Mesa 12.0 Released With OpenGL 4.3 Support, Intel Vulkan and More (phoronix.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Mesa3D developers have announced the release of Mesa 12.0. Mesa 12 notably adds open-source OpenGL 4.3 drivers for Intel, Radeon, and NVIDIA on Linux, and it also integrates the previously open-sourced Intel Vulkan graphics API driver. From the Phoronix analysis, "Mesa 12.0 is easily one of the biggest updates to this important open-source user-space OpenGL driver stack in quite some time and will offer much better support and features especially for Intel, Radeon, and NVIDIA open-source Linux desktop users/gamers." You can download Mesa 3D Graphics Library 12.0.0 here.

Comments

Summary is kind of confusing

[PCM2]

At first I was scratching my head because I know for a fact Intel didn't create Vulkan, at least not on its own. It seems what actually happened is that a while back Intel added Vulkan API support to its open source driver for its own graphics chips, and that is what has been integrated into Mesa.

Re:Summary is kind of confusing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the summary makes no sense at all. IMHO the most important change here is Intel support for OpenGL 4.3 (up from 3.3). For casual gamers (those likely to be using Mesa and integrated Intel cards), this will open up a whole new world. As stated in the article, the promise to get up to 4.5 for the next release is most welcome.

I'll be honest that I don't really know what impact mainlining the Vulcan drivers for Intel will have in the short term. Is anyone using Vulcan? Possibly it's just me, but with WebGL getting a foothold, I see OpenGL actually *gaining* popularity in the next 3-5 years. But this is still great news as Vulcan is arguably the way of the future.

As an AC I might be accused of being a shill (he couldn't afford me!), but as usual Phoronix is the place to follow Mesa development. I've tried to follow Mesa more directly, but it is a *massive* time sink. I'm really grateful that there is a place I can go to keep up to date. Although the summary was quite poor, it had the right link. :-)

Re: Summary is kind of confusing

[JarekC]

No, Vulkan is not superseding OpenGL. Vulkan is a low level API and although it can be used directly by applications, it's not its main use case. It's mostly intended for use by game engines and similar middlewareon, which application are then based. OpenGL is a high level API, which is intended to be used directly by applications.

Re:Intel Vulkan

[Kjella]

WTF is Intel Vulkan? Is it anything like Vulkan?

Well the Vulkan API is developed by Khronos+++.
There's the generic Vulkan changes to Mesa by Intel.
And there's the Vulkan driver for Intel chips by Intel.

The post refers to the latter two, they're both implementations with the first part making the API available to Mesa client. The other part makes sure it's actually accelerated on Intel chips.

Re:Intel Vulkan

[wonkey_monkey]

And Radeon is the brand, not the company. The company is AMD.

So? Maybe the new drivers only support Radeon cards.

Re:Intel Vulkan

[Tough Love]

WTF is Intel Vulkan? Is it anything like Vulkan?

It's the driver implementation of the Vulkan API for Intel chipsets. (Odd that this would need to be explained.)

And Radeon is the brand, not the company. The company is AMD.

Radeon in this context is the name of the open source driver for AMD's chipsets.

softpedia?

[epyT-R]

Who would download anything from softpedia, esp open source? Why not get from mesa3d.org?
ftp://ftp.freedesktop.org/pub/...

Re:Intel Vulkan

[Anonymous Coward]

The Radeon driver does indeed support more than just Radeon. However, historically it was written specifically for Radeon. There is another driver for other AMD devices (the name of which escapes me). Slowly, over time, the Radeon driver has assumed more and more responsibility for other devices so now you use the "Radeon" driver for almost all AMD devices. However, this transition occurred over a period of at least 10 years. Changing the name of the driver now would be incredibly confusing.

The average person doesn't need to know what driver they are using. All consumer-level distros auto-select the driver, so it's kind of a moot point. Only developers and people who want to know the nitty gritty details need to know. The average person is not going to be looking at Mesa upgrades and thinking, "Yay! I finally get to use OpenGL 4.3 calls!". They will just notice that the graphics on their games has improved. If you want to know the details, you are going to have to look to see what driver you are using anyway, so what it is called really doesn't matter.

Obligatory question...

[__aaclcg7560]

Does it run on 3Dfx Voodoo 2 cards?

Re:Obligatory question...

[aliquis]

Does it run on 3Dfx Voodoo 2 cards?

I don't think Vulcans practice Voodoo?

Re:Obligatory question...

[Gravis Zero]

Does it run on 3Dfx Voodoo 2 cards?

No but with Vulkan you are able to implement the Glide API that is used by 3Dfx Voodoo cards. So, in theory you can natively use old games that are designed for cards.

Re: Don't eat meatballz from Ikea

[Eravnrekaree]

Not True. Galatians 5. There is no law christians MUST follow accept for accepting Jesus Christ as your lord an saviour.

Re: Don't eat meatballz from Ikea

[Zontar The Mindless]

I've lived in Sweden for some years, and I've never seen horsemeat for sale in any of the shops here. OTOH, it's not at all difficult to get reindeer.

An open source graphics card is now feasible!

[Gravis Zero]

It used to be a monumental task to create an open source graphics card because of the sheer size of an ever evolving graphics API that had to be implemented, debugged and maintained. However, now with Vulkan as a common base to graphics related APIs, the requirements for an open source graphics cards are only to implement the Vulkan API. It's really the ideal time to make an open source graphics card.