In some exciting news for gamers, ARM has bought a gaming lighting technology company – Geomerics. Though the name of Geomerics does not ring a bell immediately, the company has been at the forefront of lighting technology for the console gaming and entertainment industries. Geomerics has specialty in the field of “global lighting” – a technology which provides advanced photorealistic lighting effects in 3D graphics. Typical graphics applications today are limited to simple, direct lighting effects only. With global illumination, effects such as compound reflections, refractions, shadows and other advanced effects are enabled, providing more life-like graphics quality.
Geomerics achieves global lighting capabilities through their global lighting engine – Enlighten – which has been very successful with some of todays’ AAA games like Battlefield 4 and Need for Speed: The Run.
Dr. Chris Doran, COO Geomerics has been vocal in favor of the acquisition, he said:
“With lighting technologies developed by Geomerics, graphics artists can achieve truly realistic global illumination and other advanced lighting features in real time across multiple platforms today. This combination of ARM and Geomerics accelerates the realization of our vision to bring next generation console graphics to mobile devices. Being part of ARM will allow us to accelerate our advanced developments for console and mobile platforms while also providing us with unmatched insights into the platforms and devices of tomorrow.”
With this acquisition, ARM has consolidated its position in the mobile gaming arena, which spells good news for their Mali graphics processing units (GPU), as it could mean that ARM would be able to fine tune their chips for better gaming performance. ARM has so far not clarified their position on how they intend to make sure this partnership is fruitful for mobile gaming; however they say that “it’ll help bring the next generation of graphics experiences to mobile platforms.”
ARM is also being magnanimous in its victory and has stated that they would allow Geomerics to continue functioning as an independent unit, servicing their existing contracts with EA. Carl Almgren, Head of Development-Frostbite Game Engine, says – “We’re delighted that ARM is committed to on-going development on all the key game console platforms and graphics architectures, as well as the on-going development of Geomerics’ technologies.”
Though the terms of the deal have not been disclosed, we are confident that a revolution of high-end graphics devices is just round the corner. What do you think? Shout it out in the comments below or on Google+!