Hi everyone!

I've just signed up because I'm about to start work on my Masters Dissertation - which is to write, and publish on the App Store, an iPhone game.

My MSc is in Games Programming from one of the top schools in the UK, but so far, both my under-grad degree and my Masters have solely concentrated on C++ and OpenGL (some DX and assembly) using Microsoft platforms and Visual Studio.

I'm a happy Mac owner (after switching just after buying my first Apple device - the iPhone 1st Gen) and so I'm about to plunge into the wonderful (?) world of Objective C, Cocoa Touch and Xcode.

Now that my introduction is over with, and if you've stuck this out so far, I'm very flattered, my first question is this:


According to SOME websites and forums (and I can provide evidence) the GPU chip in the iPhone supports vertex and pixel shaders.

However, afaik, looking at the manufacturers website the PowerVR MBX chip does NOT.

The game I'd like to do would benefit from some shader code (esp pixel particle systems and water effects), so could you guys - who I think are kinda the main 'guru's' on this platform please confirm what I believe to be true and that I can't code shaders for the iPhone?

The one thing that I read (tonight) that prompted this question was a point made on a forum of devs, that said that Core Animation and esp. the stuff that the iPhone uses for it's main transitions etc were in fact vertex and pixel shaders.

A reply to that said that they were coded in a closed off library by Apple and us ordinary folk can't get access, but then it degenerated.

Anyhoo, that's for listening, and if anyone knows the answer, please do tell me.

Thanks and I look forward to becoming a contributing and useful member of this community!

Elphaba

And yes, I AM a female programmer!

No shaders available on iPhone. There may be support somewhere in the hidden recesses of the hardware/non-public API, but that means nothing to us, since as registered iPhone developers we can't access any hidden API stuff and be approved for distribution at the same time.

Elphaba Wrote:Hi everyone!
According to SOME websites and forums (and I can provide evidence) the GPU chip in the iPhone supports vertex and pixel shaders.

What? I didn't know anything about that, can you paste some links?

Elphaba Wrote:And yes, I AM a female programmer!

Of course, and I am an astronaut
Welcome!

riruilo Wrote:What? I didn't know anything about that, can you paste some links?

No support for pixels shaders but there is some support for basic vertex shaders ( but as AnotherJake pointed out ,currently not available to iPhone developers )

Look for GL_IMG_vertex_program ( it is an extension )

http://www.imgtec.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=157

Elphaba Wrote:My MSc is in Games Programming from one of the top schools in the UK, but so far, both my under-grad degree and my Masters have solely concentrated on C++ and OpenGL (some DX and assembly) using Microsoft platforms and Visual Studio.

I'm a happy Mac owner (after switching just after buying my first Apple device - the iPhone 1st Gen) and so I'm about to plunge into the wonderful (?) world of Objective C, Cocoa Touch and Xcode.

Just an FYI you can use c/c++ on iphone instead of objective c. I didn't know that when I first started either. If you don't want to learn as much new stuff you could go this route, but you wouldn't be using any of the libraries. If your game is an opengl game this won't impact you as much.

Else if you like learning new languages you can dive into objective c.