What are 3D graphics chips?
One of the major developments in gaming technology over the past ten years has been the spread of 3D graphics acceleration chips into gadgets that never had them before. First they were in PC graphics cards, then home consoles, then portable consoles, and now some mobile phones have them too. These “3D chips” are slightly deceptively named, because you don’t need them to do 3D. True 3D games have been around since the early 80s, first in wireframe, later solid and eventually with textures too. The original Tomb Raider games of the 1990s for example didn’t require a 3D chip, yet they were obviously in textured 3D. The video above shows a similar example from the new N-Gage platform. The reason 3D chips are useful is partly that they allow 3D games to have much higher quality graphics, but also because (for various technical reasons) they allow game developers to create 3D games more easily. A device with a 3D chip is easier to program 3D games for than the same device without it. It’s w
