While we still don’t have confirmation of a US release, the UMID M1 [Portal page] is already out in Korea, and has been demonstrated doing some multimedia tasks on video. Take a look at the videos below:
In this video you can see the UMID play a nice selection of games. Starting off with an FPS which appears to be Quake, then an RTS which seems to be Warcraft III. Then a more modern FPS, a racing game, and a 2D side-scroller. There is a good representative sample of game genres shown in the video, but most of them are fairly old and don’t have large hardware requirements, so I can’t say I’m exactly impressed with what the video is showing. The UMID M1 obviously isn’t built as a game machine, but it looks like if you are a lite gamer, you’ll be able to get your mobile game on, provided you use an external mouse at least.
In this video, the UMID M1 is used to play back an h.264 encoded video. Again, I’m not particularly impressed with the performance, as you can notice some dropped frames here and there. The rest of the video plays fairly smoothly, but may be a bit less smooth than a YouTube video can show us. Again, the UMID M1 isn’t supposed to be a serious multimedia device, but instead, a mobile web content consumer.
[Engadget]
New article: UMID M1 plays games and movies on video http://cli.gs/un6R8L
Guess you picked this up from Engadget? :)
This was “news” about a month ago :)
I hope UMPC portal doesn’t become a “gaming site”! :(
Actually, these particular ones was posted yesterday.
What do you mean by “these particular ones”?
Yes Engadget covered this a few hours back, however the clips “gamestest” and “1080p movie..” as shown above are from 4 weeks and 3 weeks ago.
Here are all of his video clips:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=loa2000kr&view=videos
EC:
Yes, the clips are a month old. But nobody even bother picking up on them. So its still fresh news.
The reason why Engadget picked them up, was because i also submitted the clips there.
And to be honest, its about time that UMPC portal, and others starts looking a bit more into the 3d capability of UMPC’s/MID’s. Maybe then people will notice that Intels GPU drivers just plain suck ( lack off hardware acceleration ), and Intel gets off there ass to fix them.
To be honest, i think it can even be considered false advertisement. Hey, look at the capabilities off our platform… O btw, we don’t release drivers with hardware acceleration, so let the CPU do all the work. ;)
Yeah I’m not sure why Engadget nor this site didn’t show it before.
Like I said I don’t think ppl looking for UMPCs generally speaking are looking for a gaming machine, nor do I believe Intel is focusing on that.
As a few people said here, the UMID isn’t a gaming device so focusing on it is a waste of time.
UMID is about microblogging, email, IM, fast web browsing and video playback with long battery life.
Ok, for the 3D performance for Quake 3 Arena and Warcraft III, here’s what I can tell.
From the rendering on the rocket, the quality is at the lowest and the resolution is likely 640×480(or some weird widescreen resolution). Those particular demos are Timedemos designed for benchmarking. 15-25 fps is really not impressive but I don’t know how the GMA 950 based McCaslin did so I don’t know(or for that matter a Netbook).
Warcraft III rendering is also low quality as the units have no shadows.
Sooo, a 1.6GHz Atom Netbook gets 59 fps at 1024×768 High settings.
GMA500 is definitely not impressive.
Its not so much the GMA500, as the fact that the drivers don’t do any hardware acceleration. The sony vaio p and a few other umpc’s owners are complaining about the same thing.
Intel is doing the same as they did in the past. Release hardware with nice specs, and then forget to add half the functionality to its drivers. Its a shame really…
Thats also why some of the reviews with other GMA500 equipped umpc’s/mids, show strange results in there video playback. Only a few players have partially or full implementation of the hardware accelerated features, resulting in heavy hit or miss between media & players.
There is talk about a Dell driver being equipped with HA, but i have yet to find any reference to any benchmarks, so that looks like hogwash.
do you guys get mad because your toaster doesnt wash your clothes?
i dont remember this device ever being advertised as a DS/PSP-killer, instead it does exactly what it was advertised to do very well.
I sure don’t :) and as I said I hope this site doesn’t start to focus all too much on games and gaming, as that’s not what UMPCs are about, whereby I believe the majority of the loyal readers of this site are not super interested in gaming, yes note I said MAJORITY :)
Frankly I’d say the people looking for portable gaming devices and not so much a mobile pc are a lot more fortunate than those of us dreaming of the ideal full OS pocketable device, I personally would be very happy to see as convenient device in the UMPC category as the Sony PSP is in the gaming category! I’ve envied the PSP from that aspect for a long time!
You can consider it a vicious circle.
UMPC Portal hardly reports any gaming news on UMPC’s. Gamers show no interest in UMPC Portal. UMPC Portal hardly reports any gaming news, as most of its audience, has no interest to it. Gamers show no …
Greater audience => greater market => more sales => more UMPC’s => powerful UMPC’s => greater audience.
Lets not go overboard with the PSP comparison. The PSP’s power is in theories less then what even a modern UMPC can provide. But, well, no decent drivers…
This remind me off a HTC model. Again, no hardware accelerated drivers added. Results was that it was slow, and sluggy’s. Only after people started complaining, they did something about it. And people where able to use the products capabilities.
UMPCs and now the more popular term MID not to mention Netbooks, all somehow overlap with each other, depending upon the users wants and needs he might lean toward one over the other. But frankly many Netbooks of today are as mobile/portable as the UMPC tablets were when this site started up.
However gamin devices are in a category of their own totally, I am sorry but I have no clue what HTC device you might be referring to as a gaming device, most HTC devices aside from the Netbook/PDA hybrid called Shift, are more or less WinMO run PDAs or SmartPhones, and yeah then you have the Linux based G1
I mean just look even at desktops, your average desktop and the “gamer’s desktop” have little in common, even down to the UI hardware.
Now where the gaming aspect of things *IS* interesting to me personally is the fact that it tends to push the limits, and I am always for that on mobile platforms. This is also where I feel the PSP is a very nice and smoothly working platform when it comes to size, screen size, and most importantly quality of picture, and the fact that the PSP will reach FOUR years of age this year, in comparison sometimes it feels like UMPCs have been standing still for the past 3-4 years in certain aspects.
Now while the debate if UMPCs/MIDs and SmartPhones will converge sometime soon is still going strong, with not clear indication this way or that. I believe it is very evident that a gaming machine anywhere close to as powerful as your desktop gaming machine is will not be pockateble any time soon.
To conclude I’d like to refer to the OQO which very clearly was and still is a pioneer within the UMPC (now referred to as an MID) category, has not really had any focus on the gaming community not by OQO nor the gaming community itself, I believe that the majority of the loyal readers of this site are those who either used the OQO or were seriously considering it.
There’s plenty of gaming sites out there, I just wouldn’t want this site to get “watered down” with such, just to get more hits, as in the long run it would loose hits for sure.
As for sales, UMPC portal isn’t doing “sales” as such.
At the end of the day. Does it do what it says on the tin?
Answer yes then great, amswer no – then get it sorted.
However, if Intel (or whoever) make hardware that will do something, then we should complain when it is crippled because of poor implementation. If I am paying for a £100 chip (for example) which can do gaming on it and states it is capable of doing, then whether I do use it for gaming or not is irrelevant.
Also I would say that the majority of people who look at this site are like me, we want a PC in the pocket. So this means at least a little gaming, and the ability to view videos without stuttering. Even if 90% of the time I will use it for viewing e-mails and some web-browsing.
On the desktop side as Benjiro correctly pointed out – gaming has been driving the development of machines and it filters through. Hopefully for UMPCs proper net video watching will drive the development for us. The whole web is moving multimedia and UMPCs have to move too.
I am not really sure what “tin” you’re talking about here!? Maybe you can be more specific as to what you are talking about whan you say “it says on the tin”?? What tin, and what does it say there on your tin?
The UMID MID, aside from some issues with the build quality of the PLASTIC shell (no tin here!) it is one of the more promising devices now in this size. If you’re asking about the technical specs, there is a link to it in the article here it is again http://www.umpcportal.com/products/UMID%20M1/MID
Those specs should tell you what it is “promising” and what not.
I think this discussion is getting quite out of hand, you know it’s only weeks and months since we had NO DEVICE in this size that had Windows running on it (OQO is bulkier than Aigo or UMID), then we only had a few MIDs floating around with Linux, and now we are debating if these devices are powerful enough / suitable to be gaming devices!? NO they are nto, they never were intended to be, and most likely will not be anywhere in the next few years.
Now if people into gaming find some suitable compromise that works for them (kind of like I now walk around with two quite different smartphones since there is really no UMPC meeting my full os & battery needs) that is just GREAT I think. But please don’t expect a device to be something it never was designed to be!? It’s like expecting one of those nice Korean electronic dictionaries would be able to handle full Windows!!?
EC, it really does not mater what is promised, but what is delivered. If your car comes with all those nice electronic gizmo’s like GPS, etc, there is a expectation that the software that drives those electronics works like with other products.
But, no, because the GPS developer did not bother providing the right drivers, your GPS only updates every minute, instead off the expected 5 seconds or whatever that any other product does. In the end, you as a consumer, will have a nice little talk about the inadequate performance with the garagist. And he will have a nice little talk with his supplier.
Problem is, Intel is a rather monopolistic entity, so, its there way, or the highway. There is a level off expectation for a consumer. One of those is, when you provide a GPU with 2 Pixel Pipelines, Hardware vertex shaders etc, that it actually gets used when the software requests it using its manufactures driver.
Also, EC, we are talking about gaming in general. Not about running Crysis or whatever on a UMPC.
3D permanence like any aspect off a computer needs to be talked about. As ou stated, its a full blown PC in your pocket. So, why can we not talk about gaming performance? Lets face it, at best! what we get to see is crystalmark score, and thats it. There are no extended test done beyond a quick podcast to see what player can play what media. And then you get some media that works with x player, y media with z player etc… Very consumer friendly…
And people are surprised that the UMPC market does not do the millions off units per brand. I remember the goal that Samsung placed uppon itself years ago. Boy, where they wrong.
Btw: But you are wrong about some aspects. Its been years that we have had full blown Windows running on UMPC’s. I’ve been keeping track off the UMPC market ever sinds the Origami project was first released. Now, if you where to say, Linux device, then yes. Those are relative new to the UMPC market.
The funny part in this entire discussion is: The old models while having a more performance CPU, had the exact same problem until recently. Intel did not bother to provided hardware Vertex shader access in there drivers. Resulting in the cpu doing all the work. Its been only recently that they actually added that. But, now this entire rat race starts all over again.
I expect that we will not see any hardware accelerated drivers for the GMA500, as Intel is focusing on the GN40 ( stripped down GMA X4500 )…
In other words, anybody that buys a UMPC will not be able to use its hardware for the full 100%. Thats a fact.
But please, do not underestimate the effect that the gaming market can have on the UMPC sales. Intel does that, and we see the effects from it.
Take a look in this very forum, and you will see a lot off question over time, regarding games on UMPCs. Take it from me, ever sinds the Origami, i’ve been on the gamer group, that visited this site. And most off the time, it felt like the UMPC market was going to wrong way ( notebook, instead of true UMPCs ).
I’m not going to discus this topic until the end off time, but having one person saying that he does not like gaming news on UMPC’s, does NOT constitute the majority off the potential clients.
I say, the more news, the better. Even if its stripping UMPC hardware, video benchmarks, gaming benchmarks, control / input device tests, etc… To many times we are hungry for news, and hardly any reaches us. And we are left with 10″ notebook reviews *uch*. Not exactly the definition off pocket able…
The Problem about the GMA500 (and devices like this UMID) is not that it`s not capable of playing 3d games on it but that the drivers Intel provides do not take full advantage of the hardware.
And besides: many peaople out there think it would be an attractive bonus to be able to do some 3d gaming on these devices. Don`t forget that gaming was/ is one of the driving forces in the development of personal computing.
Furthermore there is also software besides gaming that would benefit from a better 3d performance.
I’m somewhat confused at the conversation here. Why would one video on one post indicate that UMPC Portal would become a gaming site? Games can help show the graphic capabilities of any computer so I would say this is perfectly relevant, just as relevant as looking at a video decoding test to see how well the unit can play back video just like we saw in the post.
EC consider a solution such as this for pocketable gaming:
http://i.gizmodo.com/5037276/liveplace-is-a-virtual-world-rendered-server+side-streamed-to-any-device
You could definitely fit something in your pocket that is capable of displaying very good graphics, and the relevance for those not interested in gaming is that a similar model could be set up to do things like video editing and rendering or other processor intensive activities like Photoshop, and it could all happen with the device in your pocket.
Umid is not designed for games? An x86 hardware with a generic multi purpose OS like XP is designed for whatever you want it to, nothing more nothing less. There’re thousand of games that can be played in that device. You won’t be playing crysis, but any game from the 90s and earlier will work fine I think, according to that vid.
The reason so many people want XP in those tiny devices is because XP is good for a ton of things, don’t undestimate the whole amount of stuff you can do even in such a small device because you won’t be doing it at all.
OK, Sorry. You have a point. CPU-based and Java-based games could be worth looking at but as the chipset has a relatively low GPU power I wouldn’t get too excited about gaming on it.
An ipod touch is going to be more satisfying IMO but I understand that there are XP gaming fans out there that want to run emulators and earlier games.
S.
Good response here.
Apologies to all re. my use of english idiom. The saying “Does it do what it says on the tin” means, if you buy a tin of paint you expect paint to be inside. If the hardware is capable of doing something then you expect to be able to use the hardware – not have it crippled by missing/incomplete drivers.
I am not a “gamer”, but as Ben put it, to paraphrase, it is representative of what you can do with it.
Like most I spend time on here because the device I want isn’t available yet and when something new comes out I want to know when I can buy, and can it do what the specs. suggest it can. Notice no tin :-)
Games, pffft… I can’t imagine anything more boring.
Here is GPU comparison:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html
As we can see here Intel GMA 950 on Vaio Ux is much more capable for similar sized device. As for PSP it is strange we don’t see similar performance at today UMPC. It’s not good to carry many bulky devices when you are mobile or traveling.
mmm,
I believe games here not be using software rendering (Fraps on the left side suggest it’s proper accelleration, and also graphical glitches).
I think what we are seeing (given the fact that this is XP) are the famous new drivers that are already circulating as IEGD with hardware accelleration for the poulsbo.
I’m pretty sure that new drivers will make GMA500 the best chipset option for the Atom, but it’s taking Intel way too much time to get them out, and in the meanwhile the chipset is already getting old.
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I’m no gamer. Videos without stuttering, however, I expect from an XP computer. Furthermore, let’s say I’m travelling with children and they want some entertainment, then I would like this to be flexible enough to either show a movie or play games. For my needs – I basically need powerpoint with the ability to hook it up to a projector, word, a few other windows based softwares, an occasional excel file – internet browsing, e-mail etc etc. Some of the phones, such as the Tosh TG01 seem to be able to do much of this, albeit slower. What the M1 does, that the phones do not, is Skype, or MSN chat with camera. That still attracts me sufficiently to want the M1. However a stuttering video is what I expect in a poorly implemented smart phone, not an XP computer. Aren’t there two versions of the UMID with varying specs? I’m hoping there’s a more powerful version that could handle videos in a better way.
WinMo phones do Skype – mine is almost three years old and it does it. I believe that hey recently announced with video on WinMo phones. There are other IM chat I think that you can use too.
I woulnd expect a tiny slugger like this to endure full on 1080p HD/blueray hell without losing face. Not to mention is a bit pointless on only 4.8″ of screen estate, not to mention only 1024×600 resolution. I even think a big part of its processing power would be lost on downscaling the video, as it has to “throw away” more then 70% of the picture.
Infact I think the device would be able to run the same footage in 720p format without losing any quality ifnot even gaining some, since then it would only have to throw out about 35% of the video. And considdering these videos it seems its only just about failing 1080p, it should be quite comfortable with 720p content.
Normal DVD (480i) quality would start to suffer, since that is only 720×480. This would force the device to make up 75% of the screens content on its own.
Also take into account that 1080p movie content ballparks somewhere between 8 all the way up to 36gb. (did I hear the UMIDs standard 8gb disk scream just now?).
Id be more concerned by the rather slim 512mb RAM.. Thats really low, even for XP. I woulnd dare slapping Vista on this one.
Impressed with the informative blog. Thanks