Minecraft Pocket Edition, and almost every 3D game on mobile devices, uses a technology called OpenGL ES to render graphics. OpenGL ES is a 'special' version of OpenGL designed for embedded/mobile devices. Tommoso tweeted earlier:
But what exactly does that mean? Currently Minecraft PE uses OpenGL ES 1.1, an older version. If Mojang upgrades Minecraft PE from 1.1 to 2.0, what is the result for players? Put simply, not much.
Switching to OpenGL 2.0 would increase performance by a small, but noticable, amount. It would also allow for more PC-like shadows and less memory usage. The best part is that despite the scary word 'upgrade', it doesn't need anything existing Pocket Edition players don't have.
OpenGL ES 2.0 support was added in Android 2.0 (and additional support using OpenGL ES with Java-based applications in Android 2.2) and iOS 5.0 for Apple devices. Minecraft PE 0.9.0 already requires Android 4.0 or later and iOS 5.0 or later, so switching to OpenGL ES 2.0 would not raise the device requirements. It's a win for the Minecraft PE devs, and a win for players! See the source link below for the original tweet.
Source: Twitter
"While the games goes through various stores I've started working on porting the game to OpenGL ES 2.0, so far it's been surprisingly smooth!"
But what exactly does that mean? Currently Minecraft PE uses OpenGL ES 1.1, an older version. If Mojang upgrades Minecraft PE from 1.1 to 2.0, what is the result for players? Put simply, not much.
Switching to OpenGL 2.0 would increase performance by a small, but noticable, amount. It would also allow for more PC-like shadows and less memory usage. The best part is that despite the scary word 'upgrade', it doesn't need anything existing Pocket Edition players don't have.OpenGL ES 2.0 support was added in Android 2.0 (and additional support using OpenGL ES with Java-based applications in Android 2.2) and iOS 5.0 for Apple devices. Minecraft PE 0.9.0 already requires Android 4.0 or later and iOS 5.0 or later, so switching to OpenGL ES 2.0 would not raise the device requirements. It's a win for the Minecraft PE devs, and a win for players! See the source link below for the original tweet.
Source: Twitter
Due to how long OGL ES 2 has been out why wasn't it switched to before?
ReplyDeleteBecause using shaders wasn't practical at first. Before smooth shading (secretly added in 0.3.0, I think), Minecraft Pocket used a really basic lighting system. Even after that, it may have not occurred to add shaders because for awhile. The developers may not have thought that Minecraft Pocket would be capable of doing anything more advanced, or they hadn't optimized the game enough to do anything advanced.
ReplyDeleteOpenGL ES 1.x already did all the things they needed. Using OpenGL ES 2.0 wouldn't have been a logical step up to 0.7.X because the rendering system wasn't optimized very well yet. With 0.8.0 and 0.9.0, they optimized the rendering system significantly, and thus now OpenGL ES 2 would be the next logical step.
Will 0.9.0 be delayed because of this?
ReplyDeleteIs 0.9.0 going to use OGL ES 2.0? And if so, will it be delayed (again)?
ReplyDeleteNo it's for 0.9.1
ReplyDeleteThis will be in 0.9.1.
ReplyDelete