Modern games and applications really push the boundaries of real-time graphics and user interfaces on mobile and to do this they need all the components of the system to work together to provide the performance those apps need.
But it’s not all about performance; not only do mobile users demand desktop equivalent features, they want it at desktop equivalent quality too! It’s not just enough to push lots of pixels around, they need to be high quality pixels! Don't get me wrong, better performance allows developers to make use of advanced shader techniques to add high quality visual special effects, more detailed geometry in their 3D scenes and more animated objects, such as particles for simulating explosions and weather. However, there are things other than performance that can influence the visual quality in your latest apps and games.
Last week Samsung announced their new Galaxy Tab S with AMOLED display. This is great for users; its vibrant colours and thin design really help improve the user experience. But great displays need great images to start with! This is where the ARM® Mali™ GPU comes in; it accelerates the rendering of apps and games on your mobile. And, the new Galaxy Tab S just happens to have our current flagship GPU, the Mali-T628 MP6.
Mali-T628 MP6 GPU contains lots of features that help improve the quality of the images;especially real-time 3D graphics used in high-end games. For the techies out there, take ETC2 supported in OpenGL ES 3.0 for example. ETC2 allows the compression of images that contain an opacity component, allowing for higher quality foliage in games. And, how about Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) - the texture compression format designed by ARM and adopted across the industry. It enables high quality compression of images with a much wider range of supported formats. Textures in games can now be much higher quality while retaining small file sizes (which you’ll know about if you’ve ever had to wait while your favourite game downloads to your phone!)
Texture compression allows us to save memory bandwidth and further improve visual quality by employing higher resolution textures. Keeping with the theme of bandwidth savings, there’s also ARM’s proprietary Transaction Elimination technology. With no extra effort from the developer (it all happens automatically in the background), bandwidth savings can be made by only updating areas of the screen that have actually changed; again, bandwidth resource that the developer can employ elsewhere to make further improvements to visual quality.
Anti-aliasing is another technology that ARM has always employed to improve the visual quality of the images you see in your games and apps. Even at high resolutions, aliasing can be an issue but the Mali range of GPUs can perform anti-aliasing with minimal impact; all developers need to do is turn it on!
We touched on OpenGL ES 3.0 earlier and for my last point, I’d like to mention it again. With OpenGL ES 3.0 that is in devices now, developers can make use of higher dynamic range formats, both for textures and render targets. Meaning source textures and rendered scenes can make use of the extra colour information that HDR techniques provide.
For a long time now, ARM has driven innovation and visual quality in the graphics industry and the future is no exception. Coming soon we will have ARM Framebuffer Compression (AFBC)and Smart Composition; both technologies help reduce memory bandwidth, allowing developers the freedom to improve those pixels even more!
To create compelling picture-perfect visual experiences, developers don’t just throw pixels on the screen, lots of hard work goes into every tiny detail, every leaf on a tree, every curve on a super car and every scar on an action hero’s chin. They all look great on a high quality display but when you combine that with the performance and quality of Mali GPUs that’s when the images really begin to pop!