To me, it feels like OpenGL ES 3.0 was released, like, yesterday. And now that OpenGL ES 3.1 has been announced, how do you think it's going to impact the mobile games industry? The fact that compute programs will be coming to mobile devices is exciting in all, but unfortunately, still no geometry or tessellation programs yet, which I can live without for many purpouses.

Since I couldn't make it to GDC this year, I had to read a few obscure bits of information on it. My biggest question isn't when it's going to be available, but what hardware is going to support it? I have a Google Nexus 7 (2nd Gen), which supports OpenGL ES 3.0 right out of the box. I've had it for 4 months already, and I bought for the sole purpouse of supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 in my game(s). And now there's going to be an OpenGL ES 3.1?! It's bad enough that there are so few devices that support 3.0 alone.

So, what are you making of all this?

Shogun.

So, what are you making of all this?

Your youth is showing.

Technology is always advancing. When something is released, usually before it goes to press the next version is mostly planned and ready for implementation.

If you bought a 1200 baud modem, by the time you installed it in your computer you would discover that the people you were calling now supported 2400 baud. So as soon as you can afford it you buy the then-greatest 4800 and when you install it, you discover 9600 is the fastest supported speed. Repeat forever.

Build for whatever level of technology is common. Don't worry overmuch about what is launched today, or what is announced for the future.

Hi,

I believe that things in the industry are diversifying in general. For OpenGL ES, the trend is going to result in more developers specializing in ES. This is good for this API because the quality of the average game is going to increase, as far as I see now.

As for game engines, the increasing choices in hardware and API in the industry as a whole is going to make it more difficult for game engine developers. For OpenGL ES, what is that going to mean for the game developer? I predict more niche game developing.

It is expected. Specially in mobile devices which have such short life cycles.

Hell, it was pretty slow for desktop OpenGL standards. It took two years from OpenGL ES 3 to OpenGL ES 3.1, whereas in desktop OpenGL you got in the same time span OpenGL 3.3, OpenGL 4, OpenGL 4.1, OpenGL 4.2 and OpenGL 4.3.

On the OpenGL ES 3.1 version specifically, its a good thing. Afaik, almost a strict subset of OpenGL 4 features. That's better for everyone involved, easier for porting apps.

The API itself is a hell of a lot better than ES 2. So many things you really need were optional in ES2 and have become part of the requirements for ES3

Khronos are actually starting to get it right,

The problem is the manufacturers. If the manufacturers support ES3 fully, it's going to be great. Some of the devices coming out of Broadcom are awesome.

I had to write a rendering engine for ES2 on a Broadcom DSTB and I was getting 20 FPS more on it than I was getting on my old Macbook!

If they don't, then we are in the same mess as always. I have already had to implement a layer than runs ES1 code on a ES2 device, am I going to have to try and implement a ES2 to ES3 layer to make it worthwhile working in ES? Don't know yet.

My game uses OpenGL ES 2.0 since the majority of devices support this. The list of OpenGL ES 3.0+ devices is still rather small. Mostly a few Android tablets (minus Amazon Kindles), the latest iOS devices (iPhone5S and later), and the BlackBerry Z30 (my favourite phone, which hardly anyone in the consumer market uses). Even though my game is 2D, I can still make good use of a number of OpenGL ES 3.0+ features, but at considering that most OpenGL ES 2.0 capable devices can handle it without problems, I don't see a point to it right now. If my game is successful, I will do a 3D version that will support OpenGL ES 3.0+.