Quality User Experiences

One of the largest concerns of the major content owners is the quality of the user experience.

Thus far some branded games that have come out have not reflected the quality and the values of the brand. This has led to disappointment in the mobile medium and caused some companies to keep the mobile gaming world at arms length. The introduction of the Gaming Platform on TI OMAP™ 2 and OMAP 3 platforms changes these concerns. Console quality is here and is already heading to full shader technology which has traditionally been only seen in high-end consoles.

By linking phone connectivity to raw performance, 3D graphics horsepower, and accelerator elements for audio and physics, the OMAP 2 architecture and increasingly the OMAP 3 platform becomes very compelling from the game developer and content owner standpoints.

Until now, there had been concerns that the gameplay, graphical, and audio quality have not been sufficient to do justice to original console content. This is no longer the case. Content has never looked and sounded so good on a mobile platform with:

1. Dedicated 3D graphics engines running console-quality content at over 30fps on VGA and higher resolution screens
2. Advanced 3D sound and massive polyphonic voice and MIDI support

Coupled with video processing that can playback and encode at up to 30fps, video sequences can be interleaved into the content with ease. A powerful ARM® processor and vector floating point unit enable the core game to run fast and enable high quality physics (essential to the playability of such games).

TI Platforms

TI’s OMAP 2 platforms support OpenGL® ES 1.1 and OpenVG™ standards whilst offering a range of extensions to further increase capabilities.

The OMAP 3 platform takes this further with a 3x increase in processing power, and greater floating point. These capabilities take the games developer into the realms of today’s console content.

With industry standard tools chains linking into dedicated shader compilers the world of the console and PC games developer is converging with mobile thus making it easier for content owners to make the decision to target mobile along with traditional channels.

With the TI Gaming Platform, an integrated gaming stack plus OS abstraction and a suite of tools, content owners will have an extended footprint to target. Rather than having to develop individual code lines for each of the high level OSs (Symbian OS™, Linux and Windows Mobile®) developers and content owners will now be able to target an SDK that spans all three so that developers can be immediately productive in a well known and understood environment.

However the advantage is not just at the high end, there are improvements across the board for a variety of content. By leveraging the acceleration features and the large amount of floating point capability, the TI Gaming Platform can make Flash-based games and graphics run faster. It can significantly improve the frame rates of Java 3D (M3G) content and bring native gaming to a level equivalent to handheld consoles.

Since security will always be a major concern, TI is developing a full hardware and software infrastructure with 3rd parties to ensure that your content remains safe and secure, yet allowing flexibility to use viral marketing and distribution opportunities.

Contact Us

Please contact TI at GamingOnOMAP@list.ti.com, and we can tell you more about our platform and partner capabilities to help you implement and deliver gaming and graphical solutions and services.