tequila bomb

Very cool use of a springboard hack and the accelerometer (or more likely the gyroscope).

Very tempting reason to jailbreak your iPhone. It will of course speed up your battery consumption.

Graphical front-end for the PVRUniSCo shader compiler allowing easy creation and editing of OpenGL ES 2.0 shading language vertex and fragment shader programs in addition to POWERVR FX (PFX) files.

PVRShaman is an integrated shader development environment allowing rapid-prototyping of new vertex and fragment shader programs. PVRShaman brings together geometry exported using PVRGeoPOD (or converted using Collada2POD), textures compressed using PVRTexTool and on-the-fly editing of Shader programs with editing functionality on the same level as the PVRUniSCo Editor. Projects are saved as POWERVR FX files allowing easy integration with your code base.

For the longest time I have been optimising my own OpenGL ES shaders using my knowledge of the underlying hardware and things that may stall or slow down the pipeline. It is not very clear on Imagination Technologies’ site that these tools are now available as OS X utilities that run in X11. All you need to do is download the folder of the app, rather than the .exe, and then “chmod +x” the relevant file for your OS (Linux or OS X).

PVRUniSCo is particularly useful as it gives you estimated instruction / cycle counts for shaders. Some estimates for shaders I have long thought were fairly optimal surprised me, and showed me where I had perhaps missed a trick or two.

Recommended development resources, if you haven’t already found them and had a play.

[H]ints included in the new iOS 4.3 beta seeded to developers earlier this week indicate that Apple may be preparing to move to Imagination Technologies’ next-generation GPU architecture with the SGX543 on future devices.

From MacRumours.

That is kind of like saying the sun will rise tomorrow! Of course Apple are going to move their mobile GPU line up forward with each generation of iOS device. I am just surprised they let this slip out in some beta software if we are not going to see it sooner, rather than later…

Imagination Technologies extends graphics IP core family with POWERVR™ SGX543
POWERVR graphics roadmap continues to outpace competition with debut of POWERVR Series5XT architecture

Las Vegas, 8th January 2008: Imagination Technologies – the leader in semiconductor System on Chip Intellectual Property (SoC IP) – announces POWERVR SGX543, the first graphics processor IP core based on Imagination’s extended POWERVR Series5XT architecture, which enables higher performance POWERVR SGX cores and multi-processor support.

The debut of POWERVR SGX543 takes the POWERVR roadmap to the next level. The SGX family now offers the ultimate scalability, ranging from the world’s smallest OpenGL™ ES 2.0 mobile core through solutions for performance mobile and HDTV, to high-performance gaming and computing solutions, confirming the ultimate scalability of the Series5 POWERVR SGX architecture.

POWERVR SGX543 is the first POWERVR SGX graphics IP core available in both single core and multi-processor solutions. Imagination will release further details of POWERVR SGX543’s multi-processor capabilities at Multicore Expo 2009 in March.

POWERVR SGX543 – the first POWERVR Series5XT architecture IP core
The four pipeline POWERVR SGX543 is the first in a series of new SGX IP cores that utilise the POWERVR Series5XT architecture, which delivers significant enhancements to the Series5 SGX architecture used in previous SGX IP cores.

SGX543’s wide-ranging architectural enhancements include:

USSE2 – extended USSE™ instruction set with comprehensive vector operations and co-issue capability,

Upgraded tile handling to further reduce memory bandwidth and improve performance for setup-bound applications,

Typically 40% faster performance for ‘shader-heavy’ applications,

2x floating point and 2x hidden surface removal performance,

Enhanced triangle setup delivering up to 50% higher throughput,

Improved multi-sampling anti-aliasing performance,

Features for optimised performance when used with POWERVR VXD and VXE video cores,

Advanced colour space handling and gamma correction,

Further optimised OpenVG 1.x support,

Cache and MMU improvements,

The new POWERVR SGX543 delivers real-world performance of 35 million polygons/sec and 1 Gpixels/sec fillrate at 200MHz,* capable of driving HD screens with ultra smooth high definition 3D graphics. Even in a single-core solution POWERVR SGX543’s performance is unprecedented in any GPU, demonstrating Imagination’s pace of innovation and ability to drive the consumer experience in graphics to levels unheard of only a few years ago in anything less than high end specialist platforms.

Tony King-Smith, VP marketing Imagination Technologies says: “With POWERVR SGX543 Imagination continues to extend its leadership and dominance of the embedded graphics acceleration market with a solution capable of delivering blistering 3D, 2D and vector graphics. The Series5XT architecture enables us to continue to extend our dominance in mobile and embedded graphics solutions by addressing the rapidly growing demands for high performance graphics in a wide range of market segments.”

Inside POWERVR SGX543
The POWERVR Series5XT architecture builds on the highly efficient Series5 architecture, which ensures that maximum performance is achieved across a wide range of applications, regardless of whether the content is dominated by polygon throughput, pixel processing, high fill rate or any combination of these. Other architectures that use separate polygon and pixel processing units cannot achieve the sustained throughput or silicon utilisation of POWERVR SGX graphics cores.

USSE2 (Universal Scalable Shader Engine2), the main programmable processing unit within each POWERVR SGX543 pipeline, incorporates a major upgrade of the data path to deliver vastly improved vector processing performance and overall throughput. This datapath upgrade is a key reason why SGX543 delivers on average 40% faster performance for ‘shader-heavy’ applications than earlier POWERVR SGX cores.

USSE2 is a scalable multi-threaded GPU shader processing engine that efficiently processes graphics as well as many other mathematically-intensive tasks. These tasks are automatically broken down into processing packets, which can include parts of shaders, which are then scheduled across a number of hardware multi-threaded execution units for maximum processing efficiency. USSE2 is programmed using the GLSL language that forms part of the OpenGL ES 2.0 API specification from the Khronos Group.

Imagination is also part of the OpenCL Working Group in Khronos defining the new GPGPU processing API, which will enable developers to gain greater access to the full capabilities of USSE2 in a broader range of applications.

From Imagination Technologies.

If I am wrong about the “iPad 2″ being pushed out in the next week or two then this could possibly be the solution to Apple’s fill rate problem on this next model. Most likely this is going to be part of the Apple A5 in the iPhone 5. In any case, when the iPad gets a higher resolution, HD?, screen (either in April or at the end of the year) this will be essential.

The SGX543 also supports OpenCL.

We just got some pretty wild information from one of our Apple sources and while it’s hard to believe at first, it does make sense. We have exclusively been told that the reason Apple just added multitouch gestures for the iPad in the latest iOS 4.3 beta is because the iPad will be losing the home button.

In addition to the home button disappearing from the iPad, we’re told that this change will make its way over to the iPhone as well. Our source said Apple employees are already testing iPads and iPhones with no home buttons on the Apple campus, and it’s possible we will see this new change materialize with the next-generation iPad and iPhone devices set to launch this year.

Remember that I have said I think we’ll see two iPad launches this year.

It has been said that Steve Jobs didn’t want any physical buttons on the original iPhone at first, and it looks like he may soon get his wish.

This is just mad enough to be true. The question is, will Apple run the gauntlet of possible IP conflicts with RIM and their touch sensitive bezels, or will they truly go completely multitouch?

Either way, if this is true, we may perhaps see more screen real estate on iPhones and the iPod Touch, which would be cool.

This project contains all of the source code to the example programs from the OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide.

The sample code is available on the following platforms:

• Windows (Microsoft Visual Studio) using the AMD OpenGL ES 2.0 Emulator or PowerVR Khronos OpenGL ES 2.0 SDK
• iPhone
• WebGL (requires WebGL-enabled browser)
• Android 2.2

Please see the Instructions wiki page for more information on how to install and build the sample code.

I certainly found this book a handy reference when transitioning from desktop OpenGL to OpenGL ES. So I am sure the code samples will be of great help to those in a similar situation.

Just found this when downloading an update of OS X OpenGL Extensions viewer. It’s free and a very handy resource to have on any development device.

Just a quick post before I gotto bed, the iPod Nano hasn’t been “jailbroken” as some sites claim, I do not have root access over the device. I did not “install” an app. I figured out how to remove them and insert a blank space into the springboard.

What I have also done is figured out a way for the iPod to boot with modified files (eg the SpingBoard Plist), bypassing the procedure it takes to stop this, I hope this will allow us to figure out a way to jailbreak it. I am primarily focusing on exposing some of the (for now) hidden features of the device.

The hack is simple. It may lead to greater things. I just don’t want people getting their hopes up that’s it’s jailbroken just yet or what I have done to be blown out of proportion.

I’ll write up more tomorrow. Any questions, contact me on twitter: @jwhelton

I’ve emailed Steve three times asking for an iPod Nano SDK! He’s got the emails. I know he’s got the emails. But he must have been too busy to get back to me!

Consequently I am very much looking forward to more revelations from Mr. Whelton. In the meantime here’s a video…

Epic Games will tomorrow release a new version of its Unreal Development Kit, now with support for iPhone and iPad versions of the engine.

This follows the well-received launch of Infinity Blade, the first Unreal-powered title for iOS, and which turned over at least $1.6 million in its first five days on sale.

The kit remains free to download, while Epic requires no payment for any UDK games released for free, regardless of platform.

Developers wishing to charge for their Unreal-powered iOS Apps will be required to first buy a $99 license and to provide 25 per cent of all royalties once passing $5000 in sales.

It’s a great deal. And a great engine. Available here tomorrow.

Couple that with the App Store as a sales channel and you should be all set…

“Apple didn’t have an in-house game designer before me so I think it was pretty unique,” Devine told Kotaku. “Game technologies touch everything from the graphics stack to touch latency to push notifications. No other app type covers so many technologies and having someone there to validate and help shape that was basically my day job. It was pretty kick ass.”

Overall I think Devine certainly made his mark on iOS. A lot of the graphic stack is certainly better put together (now) than anything on OS X – in terms of respective modern gaming support on the two quite different hardware platforms. It would be nice to think that he had some input there. I wonder how many frustrations he faced also with some obviously bad decisions at times.

“I don’t think a lot of people are really thinking yet what games mean on these touch platforms, the joystick is gone, there is no proxy in between you and the screen anymore,” he said. “I am not a fan of virtual d-pads, pointers, or other crutches, we have an opportunity on these devices to let players hold, move, touch, and feel the game in front of them and I intend to focus on that.”

Devine certainly gets the unique problems, and the unique opportunities of iOS hardware for gaming.

Despite his departure, Devine insisted that Apple’s commitment to iOS gaming wasn’t diminished. “I can’t comment on what’s next inside Apple, but I can tell you, they really do ‘get’ gaming,” he said.

Good to know. Let’s hope they don’t fall back into bad habits without his input.

Epic Games, the creator of the widely-used Unreal 3 game engine, is gearing up to release its Unreal Development Kit (UDK) for iOS, which will give iOS game developers unrestricted access to powerful 3D game development tools.

The UDK is Epic’s free version of the Unreal Engine, a powerful game engine that has been used to power such graphically intensive titles as Gears of War and Epic Citadel (pictured)—the latter of which has already been released for iOS as a demonstration of the Unreal Engine 3′s performance on the platform.

When it ships, the UDK iOS will include the same editors and code used to create a number of blockbuster games, and will be available to anyone wishing to publish games via the App Store. Toolsets of this quality generally cost developers anywhere from $500 to tens of thousands of dollars, so by releasing the UDK for free, Epic is drastically lowering the barrier of entry for iOS developers wishing to create graphically impressive games.

From MacWorld.

Should really turn things on its head in 2011.