Since the iPhone launched in 2007, I’ve yet to see a 3D game come close to matching the graphics of the best the Sony PSP has to offer, but according to at least one developer, this may be changing.
In an interview with Pocket Gamer, Michael Schade, CEO of Fishlabs, an iPhone and mobile games developer, said the iPhone 3G S’s support for OpenGL ES 2.0 will push the machine’s 3D graphics capabilities beyond that of the PSP.
While current iPhones only support Open GL ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2.0 has several capabilities not included in the older version. Most notably, shader support, which allows developers to use more customized–and usually prettier graphics effects.
Kratos is willing to wait an eternity for iPhone graphics to reach this level of detail.
(Credit: GameSpot)
Schade says that the biggest hurdle will be getting iPhone developers to actually implement these custom effects.
“As graphic assets need to be designed from scratch to benefit from 2.0 shaders, it will be very hard to monetize the extra effort in the early days,” he says. “It’s definitely not worth it for 99-cent apps.”
Id Software’s John Carmack, creator of Doom and Quake, agrees with Schade in that the potential for the iPhone to be a more powerful gaming platform is there, but he also points out, because of “software inefficiencies,” we may not see that potential realized just yet.
While Carmack sees Open GL ES 2.0 support on the iPhone as a good thing, he made the point that he would not be taking advantage of it and instead will stick with 1.1 for Doom Resurrection, launching next week. The reasoning? He wants Doom to reach the widest audience possible, which for now, is the current-generation iPhone.
Schade may have a solution, though. …
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