QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 (was something about yummy CPU-GPU combos!)

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Sat, 7 Jun 2008 12:08:05 +0200 "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller" <hns at computer.org>
babbled:

> >>> How is the iPhone doing it? It has Half-VGA resolution and "feels"
> >> very smooth.
> >
> > it has a hardware-accelerated 3d chipset with full opengl drivers.  
> > and a very
> > good chipset at that. that is why. as for half-vga. that's still  
> > HALF the
> > pixels the freerunner/neo1973 have. *IF* we shipped the same screen  
> > - we'd have
> 
> > better performance. i find it interesting how so many peole rave  
> > about how
> > great the iphone screen is - but its tech specs are not so hot. it's  
> > dpi is
> 
> I would also like to have a better screen on the iPhone! If you open a  
> web page
> you have always to zoom in the first step.
> 
> > pretty bad compared to the standard these days. but that sure as  
> > hell has not
> 
> 
> It would still be approx. 30% better than a QVGA 2'8...
> 
> > stopped it selling. :) this is why i ask - actual products and  
> > reality seem to
> > show that dpi is not a major factor. at least as best i can tell.
> 
> I have now thought a lot about why they have chossen 320x480.
> 
> Most probably, they have spent a lot of money and useability research  
> to find the
> **best compromise** between number of pixels, dpi, speed, readibility,  
> information
> density and cost.
> 
> Conclusion:
> 
> * QVGA is worse (!) than the best compromise (as benchmarked by the  
> iPhone)
> * VGA is better to use - which has its price.

also screens available at the time of development, would have factored in,
cost, but remember - they posess a massive amount more compute grunt to drive
their screen. we posess much less, so for the cpu power we have qvga is the
equivalent of 320x480 on the iphone - if we follow the above logic.

> So how should one decide between two contradicting requirements?
> 
> In the view of openness and unknown future applications, I would pay  
> the price
> to go beyond the best compromise. Even if it needs a more expensive  
> processor
> to get the speed.

this is the thing - for now, processor isnt changing. so - it's resolution, or
speed that has to give (or features graphically).

-- 
Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) <raster at openmoko.org>