Google released the r3 version of the Android NDK yesterday finally bringing OpenGL ES 2.0 support for developers (OGL ES 2.0 is only avaialable on the SnapDrgaon and TI OMAP 3XXX chipsets).
Toolchain improvement
The toolchain binaries have been refreshed for this release with GCC 4.4.0, which should generate slightly more compact and efficient machine code than the previous one (4.2.1).Note that the GCC 4.4.0 C++ frontend is more pedantic, and may refuse to compile certain rare and invalid template declarations that were accepted by 4.2.1. To alleviate the problem, this NDK still provides the 4.2.1 binaries, which can optionally be used to build your machine code.
OpenGL ES 2.0 support
Applications targeting Android 2.0 (API level 5) or higher can now directly access OpenGL ES 2.0 features. This brings the ability to control graphics rendering through vertex and fragment shader programs, using the GLSL shading language.A new trivial sample, named “hello-gl2″, demonstrates how to render a simple triangle using both shader types.
Name simplification
This NDK release is just called “r3″, for “Revision 3″, to indicate that it is not limited to a specific Android platform/API level. Some developers thought that the previous release’s name (1.6_r1) was confusing and indicated that it could only be used to target Android 1.6, which was not true.
With Microsoft pushing mobile gaming as one of the main Windows Phone 7 Series it will be intersting to see Google’s (and its OEMs) answer. Head over to the Android dev blog for mor info.
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