ARM Acquires Geomerics

[loekf]

Never heard of these guys, but looks like ARM just bought them:

http://community.arm.com/docs/DOC-7954?sf20595402=1

Geomerics’ Enlighten is the worlds’ first fully real-time global illumination technology. With a focus on time-saving workflow features and a lightweight runtime, Enlighten is the only solution proven to deliver fully dynamic lighting on todays’ PCs, game consoles and mobile platforms. The technology has been the lighting solution of choice for some of today’s most advanced and best-selling game titles, including Battlefield 3 and 4, Need for Speed Rivals, Eve Online, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

Seems to be a key player ? Always thought that gaming devs depended on their own creative ideas to solve this kind of advanced stuff

 

[Malo]

Used in a lot of games already, including BF4?

 

[AlNom]

Yep.

 

[MfA]

What a bizarre investment.

 

[Rodéric]

Unexpected.
Wonder why they want them in, maybe to pull a PhysX (ie Restrict Geomerics solution to ARM platform on mobile...)

 

[nutball]

What a bizarre investment.

That was my reaction too.

I met the head Geomerics chap at an industry/academia meeting some years ago. Seemed like a pleasant chap. I admit the company had fallen off my radar since then, I hadn't realised that their technology had made it into so many games (including EVE, which I still play on and off!).

 

[gkar1]

Unexpected.
Wonder why they want them in, maybe to pull a PhysX (ie Restrict Geomerics solution to ARM platform on mobile...)

This has mobile Mantle written all over it.

Additionally, the agreement enables Geomerics to build on their existing partnerships as well as accelerate their development in mobile.

EA is one of those partners and pretty much all their Frostbite based games use it and all those games also happen to support Mantle as well. ARM now by owning the lighting tech those studios have experience working with ensure compatibility on their GPUs when mobile Mantle versions of those games are developed.