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Intel Supports OpenGL ES 3.0 On Linux Before Windows

Posted by Unknown on from the hot-to-the-touch dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Khronos Group has published the first products that are officially conformant to OpenGL ES 3.0. On that list is the Intel Ivy Bridge processors with integrated graphics, which support OpenGL ES 3.0 on open-source Linux Mesa. This is the best timing yet for Intel's open-source team to support a new OpenGL standard — the standard is just six months old whereas it took years for them to support OpenGL ES 2.0. There's also no OpenGL ES 3.0 Intel Windows driver yet that's conformant. Intel also had a faster turn-around time than NVIDIA and AMD with the only other hardware on the list being Qualcomm and PowerVR hardware. OpenGL ES 3.0 works with Intel Ivy Bridge when using the Linux 3.6 kernel and the soon-to-be-out Mesa 9.1." Phoronix ran a rundown of what OpenGL ES 3.0 brings back in August.

5 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. ES is the key word. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OpenGL ES is a cut-down version of OpenGL aimed at mobile and embedded. Windows has never supported any version of it, and probably won't anytime soon.

    So to see Linux get it "first" is completely unsurprising.

    It's like saying Linux supported the EXT3 filesystem before Windows. So?

    1. Re:ES is the key word. by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Funny

      I was unaware that there is no Windows for portable or embedded devices. Microsoft would start working on a mobile phone OS!

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  2. Very very poor article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    On Windows, the GPU is driven by either DirectX or OpenGL. Native OpenGL ES drivers for Windows are ONLY needed for cross-platform development where applications destined for mobile devices are built and tested on Windows first.

    Now, this being so, the usual way to offer ES on the desktop is via EMULATION LAYERS that take ES calls and pass them on to the full blown OpenGL driver. So long as full OpenGL is a superset of ES (which is mostly the case), this method works fine.

    The situation is different on Linux. Why? Because traditionally, Linux has terrible graphics drivers from AMD, Nvidia AND Intel. Full blown OpenGL contains tons of utterly useless garbage, and supporting this is more than Linux is worth. OpenGL ES is a chance to start over. OpenGL ES 2.0 already is good enough for ports of most AAA games (with a few rendering options turned off). OpenGL ES 3.0 will be an almost perfect alternative to DirectX and full blown OpenGL.

    OpenGL ES 2.0/3.0 is getting first class driver support on Linux class systems because of Android and iOS. OpenGL ES 3.0 will be the future standard GPU API for the vast majority of computers manufactured. However, on Windows, there is no reason to expect DirectX and full blown OpenGL to be displaced. As I've said, OpenGL ES apps can easily be ported to systems with decent OpenGL drivers.

    Intel is focusing on ES because, frankly, its drivers and GPU hardware have been terrible. It is their ONLY chance to start over and attempt to gain traction in the marketplace. On the Windows desktop, Intel is about to be wiped out by the new class of AMD fusion (CPU and GPU) parts that will power the new consoles. AMD is light-years ahead of Intel with integrated graphics, GPU driver support on Windows, and high speed memory buses with uniform memory addressing for fused CPU+GPU devices.

    Inside Intel, senior management have convinced themselves (falsely) that they can compete with ARM in low power mobile devices. This is despite the fact that 'Ivybridge' (their first FinFET device) was a disaster as an ultra low power architecture, and their coming design, Haswell, needs a die size 5-10 times its ARM equivalent. The Intel tax alone ensures that Intel could never win in this market. Worse again is the fact that Intel needs massive margins per CPU to simply keep the company going.

    PS Intel's products are so stinky, Apple is about to drop Intel altogether, and Microsoft's new tablet, Surface Pro 2, is going to use an AMD fusion part.

    1. Re:Very very poor article by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      " Linux has terrible graphics drivers from AMD, Nvidia AND Intel."

      Since youdon't use Linux, or don't know how to configure it properly, you should refrain from speaking as though you have. NVIDIA and Intel have great Linux drivers. I cannot speak for AMD, since I haven't used them in years, but you seem to confuse the Open Source NVIDIA driver (nouveau) with the proprietary drivers, which work awesome and allow full use of the GPU through CUDA. Intel's Open Source driver is also quite good.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  3. Re:Why? by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On the other hand, if you're not the one writing the apps, it can be infuriating to use a system that supports only OpenGL ES. Last time I tried to use Ubuntu on a system with only OpenGL ES support, I discovered that OpenGL ES basically meant "no graphics acceleration", because nothing in the repository supported it; everything wanted OpenGL.

    That's probably changed since then (it was a few years ago), but it was pretty frustrating at the time, especially since the GPU itself was rated for full OpenGL, it was only that PowerVR charged extra for that driver and TI didn't want to license it.