Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 Gaming Platform: An Inflexion Point

On the ultimate day of the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, we spent a while with the Snapdragon G3x Handheld Gaming Developer Kit (gaming machine), the primary machine working on the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 platform. The developer equipment was launched in partnership with Razer, which has a thriving developer community.

Let’s speak in regards to the G3x Gen 1 platform. It is a brand new gaming {hardware} platform architecturally near in the present day’s smartphones. It goals to leverage the very best connectivity Qualcomm has (5G, WiFi 6E, and many others.) with probably important variations in how the know-how is bodily packaged and the way I feel it may scale sooner or later.

The bodily machine variations between the Developer Kit and smartphones are primarily based on particular recreation ergonomics like superior haptics and, extra importantly, system cooling potential.

Micah Knapp, Sr Director Product Management at Qualcomm. Photo Credit: Eliane Fiolet

Photo Credit: Eliane Fiolet

Photo Credit: Eliane Fiolet

Fundamentally, smartphones completely should be skinny & gentle on the expense of cooling capabilities and sustained efficiency. Essentially, you’re not maximizing the silicon potential due to thermal throttling and energy limitations.

All cellphone designs stack three heat-generating parts onto one another: the show, the processor, and the battery. There’s little or no house left for heat-dissipation {hardware} similar to heatsinks, not to mention followers.

On the opposite, a gaming handheld like this developer equipment permits far more freedom on all fronts, and it’s massive sufficient to have a really potent cooling, bigger batteries, and house between parts. OEMs don’t must observe the G3 design, so we anticipate to see many variants.

From a software program perspective, the G3x platform runs on Android. The current software program is suitable, and most recreation builders don’t have anything to do as their video games ought to run out of the field.

There are alternatives to push sustained efficiency increased, and recreation builders may add increased graphics choices or higher assist for bodily controls. Today, contact controls could be remapped to bodily controls routinely or rapidly, so G3x would come out of the gate with an enormous recreation library.

The handset can recreation stream from PCs, consoles, or cloud gaming companies, identical to telephones and different shopper gadgets. That’s the place superior connectivity makes a giant distinction by way of latency, for instance.

The query is, “who wants this?” For now, it’s for players who wish to play “on the go” with out compromise. We don’t but know what number of items this might symbolize as a result of it’s a brand new market. It’s truthful to take a position that the gaming market dimension ought to permit for a nascent area of interest market like G3x to exist.

Every yr, 1.4 Billion mobiles are bought (2020 numbers), and looking out again, it took ten years for Sony to promote 102 Million PS1 consoles, which was thought of a smashing enterprise success.

The Nintendo DS bought 20M items over its lifetime and is taken into account a legendary success. More lately, Nintendo has bought 93M Nintendo Switch so far. A platform like G3x might be extremely profitable though very small in comparison with the general cellphone market. Note that console makers don’t earn cash on the {hardware} however the video games’ distribution, however that’s one other evaluation.

The G3x Gen 1 Developer Kit’s inner specs remained undisclosed. Eyeballing the sport demos’ body charges, it doesn’t appear to run the highest-end smartphone CPU/GPU combo, maybe a Snapdragon 7xx equal. That’s the way it feels. It doesn’t matter, as this prototype is supposed for builders to gauge the ergonomics and potential of the system. Qualcomm and Razer say that the suggestions has been extraordinarily constructive so far.

Photo Credit: Eliane Fiolet

Photo Credit: Eliane Fiolet

Following the Snapdragon naming conference, we are able to think about {that a} G8x platform will sometime be powered by a devoted “gaming” chip far more potent than high-end smartphones. The G3x naming may point out that we’re taking a look at entry-level efficiency within the Snapdragon G platform.

Technically, Qualcomm may scale CPU and GPU cores to match peculiar gaming workloads. Every recreation console is designed that manner, as recreation execution is often obese on GPU and bandwidth. The CPU acts as an orchestrator, and co-processors like Hexagon and even the ISP may supply enormous recreation advantages if accessible to builders.

Any efficiency comparability with present smartphones is irrelevant till G3x client gadgets are close to launching. We’re nonetheless on the proof-of-concept part right here.

Many will see the Snapdragon G3 machine as a Nintendo Switch competitor, however wanting on the horizon reveals a wider image. If you agree with the premise that Snapdragon G chips may (and I predict, will) scale CPU/GPU in another way from smartphones to match gaming workloads, so Snapdragon G shouldn’t be even restricted to “handheld gaming.”

Photo Credit: Eliane Fiolet

Photo Credit: Eliane Fiolet

There’s no motive why Qualcomm couldn’t construct an Android-powered PS/Xbox competitor sooner or later, maybe backed by Google, Samsung, and lots of different OEMs. From a computational perspective, have a look at how Apple’s M1 scaled to the M1 Max in a short time.

The Snapdragon C8x’s (now on its 3^rd era) evolution is a pertinent instance of how the Snapdragon cellphone structure is tailored to productiveness laptops’ wants and workloads with growing success.

Snapdragon G may assist Android succeed as a “box” the place Android TV had combined outcomes. It’s too early to foresee how Qualcomm’s entry into the “dedicated gaming hardware” enterprise will end up. For now, there’s a transparent opening in no-compromise cellular gaming from which Qualcomm can enter, set up a foothold, and broaden.

Broader success relies on the synergy between {hardware}, recreation growth, and recreation distribution, requiring many iterations and adaptation. A sizeable variety of in the present day’s AAA video games are created by console makers similar to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and they’ll leverage these sticky titles to retain prospects. Others like Epic will embrace a multi-platform method.

Finally, the worth of Snapdragon G gadgets will play an enormous function in adoption. We’ll have to attend for the primary client gadgets earlier than assigning a worth metric.

To conclude, I don’t anticipate a considerable short-term affect on the gaming market within the subsequent couple of years, however we may be wanting again to at the present time as an inflection level in gaming {hardware} over the subsequent decade. The introduction of the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 might sometime be in comparison with Sony’s, then Microsoft’s entry within the console enterprise at their respective occasions.

There’s no client product for now, however builders can apply for items by way of developer.razer.com

Filed in Gaming. Read extra about Android, Game Consoles, Processors, Qualcomm, Snapdragon, Snapdragon Summit and SoC.