Imagination Technologies, popularly known for making GPUs for a number of Apple devices, now wants to create VR experiences dedicated for low-end Android smartphones.
There might be a little bit of disrupting happening in the Android world in the coming months as VR will be possible on a number of budget smartphones, and won’t just be a feature that will be exclusive for the higher end variants.
Of course, Imagination does also make GPUs for Android handsets as well. Their most popular ones are the PowerVR Series of GPUs that generally power the mid-segment range of budget oriented Android smartphones. They aren’t the best performers out there, but they’ll get the job done, as long as Asphalt 8 is played on its lowest settings, that is.
Because VR is so different on a lot of different platforms, there isn’t any proper way of actually experiencing it. There’s Google Cardboard, which doesn’t provide the best experience so far for inexpensive phones, since phones in the budget range aren’t made for VR. This time around however, the new GPUs by Imagination – the Series8XE Plus will bring much better graphics capabilities to phones. It’ll enable them to produce video at a full 60 fps, which is the perfect amount for enjoying good VR content on mobiles.
According to a report by PCWorld, this GPU will be a part of a number of phones being launched over the summer. But this won’t be part of the hardware that will come in iPhones. They’ll get the much more powerful and higher-end PowerVR XT. The 8XE however, will be for times faster than its predecessor, focusing more on gaming performance. The reason why the company has stayed the path for FHD and not gone all the way up to 4K yet, is because budget phones, for years, will always rely on the 1080p. In the future, if necessary, it’ll create a GPU for 4K as well, as said by Mark Dickinson, who is the Executive Vice President of PowerVR.
What they wanted to improve on the 8XE was the quality of the pixels, along with the inclusion of HDR. The GPU will also be used in application for image recognition, machine learning applications such as the popular Caffe and TensorFlow – ideally for cars, where Imagination is hoping that their GPUs will be of great use. These GPUs could also be used in current TVs and set top boxes as well.
The company has been losing out on a lot of the action nowadays since Apple is the only major shareholder for its GPUs. Other companies like Qualcomm and ARM are the popular choice among other manufacturers. By releasing such a dynamic product, Imagination is hoping to regain some lost market share for the mid-range budget segment.