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11 <h1>The Mesa
3D Graphics Library
</h1>
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20 Mesa is an open-source implementation of the
21 <a href=
"http://www.opengl.org/">OpenGL
</a> specification -
22 a system for rendering interactive
3D graphics.
26 A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different
27 environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration
32 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the
33 <a href=
"http://dri.freedesktop.org/">Direct Rendering
34 Infrastructure
</a> and
<a href=
"http://x.org">X.org
</a> to
35 provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating
41 <h1>Project History
</h1>
44 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul.
45 Here's a short history of the project.
49 August,
1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project
50 has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple
51 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially
52 inspired by the
<em>VOGL
</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
53 I had been programming with IRIS GL since
1991.
57 November
1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
58 graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the
59 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
64 February
1995: Mesa
1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that
65 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
66 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
67 daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The
68 name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use
69 the terms
<em>"Open"</em> or
<em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
70 want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
71 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
75 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
76 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
77 Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
78 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
79 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
80 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
85 1995-
1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
86 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
87 of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
88 Mesa is now being using for the
<a href=
"http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html">Vis5D
</a> project.
90 October
1996: Mesa
2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL
1.1 specification.
94 March
1997: Mesa
2.2 is released. It supports the new
3dfx Voodoo graphics
95 card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
96 implementation for Linux.
100 September
1998: Mesa
3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available
101 implementation of the OpenGL
1.2 API.
105 March
1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the
106 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
110 September
1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key
111 component of
3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
112 Drivers for
3dfx,
3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
116 October
2001: Mesa
4.0 is released.
117 It implements the OpenGL
1.3 specification.
122 November
2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
123 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica.
124 Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December
2008.
128 November
2002: Mesa
5.0 is released.
129 It implements the OpenGL
1.4 specification.
133 January
2003: Mesa
6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL
1.5
134 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
135 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
139 June
2007: Mesa
7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL
2.1 specification
140 and OpenGL Shading Language.
144 2008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
145 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D">Gallium
</a>
146 - a new GPU abstraction layer. The latest Mesa drivers are based on
147 Gallium and other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
151 February
2012: Mesa
8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL
3.0 specification
152 and version
1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
156 Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for several types of hardware
157 made by Intel, AMD and NVIDIA, plus the VMware virtual GPU.
158 There's also several software-based renderers: swrast (the legacy
159 Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference driver) and llvmpipe
160 (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer).
161 Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
162 of the OpenGL specification.
167 <h1>Major Versions
</h1>
170 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
171 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
172 of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
176 <h2>Version
9.x features
</h2>
178 Version
9.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
3.1 API.
179 While the driver for Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is the only
180 driver to support OpenGL
3.1, many developers across the open-source
181 community contributed features required for OpenGL
3.1. The primary
182 features added since the Mesa
8.0 release are
183 GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object and GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object.
187 <h2>Version
8.x features
</h2>
189 Version
8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
3.0 API.
190 The developers at Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most
191 of the OpenGL
3.0 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as
196 <h2>Version
7.x features
</h2>
198 Version
7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
2.1 API. The main feature
199 of OpenGL
2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
203 <h2>Version
6.x features
</h2>
205 Version
6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
1.5 API with the following
206 extensions incorporated as standard features:
209 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
210 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
211 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
214 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL
1.5
215 for the sake of consistency.
216 The old tokens are still available.
220 ------------------------------------------------------------
221 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
222 GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE
223 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
224 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
225 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
226 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
227 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
228 GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB
229 GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB
230 GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB
231 GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
232 GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
233 GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
237 <a href=
"http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html">
238 OpenGL specification
</a> for more details.
243 <h2>Version
5.x features
</h2>
245 Version
5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
1.4 API with the following
246 extensions incorporated as standard features:
249 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
251 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
252 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
253 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
254 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
255 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
256 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
257 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
258 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
260 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
261 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
262 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
263 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
264 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
265 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
269 <h2>Version
4.x features
</h2>
272 Version
4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
1.3 API with the following
273 extensions incorporated as standard features:
277 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
278 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
279 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
280 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
281 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
282 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
283 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
284 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
285 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
288 <h2>Version
3.x features
</h2>
291 Version
3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
1.2 API with the following
295 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
296 <li>New texture border clamp mode
297 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
298 <li>standard
3-D texturing
299 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
300 <li>separate specular color interpolation
304 <h2>Version
2.x features
</h2>
306 Version
2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL
1.1 API with the following
312 <li>glAreTexturesResident
316 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
317 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
321 <li>glPrioritizeTextures
330 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
332 <li>glInterleavedArrays
334 <li>glTexCoordPointer
337 <li>Client state management:
339 <li>glDisableClientState
340 <li>glEnableClientState
341 <li>glPopClientAttrib
342 <li>glPushClientAttrib