android devices perform much better than WinMo devices on similar hardware. VGA/WVGA is too much for the pathetic Qualcomm processor to handle, thus you see such poor performance out of these devices. I would rather have lower resolution and stunningly smooth usage, as seen by Gizmodo's video of the ZuneHD in action than have more pixels than the device can handle.
And the Touch HD cant even dream of playing anything back in HD. It barely handles video at its own resolution.
@Jim, yeah they couldn't help themselves. The initial positive vibes must be disconcerting to the iBoi posse.
What a waste, having a processor capable of major gaming on a system with so few physical buttons...
*Cough*iPhone/iPod Touch*Cough*
*cough*iPhoneGamesAreMoreShallowThanMyNeighborsDogPissPuddle*cough*
@ TareX
You should take something for that long cough.
and the spontaneous contractions of your lanryx.
And for the Herpes. Definitely take something for that.
@Tarex
you should get your cough checked out... hopefully it ain't swineflu.
nd im sold
If this is true then the iPod Touch is gonna face some serious competition in the gaming department!
Skittles has the WMDs
Wasted hardware.
my bro went to this school for visual effects, and now its on engadget!
cool gadget, bro!
As if I needed another reason to buy Skittles.
Such a shame that the Zune HD doesn't have a camera, augmented reality stuff would be really cool.
Anyone remember The Mosquito Game on Symbian ? :D
First thing that came to my mind.
But the difference is the 3D graphics.... many of them.
Twas fun!!!
This thing is great but what about playing it on a mobile phone, not a prototype device?
Oh, wait, we are STILL waiting for a phone with a tegra, yeah, I totally forgot that after waiting since the second half of 2008 when they were promised.
Hardware makers! We will stop buying your OVERPRICEDCRAP if you don't make a $99 Tegra phone!
Now its only a question of time before "we" becomes a critical mass to make device makers notice.
for Symbian there are some 3D augmented reality games on www.cellagames.com
they're reall fun and free, but i got tired of playing soon. This zombie killing concept seems even more fun
You guys are harsh! That's awesome!
agreed. I think this looks sweet. I'm just trying to comprehend what phones will be able to do in just 5 years.
Play Crysis?!?
"f true, however, it'd be one helluva 'screw you' from Microsoft to Windows Mobile fans, who've been waiting over a year at this point to see some retail hardware running on NVIDIA's mobile platform."
Mr. Miller, you're a bit misinformed. Upcoming WinMo prototypes have been spotted running the Qualcomm snapdragon platform, which is quite impressive in itself.
http://www.qctconnect.com/products/snapdragon.html
Besides, Microsoft is only in charge of the Zune hardware; not of the WinMo phones.
The Chasis 1 designs for WinMo7 have Tegra as a core requirement (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/news/show/93701/rumoured-windows-mobile-7-chassis-1-specifications-leaked.html) so it makes sense to include it in the Zune HD as well.
Yes. Tegra, OMAP3 and the Snapdragon are all in that approved list. One can't really go wrong with any of the three.
It's been well documented that Microsoft is significantly ratcheting up control over WinMo device specifications going forward.
Point is, Zune's still second fiddle to the WinMo behemoth in Redmond, and it would've behooved Microsoft and its customers to push spec requirements for Tegra or Snapdragon level hardware in 6.5 with a far jazzier UI. The fact that a Tegra Zune could beat Tegra WinMo devices to market feels... well, mean, since it's the WinMo fans who've been waiting patiently for Tegra since day one.
I'm afraid I still don't understand why this is 'mean.' Saying that they should've done it in WinMo 6.5 devices is really saying that WinMo 7 is unacceptably late and WinMo 6.5 should really be 7 (which IS all true, but not what was stated). This isn't mean since, sadly, the Zune HD will be the first "WinMo7" device (see your own coverage for reference) and it just reflects the glacial feeling of the WinMo7 release. The real "meanness" here is that WinMo7 has been a total clusterfuck for three years running. WinMo fans should be (and are) pissed about this.
Chris: As long as the device runs OpenGL 2.0 (Which the Tegra, the OMAP3 and the Snapdragon does. All three have been demoed with impressive graphics), I don't think the end customer has anything to worry about. Unless they are keen on the Nvidia branding, that is.
By the time the ZuneHD comes out, we'll have at least one Snapdragon based device out in the market (The Toshiba TG01 and maybe the SE Xperia X2). If the latest iteration of TouchFLO, TouchWIZ ans Stripes (Toshiba UI) is any indication, manufacturers would bury the WinMo UI as deep as possible and customize almost the entire phone with proprietary UIs (And not just the home screen and a few apps). And each of these processors are upto the task without breaking a sweat.
And in fact although Tegra has an excellent GPU (very power hungry though), it still uses a dual-core ARM11 architecture.
On the other hand, Qualcomm's current-gen Snapdragon uses a far better processor with a custom 1.0Ghz ARMv7 core architecture similar to the Cortex-A8, but heavily modified for better performance. It should easily outgun the slower dual-core ARM11.
-- "are showing off some of CPU's impressive potential with an augmented reality game ARhrrrr."
Apparently Engadget writers don't get it either. The Tegra's CPU is downright unimpressive.
I always thought that there was a good possibility that the HTC event on the 24th would involve a Tegra powered Wndows Mobile device.
There are Tegra powered devices on their 2009 roadmap., so I am not too worried right now.
"Point is, Zune's still second fiddle to the WinMo behemoth in Redmond, and it would've behooved Microsoft and its customers to push spec requirements for Tegra or Snapdragon level hardware in 6.5 with a far jazzier UI"
I totally disagree. There's no way with the short turnaround that they could have forced such specs on devices already in the design pipeline. A lot of manufacturers would have been pissed off, and left holding parts beyond their own privates.
Similarly, if individual manufacturers wanted to, they COULD use modern procs in some models (the Toshiba being the only real world example at the moment). It's very likely that they've been on hold until the 6.5 release in May, and see what they're facing in the future.
http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=815
What also seems obvious is that when WM7 is released, it'll be a unified code base along with the Zune, much in the same way the iPod Touch and iPhone are basically the same minus the phone.
The difference is that Microsoft will likely continue to market the Zune itself, and will likely NOT release a Zune Phone under their own brand. They'll leave that up to the HTCs and Samsungs of the world, hence the high minimum specs.
If the Zune HD has Tegra it's an instant buy, otherwise everything else about it is sorta a letdown. Hopefully after all the negative feedbag over the screen resolution they'll upgrade it. I'd gladly pay extra for a high enough res screen to display the entire word "Marketplace" on it.
You gotta watch out for those negative feedbags. The horses just eat and eat and they only get hungrier!
I think that processor should just be thrown in some sort of portable xbox thing then they are on top of the portable market.
All the 6 y.o. and 78 y.o. will be so angry since there ds wont be #1.
Hmmmm, things that could do better in the world, too bad microsoft doesnt care.
I totally saw this on Stumble first. Looks awesome though.
they had me at skittle bombs