SoC: Back and forth!


The TI OMAP5 sounds like a perfect choice... The only whine of record is the GLES2 vs GLES3 SOCs but that's a dragon we cannot and shouldn't chase.

There will always be something better.. and the third gen can support it :)

Thanks for the history behind the choice.

Dual A15s at 1.7GB are going to offer us some amazing options.
So that's a definite lack of GLES3 support then? Damn, looks like Gamecube is still out of the picture...

I thought I saw one of the Dolphin devs say that the PowerVR chips didn't support it before, but I couldn't find it again to confirm. Well, at least N64 should finally be perfect...
 
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So that's a definite lack of GLES3 support then? Damn, looks like Gamecube is still out of the picture...

I thought I saw one of the Dolphin devs say that the PowerVR chips didn't support it before, but I couldn't find it again to confirm. Well, at least N64 should finally be perfect...
The PowerVR chip in the A80 supports GLES3. If you're wanting that, I'd start praying that the A80 quickly becomes an acceptable option for EvilDragon.

-God Ginrai
 
From a hardware standpoint, should not be a problem anyway, just like glshim makes it possible to run a number of software using OpenGL (1) on Pandora while it's only supposed to run OpenGLES1 and 2.
Ehh, I'm not so sure... You still need to have hardware that supports OpenGL 3 to be able to have a GLES3 wrapper for it, right?

-God Ginrai
 
From a hardware standpoint, should not be a problem anyway, just like glshim makes it possible to run a number of software using OpenGL (1) on Pandora while it's only supposed to run OpenGLES1 and 2.
Ehh, I'm not so sure... You still need to have hardware that supports OpenGL 3 to be able to have a GLES3 wrapper for it, right?

-God Ginrai
Not necessarily. I can only envisage some effects (maybe )not being possible. But generally speaking you can do API translation like GLshim.
 
Assuming the Dolphin devs aren't completely numb in the head, they'd implement stuff with GLES2 if they could, considering the problems they've had with GLES3.
 
I suspect they're using GLES3 because it has features that aren't available in GLES2, and if that's the case then a shim would need to simulate those features on CPU, at least as far as they are different from anything in ES2.

Of course, the Pyra's going to have 2 little CPUs not doing a whole lot, so maybe they'd be good for handling those occasional functions.

Also, they still claiming Q2 for devices shipping with the A80, and said May for the Optimus Board
A month, two months at most, between releasing the dev board and actual product shipment? That's not much of a development cycle. Unless there are a bunch of major players that already have boards that they're playing with.
 
Also, they still claiming Q2 for devices shipping with the A80, and said May for the Optimus Board
A month, two months at most, between releasing the dev board and actual product shipment? That's not much of a development cycle. Unless there are a bunch of major players that already have boards that they're playing with.
All of the devices I know of that are releasing Q2 are Chinese companies that announced their product would have it months ago. Not only do I believe they probably already have boards, but they probably even have a working relationship with AllWinner's devs so that the first products with the A80 that are released will hit with a bang.

-God Ginrai
 
I suspect they're using GLES3 because it has features that aren't available in GLES2, and if that's the case then a shim would need to simulate those features on CPU, at least as far as they are different from anything in ES2.


Of course, the Pyra's going to have 2 little CPUs not doing a whole lot, so maybe they'd be good for handling those occasional functions.
Reading from the blogs that there are a couple of features they care about, and both are available as extensions in the SGX544. So it might just need some minor changes to use those extensions.

(The big feature seemed to be uniform buffer objects)

http://www.imgtec.com/news/Release/index.asp?NewsID=717

http://withimagination.imgtec.com/powervr/samsung-exynos-5410-based-platforms-packed-developer-goodies
 
You could convert the missing functions from GLES3 to work with GLES2 potentially. I don't know, the right person to answer this question is Lunixbochs, or PtitSeb.
No, it doesn't work this way. If it did everyone with OpenGL ES 2 hardware would be able to have OpenGL ES 3 drivers. There are hardware critical features.
 
Well yes it doesn't work that way for best support... But with lib like GLShim you can of course recreate functionality(maybe not as optimally)

I don't think anyone saying that the hardware can be made GLES3 cpaable, just that the limitation could potentially be worked around depending on needed features and if it is feasible to emulate them somehow, be it with GLES2 or even on the CPU.
 
Well yes it doesn't work that way for best support... But with lib like GLShim you can of course recreate functionality(maybe not as optimally)

I don't think anyone saying that the hardware can be made GLES3 cpaable, just that the limitation could potentially be worked around depending on needed features and if it is feasible to emulate them somehow, be it with GLES2 or even on the CPU.
Some shader stuff can be emulated with much lower performance (like using 16-bit floats to emulate 32-bit ints and floats), but how do you use GLShim to emulate something like depth textures or fragment depth?
 
Hey EvilDragon, is it possible down the line to make a board using the A80 from Allwinner for use in the Pyra shell?

EDIT: Also, I hear negative things about PowerVR. Why do people not like it?
 
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