At a recent industry event in Seattle hosted by HTC, NVIDIA’s Mike Rayfield discussed the evolution of the PC and how mobile graphice technology is quickly gaining on the performance level of consol graphics. He works on mobile projects for NVIDIA, and started off by explaing how the histories of both companies are rooted in the PC industry, with HTC building notebook computers and NVIDIA being known for providing graphics to desktops and notebooks.
Redefining the PC
He discussed how the definition of “PC” has evolved from something with a display that measured 11 inches or more diagonally, a physical keyboard and possibly a network connection to anything with a display of at least four inches, with a touchscreen that supplements (or replaces) a physical keyboard and is always connected and “on.” Accordingly, evolution requires innovation. NVIDIA has invested heavily in extending battery life. Our Tegra 3’s 4-PLUS-1 architecture, PRISM display technology and DirectTouch touch architecture are all SoC and system-level innovations that improve the mobile experience while extending battery life.
Another industry focus has been to advance the state of mobile graphics. Since the introduction of the smartphone, mobile graphics technology has advanced considerably – and it is expected to close the performance gap with console graphics in the next few years.
Games Enhanced for Tegra
Mike was joined by Phosphor Games Studios’ Chip Sineni and Brett Seyler, of Kerosene Games, to provide a sneak peek at mobile games optimized for Tegra 3 – Dark Meadow: The Pact and Bounty Arms THD. Both games showed off the horsepower from Tegra 3’s quad-core CPU and GeForce GPU.
Dark Meadow: The Pact by Phosphor Games offers a haunting experience and a visual upgrade for Tegra 3 devices compared to the current version on iOS.
The game features high-resolution textures and atmospheric real-time lighting effects. It maximizes Unreal Engine 3 to deliver a stunning first-person action/adventure game, where players fight to escape a dark fairytale world filled with fantastical creatures bent on destroying them.
Bounty Arms THD features bounty hunters on mercenary missions. It includes a colorful mix of characters, humor, classic brawler mechanics and platform exploration with RPG-style leveling of armor and weaponry. The game features full dynamic lighting, lots of mobile-optimized shaders, particle effects, animation blending and enemy attack waves boosted by Tegra 3. From Open-Reset and Luma Arcade, Bounty Arms THD will be published by Kerosene Games.
The games are coming soon to Google Play and will be featured on the free NVIDIA TegraZone app, which showcases the best games optimized for Tegra.
