Mesa 17, the next stable release of the open source graphics drivers on Linux has been a bit delayed, due to so much last minute work going on.
Originally, the first release candidate of Mesa 17 (originally Mesa 13.1, using yearly numbering now) was due on the 13th of this month (original schedule here), but they are running a bit behind.
Writing on the announce mailing list Emil writes:
So, by Mesa 17 it looks like Intel 'Ivy Bridge' will get up to at least OpenGL 4.0, with 'Haswell' already at OpenGL 4.5.
We certainly noticed and appreciate all the hard work going into Mesa. Mesa 17 is shaping up to be a really fantastic way for us all to start off 2017. It sounds like the delay will only be for a few days, so I would still expect the Mesa 17 stable release in February.
I want to express my thanks to the hard work of all developers working on the open source graphics stack. They are all doing amazing work to get as much hardware as possible to support the latest OpenGL, and plenty of performance patches have been making their way in too.
Hopefully later this year we will see the shader cache land for Mesa, so that performance and loading times of Linux games on open source drivers can further improve. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Originally, the first release candidate of Mesa 17 (originally Mesa 13.1, using yearly numbering now) was due on the 13th of this month (original schedule here), but they are running a bit behind.
Writing on the announce mailing list Emil writes:
QuoteHi all,
As some of you may know the Intel and Igalia devs are working hard on bringing Gen7 Intel hardware to OpenGL 4.0+. With Haswell devices exposing OpenGL 4.5 as of yesterday and Ivy Bridge to enable OpenGL 4.0 as the v2 series from the Igalia devs land - with the next day or two.
In case you're not familiar: with the above work, the Intel Linux driver will provide the same [or even greater] functionality than the respective Windows and Android ones, across the board.
This is a very huge milestone, which should not go unmentioned !
Cheers,
Emil
So, by Mesa 17 it looks like Intel 'Ivy Bridge' will get up to at least OpenGL 4.0, with 'Haswell' already at OpenGL 4.5.
We certainly noticed and appreciate all the hard work going into Mesa. Mesa 17 is shaping up to be a really fantastic way for us all to start off 2017. It sounds like the delay will only be for a few days, so I would still expect the Mesa 17 stable release in February.
I want to express my thanks to the hard work of all developers working on the open source graphics stack. They are all doing amazing work to get as much hardware as possible to support the latest OpenGL, and plenty of performance patches have been making their way in too.
Hopefully later this year we will see the shader cache land for Mesa, so that performance and loading times of Linux games on open source drivers can further improve. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
natewardawg Jan 17, 2017
Go Mesa Team!!!
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NVIDIA has their own OpenGL implementation. When you install the NVIDIA binary driver it actually rips out X11/MESA's OpenGL and drops in NVIDIA's version. Their version runs a lot faster and has more features than the X11/MESA OpenGL implementation, but does not have the sourcecode available for you to modify/read. Vulkan is a graphics API that competes against OpenGL and DirectX. NVIDIA support Vulkan in their closed source driver and they recently updated it. You can download/install this update from the NVIDIA website. Again the NVIDIA version of Vulkan is more complete than the MESA one.
The work Nouveau does is important, a good open source NVIDIA driver helps achieve the goal of liberating hardware from unknown binary drivers. This is a good thing for everyone as it helps improve transparency/security of Linux code.
Last edited by DMJC on 17 January 2017 at 8:51 pm UTC
The work Nouveau does is important, a good open source NVIDIA driver helps achieve the goal of liberating hardware from unknown binary drivers. This is a good thing for everyone as it helps improve transparency/security of Linux code.
Last edited by DMJC on 17 January 2017 at 8:51 pm UTC
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Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdQuoting: dodrianCould someone explain...The Nvidia proprietary drivers you mention consists of different parts.
- Kernel driver
- Xorg driver
- OpenGL driver
- Vulkan driver
Formally speaking, I wouldn't call anything besides the kernel part a "driver". This confuses and complicates understanding. Driver is normally responsible for interfacing the hardware to the operating system. The rest are already various libraries and implementations of APIs which interact with the driver and OS.
So, in the open stack, there are for example amdgpu (kernerl driver for AMD), and radeonsi / radv, implementations of OpenGL and Vulkan respectively. Usually, name "Mesa driver" refers to OpenGL / Vulkan implementations.
Last edited by Shmerl on 17 January 2017 at 9:24 pm UTC
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