On the Applicability of Remote Rendering of Networked Virtual Environments on Mobile Devices

Abstract

The technologies behind Networked Virtual Environments have seen increased interest in recent years, mainly due to the proliferation of the Massively Multiplayer On Line games. It is of increasing importance to developers and service providers to be able to target the mass market of mobile device users. With increased availability of wireless connectivity, one of the hurdles has been stepped over. However, displaying a graphically attractive environment on a device with limited capabilities and battery power still presents a major obstacle. On the other hand, mobile television viewing is currently actively being promoted as one of the key drivers behind the market uptake of 3G services. By using a technique that is known as remote rendering, we are able to use existing client-side hardware (suited for 3G applications) for display of NVE-based applications on mobile devices. In this paper, we present an overview of a system architecture that supports remote rendering of these applications and measurement results that show the feasibility of the approach.