Eve: Another portable gaming device?

[Ender]

Anyone heard of this?

VIA announces x86-based mobile gaming console
by Geoff Gasior - 02:27 am, May 13, 2004

VIA has announced the interesting Eve mobile gaming console with x86 roots and plenty of potential as a media playback device. Here are some highlights from Eve's hardware spec, which is based on VIA's Grace mobile console platform:
533MHz Eden-N Processor on a 133MHz front-side bus
128MB DDR266 SDRAM
20GB hard drive
VIA CN400 chipset
S3 UniChrome Pro graphics with 200MHz core clock
VIA Vinyl six-channel audio with EAX support
4" 640x480 LCD display
two USB 2.0 ports
802.11b Wi-Fi

(Graphics:
· VIA CN400 Digital Media Chipset - Integrates S3 Graphics UniChrome Pro Graphics Core
· 200Mhz Graphics Engine Clock
· 128-bit 3D Graphics Engine o Pixel rate up to 200 million pixels per second, 2 textures each
o Triangle rate up to 4.5 million triangles per second
o Microsoft DirectX 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0 compatible
o Microsoft DirectX Texture Compression (DXTC, S3TC)
o OpenGLâ„¢ Support
o Z-bias, LOD-bias, Polygon Offset, Edge Anti-aliasing and Alpha Blending
o Specular Lighting
MPEG2 & MPEG4 Hardware decoding)


Essentially, it's a little PC running Windows XP embedded. With the help of a SIM card, Eve will leverage the Eden-N's hardware cryptography engine to serve DRM-encrusted games through the GameDweller network. GameDweller doesn't currently offer a list of available titles, but Eve's x86 roots should make it easy to port a wide variety of titles to the device, if porting is necessary at all.
Eve was designed by the Ministry of Mobile Affairs, which is headed by Andrew Huang, the author of Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering. Hacking won't be necessary to turn Eve into an open platform, though. According to the GameDweller Whitepaper, SIM cards will be sold that unlock Eve's BIOS, leaving the device open for all sorts of interesting applications.

The Ministry of Mobile Affairs' Eve FAQ claims the device will be available in the first quarter of 2005, just missing the holiday season.

(this was taken from tech report)

Homepage:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/eve.jsp

 

[London Geezer]

Enough already!! What is it this year with the handhelds!?

If it's real (doubtful), specs are ok, but it looks bloody awful.

 

[thop]

It must be a E3 joke or sth. just look at the full specs (follow the link)! Is there anything it does not have? The thing is gonna be heavy, ugly and will have 1 hour battery life! I mean what is the 20GB HD needed for. It is more like a tiny laptop.

Eve was designed by the Ministry of Mobile Affairs, which is headed by Andrew Huang, the author of Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering.

WTF Ministry of Mobile Affairs? That sounds more like a Monty Python joke to me

 

[McFly]

If it's not a joke ... my pockets are defenitly not shaped like that.

Fredi

 

[Ender]

The design is kinda wtf...

"Ohh, is that an Eve you got there or are you just happy to see me"... 8)

 

[McFly]

"Ohh, is that an Eve you got there or are you just happy to see me"... 8)

LOL, I already see the adverts.

Fredi

 

[Fox5]

Hmm, with specs like that, it may be a competitor to the n64 in graphics!
Seriously, I'm not sure how the graphics chip holds up, but VIA's chips have never been very powerful, that chip probably offers around the power of n64's cpu. A 1 ghz via cpu can perform below a 300 mhz celeron.

 

[max-pain]

http://www.ministrymobile.com/

 

[PC-Engine]

This has already been posted in the Hardware forum...

 

[Gollum]

This has the ring of either a joke or weird marketing to it. Ministry of Mobile Affairs? "The Mobile Affairs Act of 2004 served to mobilize and secure world citizens from boredom attacks while home and abroad." Is that a Patriot Act spoof or what?

The graphics fillrate doesn't seem that impressive for a PC, but its way beyond the specs for PSP IIRC and definitely beyond N64. S3's technology isn't as bad as some people here try to make it either. Even their previous generation hardware was roughly the level of the original GeForce in IQ and performance. DeltaChrome is a DX9 level TBR IIRC, so if this UniChrome turns out to be a 1 pipe derivate (would make sense, MBX demonstrates that TBRs are well suited for mobile devices) the graphics might actually be very good for a portable.

 

[Paul]

Triangle rate up to 4.5 million triangles per second

Lol.. Please tell me they are not serious. The rest of the system is high powered(very), but 4.5 million PPS? And that's peak too, sustained in game will be lower.

Back to the drawing board, or get a more powerful GPU, or throw in a dedicated VPU.

 

[London Geezer]

Triangle rate up to 4.5 million triangles per second

Lol.. Please tell me they are not serious. The rest of the system is high powered(very), but 4.5 million PPS? And that's peak too, sustained in game will be lower.

Back to the drawing board, or get a more powerful GPU, or throw in a dedicated VPU.

Cause u're taking this seriously?

 

[marconelly!]

The graphics fillrate doesn't seem that impressive for a PC,

That graphics fillrate doesn't sound impressive for anything, PSP and MBX included...

 

[Guden Oden]

I also question why it's got a big glowing plastic hole along the front end. Not only is it ugly, it must waste a lot of power too when lighting it up.

 

[London Geezer]

I also question why it's got a big glowing plastic hole along the front end. Not only is it ugly, it must waste a lot of power too when lighting it up.

Maybe they found the way to get proper battery life, if they can afford to keep the glowy thing on.... Must be alien technology...