Honest 836 Report post Posted February 21, 2008 ARM Intros Software for 3D on Mobiles Chip firm ARM has expanded its graphics stack, announcing their new 3D graphics software for mobiles at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco 20th February. Use of the software will mean calculations in Java will be minimized, and that in turn will allow more sophisticated 3D graphics. Like Nvidia announced (with hardware in that case) a while ago -- with their new chip that would bring desktop 3D to mobiles -- ARM claims 3D on mobiles can now be similar to that on high-end consoles and PCs. Sure it's a small screen we're talking about, but mobile gaming will get at least a little more popular as 3D graphics capabilities improve. In fact, ARM says their new software, called the Mali-JSR297, will prompt developers to produce games with more "personality" despite the limited display size. In addition, they also believe developers will now have more control over the appearance of their games. Mali-JSR297 will "take full advantage" of OpenGL ES 2.0, which is a subset of the popular OpenGL 3D API. The OpenGL ES specification is defined by The Khronos Group, specifically for embedded systems such as those used in mobile handsets and game consoles. It happens to be the API of choice for the PS3. The standard was ratified by the group at the 2007 Game Developers' Conference, which meant an opening up of a cross-platform game development environment. Ericsson Mobile Platforms is the lead partner for the newly-announced software, which will be released following ratification of the JSR297 standard. Pre-release versions will be available from ARM in the third quarter of 2008. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
