I'm not sure whether this is already know on these forums but, ARM has after 3 years finally implented the EXT_buffer_storage feature in their GPU Drivers. This could be great news for emulation on Exynos (samsung), kirin (huawai) and other soc's which use the mali GPU. For a long time this has been quitte a big limitation for dolphin on mali gpu's. Now their are of course other limitations but it could at least as far as I know provide quite big peformance improvements. But before that may happen first oems like samsung will need to update their GPU drivers to take advantage of this new feature (which currently hasn't happend yet) and thats where A small question of mine for the more experienced people of this forums comes along. Which is: Do Oems (samsung for example) update these drivers regularly (with security patches?) or not at all. Or do they (the drivers) need to be updated for a large system update like android 8.1 or android P or can they just keep using the old ones used in 8.0 (how did they do this on devices like the s7/s8) Just to have a very rough estimation of when this feature could appear on the newest smartphones like the s9.
Link to confirmation from arm: https://community.arm.com/graphics/f/discussions/10193/ext_buffer_storage-support-what-s-the-current-status
Link to confirmation from arm: https://community.arm.com/graphics/f/discussions/10193/ext_buffer_storage-support-what-s-the-current-status