Throughout this year, application developers have continued to release a vast range of apps using both the OpenGL® ES 2.0 and 3.0 APIs. While the more recent API offers a wider range of features and performance can be better on GPUs which support OpenGL ES 3.0 onwards, thanks to the backwards compatibility of OpenGL ES versions the success and longevity of more cost-optimized OpenGL ES 2.0 GPUs looks set to continue. A consequence of this trend is that demand for the ARM® Mali™-450 MP graphics processor, implementing a design that is optimised for OpenGL ES 2.0 acceleration, has never been higher.
The momentum behind ARM’s 64-bit ARMv8-A application processor architecture is growing, enabling more complex applications within strict power budgets. We were able to announce last week the 50th license of the technology across 27 different companies, showing that the demand for greater compute capabilities across a wide range of applications is strong.
This market support gave us the opportunity to further optimize the performance of our Mali-450 drivers to support 64-bit builds of OpenGL ES 2.0 apps. So, that’s exactly what we’ve done, with a brand new set of 64-bit Mali-450 drivers that were released to our partners recently. Examples of where we see a Mali-450 GPU and Cortex-A53 CPU successfully combined is the entry-level smartphone market, where cost efficiency is important but the implementation of a 64-bit CPU can offer the all-important differentiation from the competition. With this release, ARM is making it easier for the mass market to access the latest technology advances while providing silicon partners with a wider choice of which GPU can be paired with which CPU.
So watch out for the new wave of 64-bit devices based on Mali-450 MP and rest assured that the Mali drivers have been optimised for the feature set of the 64-bit CPU. The only thing you should see is increased app performance, and a few more CPU cycles available – we’re sure you’ll do great things with them.