Thus, if you forget about the built-in shaders and start programming your own shaders, OpenGL ES 2.0 allows you to do exactly what you want (more precisely than with OpenGL ES 1.1) and that means that you are usually able to write an OpenGL ES 2.0 version that is faster. the vertex lit rendering path) but that's mainly because you are comparing apples and oranges. the forward rendering path version) is usually slower than the OpenGL ES 1.1 version (i.e. Thus, for the same built-in shader, the OpenGL ES 2.0 version (i.e. The default shaders for the forward rendering path can do more things but are also slower than the default shaders for the vertex lit rendering path. If you use OpenGL ES 2.0 in Unity, it will by default use the forward rendering path (as opposed to the vertex lit rendering path). In any case, usually you are not using equivalent functionality. Thus, there might be situations in which OpenGL Es 1.1 is faster. That said, using OpenGL ES 1.1 might allow the GPU to use certain optimizations that might not be available in OpenGL ES 2.0.

If anyone can give me the current 'lay of the land', it would be a big help.Ĭlick to expand.If you use equivalent functionality on the same hardware, OpenGL ES 2.0 should usually be faster than OpenGL ES 1.1 because internally a GPU capable of executing OpenGL ES 2.0 is only simulating OpenGL ES 1.1 anyways. So, just a bit confused and seeing a lot of data, some of it quite old and maybe out of date. But in practical usage, I'm seeing games like Dead Trigger or ShadowGun that seem to be taking advantage of the 2.0 graphics while running quite well.Īlso, I was curious if there is any anecdotal data regarding variance between iOS and Android - do shaders appear pretty similar across devices, or does it vary widely depending on the particular hardware? I'd hate to make shaders on iOS and then discover that on Android it looks terrible. However, I have also seen some discussions on these forums that mentioned that 2.0 was quite a bit slower than 1.1.

Android's official documentation seems to imply that 2.0 is faster than 1.1. I've noticed some conflicting information while doing performance research. For my next project, I was hoping to move beyond 1.1 fixed function shaders. Hey everyone, I was hoping to get some opinions and input regarding the effectiveness of OpenGL ES 2.0 for Android and iOS development.

Android devices with opengl es 2.0