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11 <h1>Mesa Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
12 Last updated: 21 August 2006
13 </center>
14
15 <br>
16 <br>
17 <h2>Index</h2>
18 <a href="#part1">1. High-level Questions and Answers</a>
19 <br>
20 <a href="#part2">2. Compilation and Installation Problems</a>
21 <br>
22 <a href="#part3">3. Runtime / Rendering Problems</a>
23 <br>
24 <a href="#part4">4. Developer Questions</a>
25 <br>
26 <br>
27 <br>
28
29
30
31 <h1 id="part1">1. High-level Questions and Answers</h1>
32
33 <h2>1.1 What is Mesa?</h2>
34 <p>
35 Mesa is an open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification.
36 OpenGL is a programming library for writing interactive 3D applications.
37 See the <a href="http://www.opengl.org/">OpenGL website</a> for more
38 information.
39 </p>
40 <p>
41 Mesa 6.x supports the OpenGL 1.5 specification.
42 </p>
43
44
45 <h2>1.2 Does Mesa support/use graphics hardware?</h2>
46 <p>
47 Yes. Specifically, Mesa serves as the OpenGL core for the open-source DRI
48 drivers for XFree86/X.org. See the <a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/">DRI
49 website</a> for more information.
50 </p>
51 <p>
52 There have been other hardware drivers for Mesa over the years (such as
53 the 3Dfx Glide/Voodoo driver, an old S3 driver, etc) but the DRI drivers
54 are the modern ones.
55 </p>
56
57 <h2>1.3 What purpose does Mesa serve today?</h2>
58 <p>
59 Hardware-accelerated OpenGL implementations are available for most popular
60 operating systems today.
61 Still, Mesa serves at least these purposes:
62 </p>
63 <ul>
64 <li>Mesa is used as the core of the open-source XFree86/X.org DRI
65 hardware drivers.
66 </li>
67 <li>Mesa is quite portable and allows OpenGL to be used on systems
68 that have no other OpenGL solution.
69 </li>
70 <li>Software rendering with Mesa serves as a reference for validating the
71 hardware drivers.
72 </li>
73 <li>A software implementation of OpenGL is useful for experimentation,
74 such as testing new rendering techniques.
75 </li>
76 <li>Mesa can render images with deep color channels: 16-bit integer
77 and 32-bit floating point color channels are supported.
78 This capability is only now appearing in hardware.
79 </li>
80 <li>Mesa's internal limits (max lights, clip planes, texture size, etc) can be
81 changed for special needs (hardware limits are hard to overcome).
82 </li>
83 </ul>
84
85
86 <h2>1.4 What's the difference between"Stand-Alone" Mesa and the DRI drivers?</h2>
87 <p>
88 <em>Stand-alone Mesa</em> is the original incarnation of Mesa.
89 On systems running the X Window System it does all its rendering through
90 the Xlib API:
91 </p>
92 <ul>
93 <li>The GLX API is supported, but it's really just an emulation of the
94 real thing.
95 <li>The GLX wire protocol is not supported and there's no OpenGL extension
96 loaded by the X server.
97 <li>There is no hardware acceleration.
98 <li>The OpenGL library, libGL.so, contains everything (the programming API,
99 the GLX functions and all the rendering code).
100 </ul>
101 <p>
102 Alternately, Mesa acts as the core for a number of OpenGL hardware drivers
103 within the DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure):
104 <ul>
105 <li>The libGL.so library provides the GL and GLX API functions, a GLX
106 protocol encoder, and a device driver loader.
107 <li>The device driver modules (such as r200_dri.so) contain a built-in
108 copy of the core Mesa code.
109 <li>The X server loads the GLX module.
110 The GLX module decodes incoming GLX protocol and dispatches the commands
111 to a rendering module.
112 For the DRI, this module is basically a software Mesa renderer.
113 </ul>
114
115
116
117 <h2>1.5 How do I upgrade my DRI installation to use a new Mesa release?</h2>
118 <p>
119 This wasn't easy in the past.
120 Now, the DRI drivers are included in the Mesa tree and can be compiled
121 separately from the X server.
122 Just follow the Mesa <a href="install.html">compilation instructions</a>.
123 </p>
124
125
126 <h2>1.6 Are there other open-source implementations of OpenGL?</h2>
127 <p>
128 Yes, SGI's <a href="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/index.html"
129 target="_parent">
130 OpenGL Sample Implemenation (SI)</a> is available.
131 The SI was written during the time that OpenGL was originally designed.
132 Unfortunately, development of the SI has stagnated.
133 Mesa is much more up to date with modern features and extensions.
134 </p>
135
136 <p>
137 <a href="http://ogl-es.sourceforge.net" target="_parent">Vincent</a> is
138 an open-source implementation of OpenGL ES for mobile devices.
139
140 <p>
141 <a href="http://www.dsbox.com/minigl.html" target="_parent">miniGL</a>
142 is a subset of OpenGL for PalmOS devices.
143
144 <p>
145 <a href="http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/TinyGL/"
146 target="_parent">TinyGL</a> is a subset of OpenGL.
147 </p>
148
149 <p>
150 <a href="http://softgl.studierstube.org/" target="_parent">SoftGL</a>
151 is an OpenGL subset for mobile devices.
152 </p>
153
154 <p>
155 <a href="http://chromium.sourceforge.net/" target="_parent">Chromium</a>
156 isn't a conventional OpenGL implementation (it's layered upon OpenGL),
157 but it does export the OpenGL API. It allows tiled rendering, sort-last
158 rendering, etc.
159 </p>
160
161 <p>
162 <a href="http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/361/36173.html"
163 target="_parent">ClosedGL</a> is an OpenGL subset library for TI
164 graphing calculators.
165 </p>
166
167 <p>
168 There may be other open OpenGL implementations, but Mesa is the most
169 popular and feature-complete.
170 </p>
171
172
173
174 <br>
175 <br>
176
177
178 <h1 id="part2">2. Compilation and Installation Problems</h1>
179
180
181 <h2>2.1 What's the easiest way to install Mesa?</h2>
182 <p>
183 If you're using a Linux-based system, your distro CD most likely already
184 has Mesa packages (like RPM or DEB) which you can easily install.
185 </p>
186
187
188 <h2>2.2 I get undefined symbols such as bgnpolygon, v3f, etc...</h2>
189 <p>
190 You're application is written in IRIS GL, not OpenGL.
191 IRIS GL was the predecessor to OpenGL and is a different thing (almost)
192 entirely.
193 Mesa's not the solution.
194 </p>
195
196
197 <h2>2.3 Where is the GLUT library?</h2>
198 <p>
199 GLUT (OpenGL Utility Toolkit) is no longer in the separate MesaGLUT-x.y.z.tar.gz file.
200 If you don't already have GLUT installed, you should grab
201 <a href="http://freeglut.sourceforge.net/">freeglut</a>.
202 </p>
203
204
205 <h2>2.4 Where is the GLw library?</h2>
206 <p>
207 GLw (OpenGL widget library) is now available from a separate <a href="http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/glw/">git repository</a>. Unless you're using very old Xt/Motif applications with OpenGL, you shouldn't need it.
208 </p>
209
210
211 <h2>2.5 What's the proper place for the libraries and headers?</h2>
212 <p>
213 On Linux-based systems you'll want to follow the
214 <a href="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/ABI/index.html"
215 target="_parent">Linux ABI</a> standard.
216 Basically you'll want the following:
217 </p>
218 <ul>
219 <li>/usr/include/GL/gl.h - the main OpenGL header
220 </li><li>/usr/include/GL/glu.h - the OpenGL GLU (utility) header
221 </li><li>/usr/include/GL/glx.h - the OpenGL GLX header
222 </li><li>/usr/include/GL/glext.h - the OpenGL extensions header
223 </li><li>/usr/include/GL/glxext.h - the OpenGL GLX extensions header
224 </li><li>/usr/include/GL/osmesa.h - the Mesa off-screen rendering header
225 </li><li>/usr/lib/libGL.so - a symlink to libGL.so.1
226 </li><li>/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 - a symlink to libGL.so.1.xyz
227 </li><li>/usr/lib/libGL.so.xyz - the actual OpenGL/Mesa library. xyz denotes the
228 Mesa version number.
229 </li></ul>
230 <p>
231 After installing XFree86/X.org and the DRI drivers, some of these files
232 may be symlinks into the /usr/X11R6/ tree.
233 </p>
234 <p>
235 The old-style Makefile system doesn't install the Mesa libraries; it's
236 up to you to copy them (and the headers) to the right place.
237 </p>
238 <p>
239 The GLUT header and library should go in the same directories.
240 </p>
241 <br>
242 <br>
243
244
245 <h1 id="part3">3. Runtime / Rendering Problems</h1>
246
247 <h2>3.1 Rendering is slow / why isn't my graphics hardware being used?</h2>
248 <p>
249 Stand-alone Mesa (downloaded as MesaLib-x.y.z.tar.gz) doesn't have any
250 support for hardware acceleration (with the exception of the 3DFX Voodoo
251 driver).
252 </p>
253 <p>
254 What you really want is a DRI or NVIDIA (or another vendor's OpenGL) driver
255 for your particular hardware.
256 </p>
257 <p>
258 You can run the <code>glxinfo</code> program to learn about your OpenGL
259 library.
260 Look for the GL_VENDOR and GL_RENDERER values.
261 That will identify who's OpenGL library you're using and what sort of
262 hardware it has detected.
263 </p>
264 <p>
265 If your DRI-based driver isn't working, go to the
266 <a href="http://dri.sf.net/" target="_parent">DRI website</a> for trouble-shooting information.
267 </p>
268
269
270 <h2>3.2 I'm seeing errors in depth (Z) buffering. Why?</h2>
271 <p>
272 Make sure the ratio of the far to near clipping planes isn't too great.
273 Look
274 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/resources/faq/technical/depthbuffer.htm#0040"
275 target="_parent"> here</a> for details.
276 </p>
277 <p>
278 Mesa uses a 16-bit depth buffer by default which is smaller and faster
279 to clear than a 32-bit buffer but not as accurate.
280 If you need a deeper you can modify the parameters to
281 <code> glXChooseVisual</code> in your code.
282 </p>
283
284
285 <h2>3.3 Why Isn't depth buffering working at all?</h2>
286 <p>
287 Be sure you're requesting a depth buffered-visual. If you set the MESA_DEBUG
288 environment variable it will warn you about trying to enable depth testing
289 when you don't have a depth buffer.
290 </p>
291 <p>Specifically, make sure <code>glutInitDisplayMode</code> is being called
292 with <code>GLUT_DEPTH</code> or <code>glXChooseVisual</code> is being
293 called with a non-zero value for GLX_DEPTH_SIZE.
294 </p>
295 <p>This discussion applies to stencil buffers, accumulation buffers and
296 alpha channels too.
297 </p>
298
299
300 <h2>3.4 Why does glGetString() always return NULL?</h2>
301 <p>
302 Be sure you have an active/current OpenGL rendering context before
303 calling glGetString.
304 </p>
305
306
307 <h2>3.5 GL_POINTS and GL_LINES don't touch the right pixels</h2>
308 <p>
309 If you're trying to draw a filled region by using GL_POINTS or GL_LINES
310 and seeing holes or gaps it's because of a float-to-int rounding problem.
311 But this is not a bug.
312 See Appendix H of the OpenGL Programming Guide - "OpenGL Correctness Tips".
313 Basically, applying a translation of (0.375, 0.375, 0.0) to your coordinates
314 will fix the problem.
315 </p>
316
317 <h2>3.6 How can I change the maximum framebuffer size in Mesa's
318 <tt>swrast</tt> backend?</h2>
319 <p>
320 These can be overridden by using the <tt>--with-max-width</tt> and
321 <tt>--with-max-height</tt> options. The two need not be equal.
322 </p><p>
323 Do note that Mesa uses these values to size some internal buffers,
324 so increasing these sizes will cause Mesa to require additional
325 memory. Furthermore, increasing these limits beyond <tt>4096</tt>
326 may introduce rasterization artifacts; see the leading comments in
327 <tt>src/mesa/swrast/s_tritemp.h</tt>.
328 </p>
329
330 <br>
331 <br>
332
333
334 <h1 id="part4">4. Developer Questions</h1>
335
336 <h2>4.1 How can I contribute?</h2>
337 <p>
338 First, join the <a href="http://www.mesa3d.org/lists.html">Mesa3d-dev
339 mailing list</a>.
340 That's where Mesa development is discussed.
341 </p>
342 <p>
343 The <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation" target="_parent">
344 OpenGL Specification</a> is the bible for OpenGL implemention work.
345 You should read it.
346 </p>
347 <p>Most of the Mesa development work involves implementing new OpenGL
348 extensions, writing hardware drivers (for the DRI), and code optimization.
349 </p>
350
351 <h2>4.2 How do I write a new device driver?</h2>
352 <p>
353 Unfortunately, writing a device driver isn't easy.
354 It requires detailed understanding of OpenGL, the Mesa code, and your
355 target hardware/operating system.
356 3D graphics are not simple.
357 </p>
358 <p>
359 The best way to get started is to use an existing driver as your starting
360 point.
361 For a software driver, the X11 and OSMesa drivers are good examples.
362 For a hardware driver, the Radeon and R200 DRI drivers are good examples.
363 </p>
364 <p>The DRI website has more information about writing hardware drivers.
365 The process isn't well document because the Mesa driver interface changes
366 over time, and we seldome have spare time for writing documentation.
367 That being said, many people have managed to figure out the process.
368 </p>
369 <p>
370 Joining the appropriate mailing lists and asking questions (and searching
371 the archives) is a good way to get information.
372 </p>
373
374
375 <h2>4.3 Why isn't GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc implemented in Mesa?</h2>
376 <p>
377 The <a href="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/EXT/texture_compression_s3tc.txt" target="_parent">specification for the extension</a>
378 indicates that there are intellectual property (IP) and/or patent issues
379 to be dealt with.
380 </p>
381 <p>We've been unsucessful in getting a response from S3 (or whoever owns
382 the IP nowadays) to indicate whether or not an open source project can
383 implement the extension (specifically the compression/decompression
384 algorithms).
385 </p>
386 <p>
387 In the mean time, a 3rd party <a href=
388 "http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/S3TC"
389 target="_parent">plug-in library</a> is available.
390 </p>
391
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