Sony Ericsson to introduce Android 3.0 gaming platform & PSP Go-like smartphone | Hacker News Reader

Sony Ericsson to introduce Android 3.0 gaming platform & PSP Go-like smartphone

engadget.com

40 pointsSandB0x25 comments

This is good news. However, in order for Android to become a more viable and successful gaming platform, google better make some DRASTIC changes to underlying Dalvik VM in Android 3.0 or provide us developers with better C++ libraries to write games.

Currently, the Garbage Collector in Dalvik is a total piece of shit. When the GC runs, your game can freeze for up to 100-200ms, totally kills the gaming experience. What most developers who code in Java does is to use object pool and manage memory manually, its a huge pain in the butt.

If you are a C++ developer using the NDK, you are in for a world of pain as well, you can't control EGL context from C++, you can't receive events, can't play/mix sound, can't access assets (easily). To do all of these, you are stuck with using a JNI layer, which just decrease performance.

On top of that, current devices with similar hardware specs (1ghz snapdragon, wvga screen) are all fill-rate limited to 30fps.

What most developers who code in Java does is to use object pool and manage memory manually, its a huge pain in the butt.

How is this different from C++? Oh yeah, instead of objects you get "big blocks of RAM".

C++ has better tools for manual memory management (value types, smart pointers, RAII).

Working around the garbage collector and using any C++ memory management techniques are both ugly hacks. (http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/exceptions.html#fqa-17.4)

Fortunately, there has been plenty of research on GCs that are fast enough for games. So the solution is to use one of those for Android, now that people are actually interested in writing games.

Your link mention two C++ facilities for supporting manual memory management that have no equivalents in Java, and thus (ignoring the smug sarcasm) supports my original point.

A better GC was already mentioned by the OP as another option.

I haven't been following this very closely, but Guy Romain has mentioned a language called "RenderScript" in a presentation or two. RenderScript, to my understanding, is a sort of C-like language that the Android team intends to use to fill the gap between Java development and NDK development, enabling less painful game dev.

I'm not too familiar with it, so here's a few links:

Here's a post which attempts to walk through some RenderScript sample code: http://www.inter-fuser.com/2009/11/android-renderscript-more...

Here's a mention of it on Guy Romain's blog http://www.curious-creature.org/2010/01/07/nexus-one-live-wa...

The tricky thing with Android is we have no way of knowing if Sony will be using a fairly stock Android distribution or if they'll have an exclusive Sony Android Market with games developed for the exclusive Sony Android Game SDK that allows for quick porting of PSP games. (but never exists on anything except a Sony Android handset) I guess we'll have to wait and see. Out of all the handset makers Sony has the most proprietary Android distribution. (which is why they're still stuck on 1.6)

What would be really nice is when Sony develops its own OS with XBOX-WP7-Windows or iPhone-iPad-iTV like integration.

Not sure why I'm being downvoted for voicing my opinion, I wasn't criticizing anyone.

Either way is good though. An open platform with a partially locked down game section is better than an entirely locked down platform. The simple fact that we appear to be talking about Sony basing their next Playstation brand hardware on linux would have been enough to blow minds not that long ago.

Or maybe I'm just jaded by the constant highlighting of every non-"open" thing done on the Android platform as if every iPhone owner on the planet has suddenly become more extreme than RMS in their defence of software freedom. (disclosure: I own an iPhone but think Free Software is cool, useful and socially important, and RMS is usually right in most areas outside of marketing and PR tactics)

I hope D-pads become standard on smartphones. I loathe playing games using virtual joypads.

http://sites.google.com/site/gamegripper/

mine is still in the mail, so cant really vouch for it.

I've had nothing but good from Sony Ericsson phones, and the PSP is a great device. If anyone can turn Android around for gaming (who are already in the phone market) it would be Sony as they're the only one with a true credibility on games and an existing history of portable gaming.

I'd also prefer to be playing PSP-quality games rather than the many atrocious pay-for-flash games you can play for free online . . . but not on an iPhone/Pad because it doesn't support flash.

Edit: I remember saying this before, why can my PSP do flash but an iPad can't . . . well I guess this is my answer, a phone in a PSP.

I'm a fan of Sony Ericsson. I hope they can get back to their glory days.

My old W810i was the most dependable phone ever. I dropped that thing so many times, one time out of a first floor window onto concrete. Barely a scratch. I went on a five day trip without a charger. No problem. Gave it to one of my friends and he's still using it years later.

It was there for me through thick and thin. Today's smartphones can't hold a charge past dinner time.

(Edit: Mahmud, yeah I now remember the dodgy proprietary connector. That was a terrible idea.)

I had the W890i with boombox and all the gadgets. The charger slot functions as headphones, the headphones function as antenna, and everything uses everything else.

I had a tiny pin break off and the whole thing was rendered useless. Also, a year into it the battery started dying within a few hours of full charge.

I really loved walking into my apartment, throwing the phone on the couch and having music play through my boombox, but a year into it the thing felt dated.

I bought 3 W810is for myself and family. Ironically, I think many of the things that made this phone successful were actually manufacturing limitations of the time:

* rugged nature: Most of Sony Ericsson's newer phones have been thinner and have bigger screens. This makes it easier for them to break when dropped.

* long battery life: The W810i was not a smartphone. Its web browser sucked, and it only had EDGE. The lack of constant data transfer, combined with a small screen, undoubtedly helped battery life.

I am not saying that the W810i was not a good phone for its time, but rather that it was not made to deal with the modern mobile landscape of real-time status updates, push email, and monthly OTA firmware upgrades. SE phones are falling down now because they have unusable user interfaces, are based on obsolete software versions, or are just plain buggy. The W810i was stable, but it also never needed to be upgraded.

Agreed about battery life. If I turn off data syncing and don't use my Nexus One as a smartphone, but rather just a normal phone (eschew browsing and so forth other than a quick "where's my stop on this unfamiliar public transit?") I get more than a full day of battery life. I've never tested it past a day and a half, since that's when I invariably get wherever I was going but it doesn't drop very quickly when it has less to do.

The Pandora console (http://open-pandora.org) looked really awesome for a while, but it was stuck in development hell for too long. Now its SoC looks rather paltry compared to newer high-end phones.

I still kinda want one just for the gaming controls. If it's possible to replace Android with a GNU/Linux distribution (like Meego), this could be a replacement with no downsides. It's too bad that Nokia is unlikely to attempt this after their N-Gage embarrassment.

Oh, great. It's from Sony. You know what that means.

New features in Xperia Software Update 3.41:

Due to security concerns, and to ensure access to next generation gaming content, the [Android OS] option in Xperia Software has been disabled. Users who still wish to access [Android OS] can choose to stay with software 3.40, but they will lose the capability to sign in to PSN or access games and movies designed for 3.41 or above.

Sounds good as long as Sony doesn't manage to screw it up (like they do with most other things).

They can't do any worse than the N-Gage

I'm skeptical of that.

Ugh, how is this going to work with AOSP, CM, and DRM?

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