OpenGL
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First iPhone game with 3GS-specific graphics released?
Back in June it was revealed that the iPhone 3GS' newfound support of OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics put one of the first meaningful, material boundaries in software capability between iPhone generations (magnetic compass and video would be two other biggies), meaning that 3D-accelerated games targeted specifically for the 3GS platform could look a good deal fancier than their 2G / 3G counterparts -- and furthermore, they could be built to only work on the 3GS if the developer chose not to build in support for both. French software shop Eurocenter is touting that its newly-released Adrenaline Golf is the first game to take advantage of the 3GS' added graphics capabilities -- and while we can't verify that no other application submitted to the App Store in the past three months hasn't utilized OpenGL ES 2.0 in some regard, we can definitely verify that it looks way cooler on the 3GS. The good news is that Eurocenter has set up the game so that it chooses the correct graphics engine at runtime, regardless of the iPhone you're using, but after you see it on the 3GS it might seem a little inadequate on the older gear. Follow the break for our side-by-side demo of the sweet 3GS-exclusive water reflections, which are considerably better than real life since you don't risk getting wet. Update: Sure enough, Eurocenter got a little overzealous with their claim -- Rocking Pocket's Blue Skies has had 3GS-specific enhancements for a while now. Thanks, everyone!
Android-based Archos 5-inch Internet Tablet coming September 15 with (you guessed it) an AppsLib store
See that? It's an Android-green invitation to the unveil of the 5-inch Archos Internet Media Tablet. The September 15th date isn't new (it was announced back in June) but it's still good to see things moving ahead as planned. To whet the appetites of would-be developers, Archos has also announced its AppsLib application store for "advanced Android devices." The development guidelines, however, describe just a single, 5-inch 800x480 pixel device with accelerometer, OpenGL 3D graphics support, and HDMI output pushing an oddball 1160x652 pixel resolution to your TV. Right, specs already rumored for the Archos tablet. While not mentioned, we still expect all the other details -- 500GB storage, 10-mm thickness, 7-hours of battery when playing video, voice and HSUPA data radio, and OMAP3440 processor -- unexpectedly announced (by TI!) for the tablet way back in February to be in place when this thing gets live in Paris next month.[Via Pocketables]
Video: Creative Zii EGG 3D gaming demo
Now that the gang at Creative have 'fessed up to the Zii EGG first seen at the FCC earlier this month, we imagine we'll be encountering this bad boy quite often over the coming months. If you need your StemCell Computing fix right now, we have a video that showcases the newest developer platform running a racing game in all of its accelerometer-packing, 3D OpenGL ES-enhanced glory. Peep for yourself after the break.[Via EpiZENter, thanks Michael]
webOS SDK bemoaned by iPhone developer as Palm seeks game API engineers
Palm's webOS has never been a platform to stir the interest of the casual gamer. While there are many advantages to being built around HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, those tools don't excite game developers who need direct access to advanced graphics hardware to render animations smoothly. Unfortunately, as described by Craig A. Hunter, a self proclaimed "pretty dedicated iPhone developer" who's been poking around the WebOS SDK, Palm does not provide the environment to develop serious games or the kind of sophisticated apps users now expect from their handhelds. Chief among his concerns is lack of OpenGL access despite the hardware supporting it. Palm also limits devs to a 4Hz sampling of raw accelerometer data, far short of the 20Hz minimum required for games utilizing tilt control. In his summation: With such amazing software capabilities flourishing on the iPhone, Palm can't afford to wait a year while they make the transition from web apps to native apps in their SDK. Palm might have had a chance against the 2007 Apple SDK, but not the 2009 version. Not even close. With this limitation, webOS will not be taken seriously by consumers who place importance on games or sophisticated third party apps. Of course Palm, now with its deep Apple roots isn't blind to the issue. In fact, the kids at PreCentral have uncovered a Palm job listing from June 29th seeking Game Frameworks Engineers who will "design, implement, debug, and optimize frameworks for game development." So while the beta release of the webOS SDK might be limited, we'll key on the word beta for now. Remember, Super Monkey Ball wasn't built in a day -- it took a bit more than 365 of them before being offered after the launch of the original iPhone.Read -- Craig A. HunterRead -- Palm game engineer listing
webOS SDK bemoaned by iPhone developer as Palm seeks game engineers
Palm's webOS has never been a platform to stir the interest of the casual gamer. While there are many advantages to being built around HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, those tools don't excite game developers who need direct access to advanced graphics hardware to render animations smoothly. Unfortunately, as described by Craig A. Hunter, a self proclaimed "pretty dedicated iPhone developer" who's been poking around the WebOS SDK, Palm does not provide the environment to develop serious games or the kind of sophisticated apps users now expect from their handhelds. Chief among his concerns is lack of OpenGL access despite the hardware supporting it. Palm also limits devs to a 4Hz sampling of raw accelerometer data, far short of the 20Hz minimum required for games utilizing tilt control. In his summation: With such amazing software capabilities flourishing on the iPhone, Palm can't afford to wait a year while they make the transition from web apps to native apps in their SDK. Palm might have had a chance against the 2007 Apple SDK, but not the 2009 version. Not even close. With this limitation, webOS will not be taken seriously by consumers who place importance on games or sophisticated third party apps. Of course Palm, now with its deep Apple roots isn't blind to the issue. In fact, the kids at PreCentral have uncovered a Palm job listing from June 29th seeking Game Frameworks Engineers who will "design, implement, debug, and optimize frameworks for game development." So while the beta release of the webOS SDK might be limited, we'll key on the word beta for now. Remember, Super Monkey Ball wasn't built in a day -- it took a bit more than 365 of them before being offered after the launch of the original iPhone.Read -- Craig A. HunterRead -- Palm game engineer listing
Troubleshooting dynamic shadows on OS X and Windows
This forum thread, about the new shadow technology appearing on the Mac in 3.0.2, is confusing. There are four Blue responses in the first 10 posts, and at the end of it, I still don't have a clear idea of whether shadows work on the Mac or not. The issue seems to be this: shadows do work on the Mac, but not the highest quality shadows. Why? Because while Windows uses DirectX to do its 3D processing, OS X still uses OpenGL. And while shadows do work in OpenGL (and eventually can work just as well in OpenGL), Blizzard needs Apple to put some extensions in which aren't there yet, so the highest quality shadows aren't yet possible.Did your eyes glaze over from all that tech talk? Let's make it simple: if you're on Windows or OS X and you don't see shadows, odds are that your settings are wrong. Open up Video settings in game, and slide the Shadows slider all the way to the right as far as it will go, and then escape out and see if Shadows appear. Note, however, that this will slow your computer down, and as we said earlier today, older computers might have trouble doing this. If you're running an older PC or Mac, you may have to forget about the dynamic shadows completely.That said, according to the Blues, with the shadow slider flipped all the way up on a PC and a Mac, the PC's shadows will look a little better. That's not a limitation of your computer (or of Blizzard's designers), it's a limitation of the technologies that Blizzard is using to make the game. When OpenGL (the code that allows game makers like Blizzard to draw 3D graphics within OS X) gets updated, then we'll see some higher quality shadows.
NVIDIA ships out beta OpenGL 3.0 drivers in record speed
While boasting a fraction of DirectX usage in the gaming market, OpenGL hasn't been sitting around while Microsoft eats its lunch. Long favored as a foundation for cross platform games like World of Warcraft, and historically used by id Software to famous effect, the API just hit the 3.0 in a major reworking of the library. NVIDIA has had a hand in the API, and has wasted no time in releasing graphics drivers for the newly minted standard. The beta code supports GeForce 8000 series cards or higher on the desktop and laptop sides, and implements all of OpenGL 3.0 and the GLSL 1.30 shading language with just a few exceptions. Naturally, users won't be getting much out of this right off the bat, the beta drivers are mainly meant for developers looking to build software that takes advantage of 3.0, but it's nice to see a GPU builder hand-in-hand with a next gen graphics API and supporting it out of the gate on existing cards. And would you look at those screenshots!
Intel discusses ATI and Nvidia killing Larrabee, launching as early as 2009
While Intel's Larrabee might not be a household name for consumers just yet, it's certainly at the table where Nvidia and AMD/ATI eat. The many-core (8 to 48, at least, according to that Intel graphic) x86 chip runs all your existing apps while tossing in support for OpenGL and DirectX thus eliminating the need for a discrete graphics chip. At least that's the plan. While the exact number of cores remains a secret as does the performance of each core compared to current GPUs, given the importance Intel places on Larrabee, it's reasonable to assume that an 8-core chip will launch in 2009 or 2010 with comparable performance to GPUs on the market at that time. Intel does say that Larrabee cores will scale "almost linearly" (read: within 10%) in games; that means that a 16-core chip will offer nearly twice the performance of an 8-core chip, 32-cores twice that of 16, and so on. Apparently this has already been proven in-house with Intel name-dropping Larrabee-coded titles such as Gears of War, FEAR, and Half-Life 2, Episode 2. It's no coincidence then to hear that Intel's first Larrabee product will target PC gamers. Click through if you're just dying to read about Larrabee's 1024 bits-wide bi-directional ring network and other bits of technical wonderment sure to create at least the hint of a silicon malaise. [Via CNET and Washington Post, Thanks Dan R.]
AMD achieves Open GL ES 2.0 compliance, brings Xbox 360 graphics to mobile platform
A few months ago, AMD promised Xbox 360 graphics on handhelds, and as of today it's delivered on the concept. AMD announced it has achieved Open GL ES 2.0 mobile graphics technology compliance with hardware that cranks out the same AMD Unified Shader Architecture as the Microsoft gaming console. The new graphics standard will no doubt butt heads with NVIDIA's Tegra platform, which also promises serious mobile graphics. Meanwhile, AMD's comparison of their new certification to the Xbox 360 may just be a way to wow us, but we gotta wonder if this could bring some hope to a mobile Xbox 360, whether Microsoft says they're into it or not. Good times.
Xray your code with new dev tool
A few tipsters have dropped us notes (thanks!) that on Apple's Developer Tools page, there's a new tool. Along with Xcode and Dashcode, there's a new, very pretty app called Xray. The flavor text itself says the app takes "interface cues from timeline editors such as GarageBand," so what we're looking at here seems to be a realtime application tester and analyzer.The three windows in the screenshot show stats on "Network Traffic," "CPU Load," and "Reads/Writes," and Apple also says devs will be able to track user events and even the OpenGL video driver. Looks like it will bring all the new tracking tools and analysis junk (technical term) together in a browsable, graphical interface, which means an easier time for devs, which means better apps for all of us. Groovy!
AMD planning Xbox 360 graphics on handhelds
No, this isn't another rampant portable Xbox 360 rumor, but the somewhat indirect linkage is indeed notable. Reportedly, AMD is planning to bring "Xbox 360 quality graphics to handheld devices" by utilizing the company's next-generation mobile graphics technologies. Although no real specifics were handed out, AMD is purportedly "working with content developers now in preparation for the arrival of phones" powered by the forthcoming set, and should be made available to handset manufacturers through "discrete media processors as well as through IP licensing agreements with semiconductor suppliers." Already released is a developers toolkit that includes support for both the OpenVG 1.0 and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics standards, and it will incorporate the same Unified Shader Architecture that's behind the scenes in your Xbox 360. Sadly, we've absolutely no idea which companies (if any) are already on board with this promising technology, but we just have to wonder if Dell won't reconsider its handheld gaming system considering the already amicable relationship with AMD.[Via TGDaily, thanks smash_linux]
Texas Instruments demos first 720p playback from a mobile phone
Texas Instruments demonstrated its first processor to enable high definition (720p) playback on mobile phones yesterday at 3GSM World Congress. The OMAP3430, first announced last year, is the first in TI's series of OMAP 3 processors and also first to include support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics standard for 3D acceleration. The 3430 gets the muscle to move your HD files and 3D gaming from its embedded ARM Cortex-A8 processor, but from the specs it seems that the video portion is only currently supporting up to 1024 x 768 (XGA) output via composite or S-video connections. Still, with this power available, sometime in the future your common cellphone will be playing back HD on the go or outputting video to a big screen HDTV. We previously expected to see handsets based on the technology this year, but while TI is shipping samples of the processors now, don't expect your HD-capable cell to hit stores until early 2008.
10.4.7 v. 2 for Intel
AppleInsider brings news that Apple will soon release an updated version of the 10.4.7 software update for Intel machines. According to the company, certain files pertaining to OpenGL performance are missing from the 10.4.6 to 10.4.7 updater package; all other packages including combo updates shipped with the files the first time around. The revised update is not yet available on the Apple website or through Software Update, but it is safe to assume that MacOSXUpd10.4.7Intel.dmg will show up sometime later today. No word yet on whether or not users who already applied the first updater will have to re-run the installer, or if they will receive a patch with the missing files.
Hills screensaver updated
Back in April, we wrote about the "Hills" screensaver by Chris Kent. A number of you told us how much you liked it, so today we're pointing out that version 1.1.2 is available. For the unfamiliar, Hills is a screensaver for Mac OS X that lets you glide over rolling, grassy hills on a sunny day. Changes to version 1.1.2 include: Fixed drawing of distant hills A "Default Settings" button has been added to both the screensaver and desktop version A new "Fullscreen Resolution" option More keyboard controls for the camera Hills is free.
Windows on an Intel Mac: WoW, what a difference
We've already seen WoW on an Intel Mac thanks to our resident Mac-user, but he's managed to go one better. Previously we saw the OS X Universal Binary version running at 50-60fps; running WoW under Windows on the same hardware, maximising all the graphics settings, there's actually a gain in framerate to the tune of 6fps.Those of us with PCs creaking along on the default settings are justified in being envious. While keeping up with the vast succession of new PC games requires regular upgrades and a killer gaming rig, if your free time is taken over by WoW then you obviate the need to upgrade -- but miss out on the fantastic framerates such upgrades can afford.
Free screensaver: Hills
You may not have noticed, but our posts here at TUAW have had a bit of a theme over the past 24 hours. If you've reached "Boot Camp saturation," then drift away with the "Hills" screensaver. Glide over rolling, grassy hills on a sunny day, and just relax. You can choose from photo-realistic hills or a wireframe version, and determine the speed at which you "travel." It looks very nice on my 20" iMac. The download includes a desktop version and source code.There, now don't you feel better?[Via The Iconfactory]
Eyephedrine iTunes visualizer
So the built in iTunes visualizer just isn't doing anything for you? Check out Eyephedrine, the visualizer plug-in that makes use of OpenGL 3D. Enjoy the multiple layers blending, realtime cube mapping, reflections, motion blur and light bloom fun across more than 70 visualizations. It also displays album art and track information. Who knew the Crystalline Entity could move like that?Eyephedrine requires Mac OS 10.3.9, iTunes 4.7, a G4 400MHz or above and a GeForce 2 / Radeon 32DDR, though the recommendations (OS 10.4.3, iTunes 6.x, G5/Intel 1GHz or above, GeForce4 / Radeon 8500 or better) are a bit higher. Eyephedrine is $8US shareware.
