Windows Mobile + OpenGL ES 2.0 + Snapdragon?

[codedivine]

Hi. I am completely new to mobile development but have some experience with OpenGL on the desktop. I want to learn OpenGL ES 2.0 and also wanted some hardware to be able to test this on. I was considering LG IQ/Monaco which is a Snapdragon based Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. Snapdragon of course has an OpenGL ES 2.0 support but I have no idea what the situation with respect to drivers and SDKs. How should I proceed? Will this hardware+OS combo work?

[Laurent06]

If I were you I'd rather use a Nokia N900 for that:
http://wiki.maemo.org/OpenGL-ES
http://wiki.maemo.org/OpenGL-ES-Game

Note I didn't try it myself to develop anything, but I verified that the drivers are on my phone and work.
And the Maemo development environment (used for the N900) is easy to install and use.

[Arwin]

Really hard to decide about what is the best choice right now I think. The following choices are available for (Mobile0 OpenGL ES 2.0:

- iPhone 3GS
- Windows Mobile
- Android
- Maemo

Right now I think Android might be the best choice, but I'd love to have input from others here. For reference, I've managed to setup a development environment with Eclipse and a virtual Android device fairly easily. I've done the same for Windows Mobile before, and that wasn't particularly hard either (especially for me already being used to .NET, the .NET Compact framework was a piece of cake). I'm getting a MacBook for a few weeks tomorrow, so I'll also be testing iPhone development (though I'm not going to do anything OpenGL 2.0, as I have an iPod that doesn't support it). I haven't looked at Maemo at all yet.

[deeFive]

I have worked with windows mobile before but not in 3d not sure how WM interacts with openGL but the SDK is easy to setup, i have also done a little work with iphone apps for uni (which seemed a ok but i missed visual studio) but im more interested in Android, in fact i may pick up a moto dext next week to play with.

i think Maemo or win mobile would be the fastest to setup and most documented, if you find any win mobile GL tutorials please pm me the links.

[Rys]

The thing to look out for with Android phones is you're not guaranteed to get OpenGL hardware acceleration, especially in the earlier ones. I think you're good to go with anything Snapdragon-based, though.

The 3GS is (arguably) the best supported, due to market penetration, but it's certainly not the only option (and it's expensive).

There are other options for hardware OpenGL ES 2.0 if you look outside of phones, too. The same OpenGL ES 2.0 SoCs you can find in smartphones are also available in other devices (Beagle Board springs to mind). There's also a variety of PC-based simulators for you to try before you deploy to a real device.

[Arwin]

That's a good point about the Android Phones. I'm also really quite worried about how the extra UI layers that companies put on Android affect development.

And finally, I'm a bit disappointed with how slow and laggy the Android Virtual Devices are. I'm running with Eclipse, on Windows. Is it maybe better under Linux? I finally got a chance to play around with the iPhone dev environment on a borrowed MacBook, and it's much, much better.

[frogblast]

The 3GS is (arguably) the best supported, due to market penetration, but it's certainly not the only option (and it's expensive).


The 3rd gen iPod touch (32GB and 64GB) will get you OpenGL ES 2.0 support. same as the iPhone 3GS as well, and at much lower cost of entry. Note that the 3rd gen iPod touch (8GB) does not support ES2.

[flynn]

That's a good point about the Android Phones. I'm also really quite worried about how the extra UI layers that companies put on Android affect development.

And finally, I'm a bit disappointed with how slow and laggy the Android Virtual Devices are. I'm running with Eclipse, on Windows. Is it maybe better under Linux? I finally got a chance to play around with the iPhone dev environment on a borrowed MacBook, and it's much, much better.

The Android emulator is actually a patched version of qemu and emulates everything. Performance is terrible no matter what OS you use. And unfortunately it doesn't support all the OpenGL ES extensions that the real hardware does, so you need to run on real hardware to fully test your app.

On top of that OpenGL ES 2.0 is not exposed to the Android framework now, you need to use the NDK to take advantage of that.

The 3rd gen iPod touch (32GB and 64GB) will get you OpenGL ES 2.0 support. same as the iPhone 3GS as well, and at much lower cost of entry. Note that the 3rd gen iPod touch (8GB) does not support ES2.

I got a 3rd gen iPod Touch recently and it's an amazing piece of hardware.

[codedivine]

The 3rd gen iPod touch (32GB and 64GB) will get you OpenGL ES 2.0 support. same as the iPhone 3GS as well, and at much lower cost of entry. Note that the 3rd gen iPod touch (8GB) does not support ES2.

Thanks! That is a great suggestion and thats what I will do.