Developers behind DICE's Frostbite engine announced today that they were able to get part of 2013's Battlefield 4 running on iOS thanks in part to Apple's new Metal graphics API.
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Back at Apple's September event where they revealed the iPhone 6 for the first time, the company also introduced iOS 8, its latest mobile operating system that would be shipping with every iPhone 6 and is now available for iOS devices as old as the iPhone 4S. A part of that presentation was a demonstration of Metal, a new API that allows game developers to fully utilize the power of the A7 and A8 chips found in the iPhone 5 and 6, respectively. They demonstrated it by showing a relatively advanced-looking MOBA running on an iPhone, but they didn't go to deep into discussing what Metal would allow developers to do.
Helping developers run a year-old, AAA console title on a mobile platform seems like a good indication of what Metal is capable of.
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When the developers starting working on running Battlefield 4 on iOS, they ran into roadblocks with the game's graphics. Decisions had to be made about whether to sacrifice visual quality or cut down on the number of objects on screen. They couldn't have both. Metal, however, helped them overcome these obstacles
Those who read this hoping that they'll be able to play Battlefield 4 on their iPad next year might want to lower expectations. The developers stress that this is currently just a tech demo, a training exercise to see what is possible. Still, getting a PS3 and Xbox 360 game built by an engine like Frostbite to run smoothly on iOS is definitely exciting for the future of mobile gaming.
Check out more images of it here.