Imagination Technologies unveils first official certified benchmark numbers for Futuremark 3DMark Mobile06 running on Texas Instruments OMAP2420 processor incorporating PowerVR MBX

February 2, 2006 -- Imagination Technologies, a leader in system-on-chip intellectual property (SoC IP), is the first company to announce official and certified performance results for the independent 3DMarkMobile06 benchmark application developed and certified by Futuremark.

3DMarkMobile06 is an independent and demanding performance benchmarking application measuring the 3D graphics capability of mobile devices. 3DMarkMobile06 is the only product designed specifically to benchmark system-level performance of next generation OpenGL ES 1.0 and 1.1 enabled mobile devices.

Imagination has released these first certified benchmark results, under both Linux and Symbian operating systems with OpenGL ES1.1, using a member of Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP™ 2 platform, the OMAP2420 application processor, with PowerVR MBX running at 50/66 MHz (Symbian/Linux) and the CPU (ARM 1136) running at 300/266 MHz (Symbian/Linux). Measured system performance on TI’s OMAP2420 processor exceeds 37 frames per second on Game Test 1 for both Operating Systems.

The better than real-time results for the Game Test and other measurements in the benchmark results on this mobile platform demonstrate the uniquely efficient architecture and SoC tolerance of PowerVR MBX, which enables the delivery of high system-level throughputs without the typical loss or overheads that occur in system integration with other graphics solutions.

The Game Tests in 3DMarkMobile06 are designed to stress mobile system hardware to the maximum, going several steps ahead of the current generation of mobile games. PowerVR MBX, Imagination Technologies’ groundbreaking graphics technology, with its highly efficient and low-bandwidth architecture, has now succeeded in bringing console-class gaming to the mobile world.

Says David McBrien, VP Business Development, Imagination Technologies: “We are confident that our 3DMarkMobile06 results represent the highest level of real system performance available today on mobile embedded devices for the wireless market. TI’s OMAP2420 processor incorporates both the PowerVR MBX and VGP co-processor, licensed from Imagination Technologies, enabling console quality graphics on mobile phones.”

Imagination’s PowerVR MBX graphics architecture, which offers extensions to OpenGL ES 1.X features, delivers massive triangle and fill rates along with full 3D features such as skinning, FSAA, curved surfaces, per-pixel lighting and texture compression.

Previously, the quality of mobile games has been limited by the processing capacity of the mobile phone platform. TI and Imagination addressed this limitation by including the horsepower of Imagination’s embedded PowerVR MBX 3D engine in TI’s OMAP 2 platform. The OMAP 2 platform also includes the fully programmable PowerVR VGP vertex processor which efficiently offloads graphics calculations from the CPU.

Says Avner Goren, Director of Marketing, Texas Instruments: “TI’s OMAP2420 processor is the performance leader for mobile 3D graphics and its market-leading credentials are thoroughly reinforced by these benchmark results. PowerVR MBX is a high-performing core that offers a well-balanced graphics choice in today’s high-end processors.”

Futuremark, with over eight years experience developing 2D, 3D and system benchmarking applications, understands the need for unbiased performance measurement of mobile graphics hardware. With the release of 3DMarkMobile06, mobile hardware developers, manufacturers and reviewers now have the first benchmark intended to provide accurate, consistent performance measurements of embedded graphics solutions.

Says Tero Sarkkinen, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Futuremark: “3DMarkMobile06 features future workloads and game programming technologies that consumers will run in next-generation mobile 3D hardware. Prior to the availability of a workload based benchmark the industry has had to rely on unsubstantiated marketing claims and highly theoretical performance specifications, rather than actual real-world performance results. Our benchmark enables Imagination Technologies to substantiate its technology’s performance level.”

Full results

Game Test descriptions:

Game Test 1:
Samurai: "A robot samurai performs a kata in a traditional Japanese dojo."
Polygon budget: 10k-20k

Game Test 2:
Proxicon: "Futuristic warriors defend their space station from attack with laser blasters"
Polygon budget: 15k-20k
Features: Lighting, Multitexture, Character skinning.


Certified Linux Configuration

Texas Instruments OMAP2420 Software Development Platform with PowerVR MBX graphics core and VGP co-processor.
OS: Linux Montavista (2.4 Kernel) running on ROM.
CPU clock 266MHz
Bus speed 133MHz
Graphics core clock 66MHz
Used optimizations compared to the 3DMarkMobile06 default version:

• PVRTC texture compression used


• glMultiDrawElements used

Game Test 1	Frames per second	37.30 fps
Game Test 2	Frames per second	31.79 fps
Fillrate with 1 texture units	Texels per second	36.09 Mpps
Fillrate with 2 texture units	Texels per second	36.03 Mpps
Triangle count without lighting	Triangles per second	2.06  Mtps
Triangle count with lighting	Triangles per second	1.03  Mtps

Certified Symbian Configuration

Texas Instruments OMAP2420 Software Development Platform with PowerVR MBX graphics core and VGP co-processor.
OS: Symbian 9.1 2005 week 42 textshell running on RAM
CPU clock 300MHz
Bus speed 100MHz
Graphics core clock 50MHz
Used optimizations compared to the 3DMarkMobile06 default version:

• PVRTC texture compression used
• glMultiDrawElements used

Game Test 1	Frames per second:	37.76 fps
Game Test 2	Frames per second:	28.68 fps
Fillrate with 1 texture units	Texels per second	33.73 Mpps
Fillrate with 2 texture units	Texels per second	33.56 Mpps
Triangle count without lighting	Triangles per second	2.36  Mtps
Triangle count with lighting	Triangles per second	0.79  Mtps

For more information see http://www.futuremark.com.

About Futuremark® Corporation
Futuremark® Corporation is the leading provider of performance analysis software and services for PCs and smartphones. Futuremark® is known around the world for its benchmark products, including the 3DMark® and PCMark® Series and SPMark™ (with more than 30 million copies distributed worldwide) and value-added services powered by a database of over 12 million real life benchmarking results. Futuremark® maintains offices in Saratoga, California and Helsinki, Finland.

About Imagination Technologies
Imagination Technologies Group plc – a leader in SoC IP – develops, licenses and supplies market-leading graphics, video and display cores, real-time multi-threaded DSP/RISC processors and communication and broadcast technologies for the mobile, consumer, automotive and PC markets. It supplies licensable IP (Intellectual Property) supported by advanced development tools to leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies worldwide. Imagination Technologies Group plc has its corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (FTSE:IMG). See: www.imgtec.com.