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CLIMAX And ATI To Revolutionze Mobile Gaming

by Rainier on Jan. 7, 2004 @ 11:49 a.m. PST

Climax Portables, an integral studio of the pioneering Climax Group, today confirmed the forging of a new relationship with industry giant ATI. And, thanks to the chip manufacturer’s awesome Imageon 3D accelerator and Climax’s exceptional programming skills, the two companies have broken new ground in mobile gaming.

Designed for embedded devices, such as PDA’s and mobile phones, the revolutionary Imageon 3D accelerator is capable of delivering fantastic, high quality visuals to mobile games platforms. To showcase the power of this cutting-edge technology, ATI brought in Climax Portables to develop launch content.

Created by Climax Portables’ dedicated team of mobile gaming specialists, the technology demo uses the OpenGL ES rendering API, with custom ATI extensions further improving rendering performance. The stunning results bear testament to both Imageon’s breathtaking power and Climax Portables’ proficiency at adapting to work with the very latest technology.

Throughout the development of the technology demo, the skilled programmers at Climax Portables worked hand-in-hand with ATI engineers to bring out the most in the new technology. “We worked very closely with the hardware and driver engineers at ATI to ensure that the demo really pushed the hardware to its limits,” explained Mike Merren, Managing Director of Climax Portables. “As the drivers were under development at the same time as we developed the demo, we could work together, helping each other to optimize both the demo code and the drivers themselves.”

However, the task of creating the demo wasn’t without its complications. Because there’s no guarantee that the target platform has a floating-point co-processor, all 3D mathematics had to be written in fixed-point math. Also, because of the different footprints on mobile devices the demo is able to detect the amount of video memory available and use different texture resolutions depending on the configuration.

Despite the inherent problems of working with revolutionary hardware, Climax Portables was delighted to take on the challenge of creating a technology demo. “The opportunity to work with ATI on this exciting project proved irresistible,” said Merren. “This is the very cutting edge of technology for mobile platforms and we were very happy and excited to play a part at such an early stage. Not only has this helped us to forge a close relationship with ATI, the fact that we already have a great deal of experience working with this new technology also means we’re one step ahead of most other developers.”

“Working with Climax on this project has been a rewarding experience for both parties,” stated Steve Turner, VP Handheld Products Group at ATI. “We chose the company based on its exemplary reputation and it hasn’t let us down. Not only did it deliver on schedule, what it achieved with the demo far exceeded even our own high expectations. The company has exceptionally gifted programmers and through working with them we have been able to create a truly outstanding launch content.”

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