OpenGL ES 3.0 "Haiti" to be released this summer

OpenGL ES 2.0 is a lighter version of the desktop OpenGL 2.0 (which is quite old), and stripped of the features that would consume too much power. It then attempts to maintain the perfect balance between visual graphics and battery efficiency for the remaining ones. Keep in mind that the OpenGL ES 2.0 was finished about 5 years ago, and back then the high-end chips used to be the ARMv6 GPU’s and CPU’s like the ARM11 we see now in the lowest end Android smartphones!

But with the latest GPU’s that can support incredibly high resolutions, while still keeping the power consumption low enough on mobile devices, OpenGL is getting quite old and limited. We need something new to advance 3D games on mobile devices, and lucky for us, OpenGL ES 3.0, based on OpenGL 3.2+ and a bit of OpenGL 4.x. The release of the specification will probably happen at SIGGRAPGH 2012, in August.

The good news is that you won’t have too wait too long to have OpenGL ES 3.0 in your device. Basically all the new mobile GPU architectures that are set to launch this year or next will be supporting it. That includes the Mali T604 and Adreno 320 (this year), and Tegra 4, PowerVR 600, and Mali T658 (next year). These new GPU’s will also support OpenCL 1.1 for GPU compute, so OpenGL ES 3.0 together with OpenCL, should allow developers to create some very impressive mobile games by next year.

Since WebGL is also based on OpenGL ES 2.0, I’m expecting to see an update and a transition to OpenGL ES 3.0 for WebGL,as well, although they’ll have to make sure that AMD, Nvidia and Intel are supporting it in their latest drivers first (on the desktop). Since Android 5.0 is launching this fall, it will hopefully support OpenGL ES 3.0 natively, so all the new devices coming into 2013 can make use of it by default.

There should be a new version (3.0) of GLBenchemark released by fall, that will make it easier for us to compare OpenGL ES 3.0 devices, and give us more accurate information about the new GPU’s performance.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 and 800 are the first mobile chips to receive OpenGL ES 3 certification

by Robert Triggs, 3 months ago

The next generation processor war is definitely on, we’ve already had a look at the promising big.LITTLE A53/A57 combination, and now its Qualcomm’s turn to hint at what it has up its sleeve for the…

Comments

hot_spare

New Exynos 5250 whitepaper released today. Check this out here:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/Exynos/data/Enjoy_the_Ultimate_WQXGA_Solution_with_Exynos_5_Dual_WP.pdf
72GFLOPS of floating point performance. Eagerly waiting for next-gen Exynos..
- http://www.AndroidAuthority.com/ Darcy Alexander LaCouvee
  
  That’s so much performance in a mobile chip that it’s shocking. I still can’t help but miss a real, physical controller when I do find 10 minutes to blow away zombies though…
  - Raphael Roberts
    
    that is what an otg cable is for, to connect a controller to your device
AndroidBrian

I dont think tablets will ever replace video game consoles let alone soon. If you own a bad ass TV your goig to want to play on that. Not some 10.1 ich screen with weaker controls.
Frost

But with a HDMI cable plugged to your HD tv, a controller and powerful GPU and CPU consoles will soon become extinct, its not a matter of if but when. Tablets will soon become the ULTIMATE DEVICE
Roberto Tomás

I think desktop PCs are going to replace/merge with gaming consoles, and tablets might become the main interface. For really intense graphics, gaming consoles cant compete with kilowatt-class PC rigs, and it is going to take a few years for the low-power gains in gpu design to trickle down to the sort of cheap PC cards that consoles use. So there aught to be migrations up to PCs and down to tablets.
The tablet is fine for most gaming needs, but if you want really stellar physics and the like, you’ll need higher end compute — and since consoles can’t keep up it might be the PC that acts as the remote gpu server for the game, that you play on your TV or tablet. (Although nintendo clearly seems to think the console works just fine in place of the pc here)