The Basics

When developing for a Mali GPU you would typically target a common graphics API enabling you to develop software that is portable across a range of different platforms and devices. The Mali GPUs support a number of APIs from the Khronos group that include OpenGL ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 3.0* and also some GPU Compute APIs such as OpenCL 1.1 and Renderscript.

To begin developing on Mali GPUs you will need a platform that is Mali GPU enabled. This may be a Mali powered device such as a smartphone or we are working with a number of partners to bring you low-cost development platforms with the latest Mali based silicon. Visit the Development Boards section on the website for more detail and ordering information.

If you are eager to get developing immediately we also offer an OpenGL ES Emulator for all the versions of the API.

 

Developer Resources

The developer resource we offer on the website will help you get on the way to graphics development in a matter of minutes.

If you are new to software development, we recommend you download the OpenGL ES SDK. This is a suite of various examples that is the “Hello Graphics World!” The SDKs also provide a simple framework that can be embedded within your application to perform some of the set-up of your platform, simple font drawing for text output and other useful tasks.

The Mali GPU OpenGL ES Application Development Guide will walk you through development of OpenGL ES applications and provide information on special considerations when developing for the Mali GPUs.

DS-5 Community Edition can be used in combination with the OpenGL ES SDK to build and run your applications on the Emulator or target Mali based hardware. Once your application is up and running, use the Streamline Performance Analyser within the DS-5 Toolchain to analyse and optimize the performance of your applications.

We offer a number of different tools and resources to improve the performance of your application. Specific details are discussed in the Mali GPU Application Optimization Guide on how the various tools can be used to improve the performance.

*Product is based on a published Khronos Specification, and is expected to pass the Khronos Conformance Testing Process. Current conformance status can be found at www.khronos.org/conformance

Typical development flow