”ATI played a dominate role in creating the OpenGL ES spec. They even drafted it in the first place. Imagination is clearly playing catch-up in this area,”
I really have to disagree there Imagination played a very big role in the OpenGL ES spec some might say more then ATI who where pushing for low OpenGL specs. Imagination turned up to all the meetings and if it was not for them OpenGL ES spec would not even have things like Muti-textuering support which ATI didn’t want to add as there chip if recall did not support it. If anything ATI are playing catch up as they tried to not have specs above there chip added into OpenGL ES. Specs which the MBX can do.
”It cannot push polys at it fast enough, even with geometry caching. So there isn't much point in the PowerVR MBX being any faster.”
Well the PowerVR MBX does have a hardware T&L unit for handing the geometry polygons over the CPU freeing up the CPU for other things. The MBX also has far better FSAA then ATI chip which makes a big difference on a small screen and you could just send a small amount of polys or run at a lower res then use FSAA.
Other advantage’s of the MBX are Trilinear MIP and anisotropic for better rendering quality over using just Bilinear filtering found on the 2300. I really don’t see how the 2300 can compete against the MBX its so far behind in speed, features an company support. By company support I mean most of the market seems to be taking the MBX path. MBX is also a Tile-based card making it perfect for a mobile chip.
”“have to wait until PowerVR MBX has a real 100% port behind it, like GLQuake (the Tomb Raider that is running on PowerVR MBX is the basterdized PS1 version, so it doesn't count).””
They have been showing Quake 3, Tony hawks and lots of other games running on the MBX its been 2 years since they shown Tomb Raider on the MBX and a lots changed from 2 years ago. Tomb Raider also was not a basterdized PS1 version as it had extra effects turn on like lots of FSAA.
"ATI at least has Imagination beat with the latter. ATI played a role describing the specs, and thus PowerVR MBX is likely not as well suited for OpenGL ES"
Imagination pushed for higher specs then ATI and they got added in fact the PowerVR MBX seems to exceed the OpenGL specs while ATI don’t even support them all. So how can ATI be better suited? The MBX is a Tile-based card which gives it a long list of reasons for being better suited.
Far as I can see the MBX is perfectly suited for OpenGL ES. Its not like Imagination didnt have a role in makeing OpenGL ES there played just as big a part as ATI did if not more.
It’s also clear that mobile phone and PDA companies are favouring the MBX over the ATI chip. Not exactly many big companies in the top 10 left to sigh up for the ATI chip.
