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.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablet PCs

OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenGL 4.3 squeeze textures to the limit, bring OpenVL along for the ride originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve says NVIDIA's the best, Steam and Left 4 Dead for Linux coming along nicely

The godfather of Linux, Linus Torvalds, may think that NVIDIA is "the worst," but Valve respectfully disagrees. The company has been working closely with the manufacturer, as well as AMD and Intel, to boost performance of its hardware under the open source OS. The developer clearly has an interest in getting the best from those companies as it works to port Left 4 Dead 2 and Steam to Linux. That close partnership is already bearing impressive fruit as Valve claims its co-op zombie shooter now performs better on Ubuntu than it does under Windows 7 using a GeForce GTX 680. The first Open GL Linux version managed a measly six frames per second, while the Direct X powered Microsoft one was topping 270. Only a few months later, and Left 4 Dead 2 is hitting 315fps on the 32-bit version of Precise Pangolin, outperforming even the Open GL Windows port which sits at 305fps. Of course, it's relatively well established that Ubuntu has lower overhead and running Direct X only compounds the issue, though, its unparalleled driver support can't be denied. While it's not completely fair to compare performance on a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit one, Valve is proving that gaming on Linux need not be some proof-of-concept exercise. Linus can flip NVIDIA the bird all he wants but, through its work with Valve, it may be doing more to bring Linux to the mainstream than anyone previously has.

Filed under: Gaming

Valve says NVIDIA's the best, Steam and Left 4 Dead for Linux coming along nicely originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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