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OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenGL 4.3 squeeze textures to the limit, bring OpenVL along for the ride
Mobile graphics are clearly setting the agenda at SIGGRAPH this year -- ARM's Mali T600-series parts have just been chased up by a new Khronos Group standard that will likely keep those future video cores well-fed. OpenGL ES 3.0 represents a big leap in textures, introducing "guaranteed support" for more advanced texture effects as well as a new version of ASTC compression that further shrinks texture footprints without a conspicuous visual hit. OpenVL is also coming to give augmented reality apps their own standard. Don't worry, desktop users still get some love through OpenGL 4.3: it adds the new ASTC tricks, new visual effects (think blur) and support for compute shaders without always needing to use OpenCL. All of the new standards promise a bright future in graphics for those living outside of Microsoft's Direct3D universe, although we'd advise being patient: there won't be a full Open GL ES 3.0 testing suite for as long as six months, and any next-generation phones or tablets will still need the graphics hardware to match.
ARM's eight-core Mali GPUs promise 'dramatic' boost to mobile graphics
The current flagship for ARM's mobile graphics technology is undoubtedly the Galaxy S III, which contains a quad-core Mali 400 GPU and delivers some wild benchmark scores. By the end of this year though, we should see a whole new generation of Malis -- not just a Mali 450 for mid-range handsets, but also the quad-core T604 and the eight-core T658, which are based on ARM's Midgard architecture and are taking forever to come to market. Now, to whet our appetites even further, ARM has just added three more variants of the chip to its roster, which can almost be considered the next-next-generation: the quad-core T624, and the T628 and T678, which are both scalable up to eight cores. The trio's headline feature is that they promise to deliver at least 50 percent more performance with the same silicon area and power draw, with the explicit aim of delivering "console-class gaming," 4K and even 8K video workloads, as well as buttery 60fps user interfaces in phones, tablets and smart TVs. The premium T678 is aimed at tablets specifically, and in addition to allowing up to eight cores also doubles the number of math-crunching ALUs per core, which means that its compute performance (measured in gigaflops) is actually quadrupled compared to the T624. However, there's one other, subtler change which could turn out to be equally important -- read on for more.
Brazil chooses ISDB for their digital broadcasts
Brazil is happy. They have their plan for their digital TVs done. Japan is happy. Brazil choose Japan's expensive ISDB format. Everyone is happy - except Japanese soccer fans as Brazil beat them the other day but that is a whole different story.This standard was chosen over ATSC and DVB. We used ATSC here in the States and it works fine, but ISDB has many benefits over our system; cost is not one of them. Brazil felt that the ISDB standard would fit their residents better now and in the future. This is the same system, by the way, that can send high-def video to your cell phone or car. The only downfall really is the cost. But then again if the States could avoid gas at three dollars a gallon and run entirely on ethanol like Brazil, then maybe we could be getting HDTV on our cell phones right now.
