Why Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 is a big deal for mobile VR

Google Daydream View reviewNovember 10, 2016

We mustn’t forget that the Snapdragon 835 is designed to be Qualcomm’s most power efficient flagship mobile SoC to date. The new high efficiency Krait 280 CPU cores and move to 10nm FinFET process node, combined with intelligent use other processing cores, can see power users gain 2.5 hours of battery life over the 820. This means that phones and standalone headsets should be able to run VR apps and games for longer and will also presumable produce less heat too, which are notable gains for mobile VR.

Assisting developers

Eking out every drop of performance is going to be vital to obtaining suitable virtual reality performance in mobile products, and Qualcomm is now giving the developers the tools to get closer to the metal. The Symphony System Manager that debuted with the Snapdragon 820 VR platform extends to the Snapdragon 835 and allows software developers to assign tasks to specific CPU cores, the GPU, and even the DSP, meaning the possibility of a higher level of optimization for VR apps. Qualcomm has also revealed that the low level Vulkan API can be run on just a single little core of its Snapdragon 835, leaving plenty of spare resources for developers to work with.

The Snapdragon 835 supports gesture recognition from a camera input, which can be used to interact with objects and games in virtual reality instead of using a controller.

On top of better utilization of its core components, Qualcomm is assisting virtual reality software developers through its Snapdragon VR SDK. The SDK can assist developers with tasks ranging from utilizing the Snapdragon 820 and 835’s sensors and DSP, through to stereoscopic rendering.

For hardware developers, a Snapdragon VR 835 reference platform provides a starting point for engineers and manufacturers to design their own standalone VR headset powered by Qualcomm’s latest flagship. The Snapdragon 835 also supports Google’s Daydream platform, meaning that Snapdragon 835 products will work with Google’s virtual reality hardware as well.

Wrap Up

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 builds on the heterogeneous compute, machine learning, and virtual reality features that made their debut with the Snapdragon 820 last year. The end result is a SoC that caters well to the growing demands of mobile virtual and augmented reality. While very high performance hardware will remain limited to the desktop PC space, Qualcomm’s efforts with the 835 looks capable of enabling VR developers to offer compelling experiences in a much more constrained power and thermal budget.

See also:Next-gen Gear VR may feature eye and face trackingNovember 30, 2016

While the Snapdragon 835 is still designed very much with smartphones in mind, Qualcomm is also making a bold push into the mobile virtual and augmented reality markets with its new flagship SoC. I’m sure we will see plenty of VR hardware and content powered by the platform over the coming months and years.

This article originally appeared on VRSource.com

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Why Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 is a big deal for mobile VR