Currently, Android builds just use an OGLES 2 context everywhere, so various OpenGL ES features that would work and are available on most of the phones players are actually using end up left behind. This ends up costing picture quality or performance.
There are two broad approaches:
- Drop support entirely for OGLES 2 devices. OGLES 3 was finalized in 2012, and while it took some time for adoption, the old phones that don't support it will get an awful performance anyway on modern STK maps.
- Add feature detection and compatibility paths. Some of it may be required to distinguish between 3.0/3.1/3.2 devices.
In both cases, all the code that currently checks for USE_GLES2 needs to be reviewed to see if the branch should be different for GLES3+ devices. There is also code in lib/irrlicht that also appears to refer to GLES2 that needs to be checked and updated.
This is not something I have much time or experience to contribute to.
The SoC vendors have moved on to promote Vulkan as the new thing, but changing the existing code to move from GLES2 to GLES3+ support requires considerably less work than finishing the Vulkan renderer and would provide immediate benefits to most Android users.
Currently, Android builds just use an OGLES 2 context everywhere, so various OpenGL ES features that would work and are available on most of the phones players are actually using end up left behind. This ends up costing picture quality or performance.
There are two broad approaches:
In both cases, all the code that currently checks for USE_GLES2 needs to be reviewed to see if the branch should be different for GLES3+ devices. There is also code in lib/irrlicht that also appears to refer to GLES2 that needs to be checked and updated.
This is not something I have much time or experience to contribute to.
The SoC vendors have moved on to promote Vulkan as the new thing, but changing the existing code to move from GLES2 to GLES3+ support requires considerably less work than finishing the Vulkan renderer and would provide immediate benefits to most Android users.