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WadeWatts
Up and Coming
June 2, 2014

iOS Metal - Opens Door to high frame rates on mobile

iOS 8 will support a very close to the metal GPU code through Unity and Epic. Epic claims they are able to to have 4500 mesh animations onscreen at the same time in iOS 8. In addition the game engine leverages direct access to the A7 CPU which is said to be equivalent to desktop CPUs...

How will this impact the Oculus strategy for mobile or iOS?

    5 replies

    zalo
    Up and Coming
    June 2, 2014
    Eh, they're probably focusing on the Samsung Android route because of better connectivity options and openness.

    But if popular engines like UE4 and Unity get Metal support, they might as well add iOS support (as it waass promised in the kickstarter campaign). But probably not a priority.
    WadeWattsAuthor
    Up and Coming
    June 2, 2014
    Full Disclosure: I am iOS dev with multiple Apps developed by myself and for others.

    However... Although Android is an open platform it would make sense for Oculus to push forward on iOS given the new direct GPU/Access. There is also a very nice demographic for iOS owners... in the United States if not worldwide.

    Unity, CryEngine and Unreal will be supporting this. Interesting to see what new products come out of this.
    Anonymous
    June 8, 2014
    The problem with iOS and Oculus is not performance but the fact that it's basically impossible to communicate with unlicensed 3rd party devices (just like with consoles).

    3D performance itself has not been the limiting factor on iOS, even before Metal.


    [edit]: Just to be clear: I have nothing against Metal and I welcome efforts towards reducing driver overhead, altough I'd love to see a more cross-platform solution at some point.
    Peeling
    Up and Coming
    June 9, 2014
    Any progress towards lower-overhead firmware is good news, because it will inevitably propagate.
    WadeWattsAuthor
    Up and Coming
    June 14, 2014
    I am not sure that Apple is a "Walled Garden" anymore... They are opening up the Xcode for devs for inter-app communication and they have around 4000 APIs in their new iOS 8 for devs to use. Also Apple has a higher end program for "Hardware Devs" which gives them access to the "lighting connector" on the new iOS devices.

    This is where your io is and you can certainly run HDMI from the iPhone itself if Oculus wanted too... I am sure they could join this program and have greater access to the lower level graphics and other inputs.

    It just seems like a natural to me... I am sure something could be figured out. It is a major platform and metal makes it more enticing. I wish I could be involved in bringing Oculus to iOS as they are with Android. I am sure it could be done and done well. :D
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