docs/index.rst

   1 .. include:: contents.rst
   2
   3 Introduction
   4 ============
   5
   6 The Mesa project began as an open-source implementation of the
   7 `OpenGL <https://www.opengl.org/>`__ specification - a system for
   8 rendering interactive 3D graphics.
   9
  10 Over the years the project has grown to implement more graphics APIs,
  11 including `OpenGL ES <https://www.khronos.org/opengles/>`__ (versions 1,
  12 2, 3), `OpenCL <https://www.khronos.org/opencl/>`__,
  13 `OpenMAX <https://www.khronos.org/openmax/>`__,
  14 `VDPAU <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU>`__, `VA
  15 API <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API>`__,
  16 `XvMC <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Video_Motion_Compensation>`__ and
  17 `Vulkan <https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/>`__.
  18
  19 A variety of device drivers allows the Mesa libraries to be used in many
  20 different environments ranging from software emulation to complete
  21 hardware acceleration for modern GPUs.
  22
  23 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the `Direct Rendering
  24 Infrastructure <https://dri.freedesktop.org/>`__ and
  25 `X.org <https://x.org>`__ to provide OpenGL support on Linux, FreeBSD
  26 and other operating systems.
  27
  28 Project History
  29 ---------------
  30
  31 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. Here's a short
  32 history of the project.
  33
  34 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project has
  35 no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 3D
  36 graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially
  37 inspired by the *VOGL* library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. I had
  38 been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
  39
  40 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my
  41 OpenGL-like graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally
  42 receptive to the idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal
  43 department, I get permission to release it.
  44
  45 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that a
  46 few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. I was soon
  47 receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a daily basis.
  48 That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The name Mesa just
  49 popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use the terms
  50 *"Open"* or *"GL"* in the project name and I didn't want to make up a
  51 new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming language and the
  52 Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
  53
  54 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. It even
  55 took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. Mesa
  56 filled a big hole during that time. For a lot of people, Mesa was their
  57 first introduction to OpenGL. I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually
  58 helped to promote the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the
  59 project.
  60
  61 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and
  62 during my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the
  63 University of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me
  64 do this because Mesa is now being using for the
  65 `Vis5D <https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html>`__ project.
  66
  67 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1
  68 specification.
  69
  70 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo
  71 graphics card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular
  72 hardware OpenGL implementation for Linux.
  73
  74 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available
  75 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
  76
  77 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the
  78 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
  79
  80 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key
  81 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for
  82 XFree86. Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon
  83 follow.
  84
  85 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.3
  86 specification.
  87
  88 November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
  89 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica. Tungsten Graphics was
  90 acquired by VMware in December 2008.
  91
  92 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.4
  93 specification.
  94
  95 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5
  96 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
  97 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
  98
  99 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1
 100 specification and OpenGL Shading Language.
 101
 102 2008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
 103 `Gallium <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D>`__ - a new GPU
 104 abstraction layer. The latest Mesa drivers are based on Gallium and
 105 other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
 106
 107 February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0
 108 specification and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
 109
 110 July 2016: Mesa 12.0 is released, including OpenGL 4.3 support and
 111 initial support for Vulkan for Intel GPUs. Plus, there's another gallium
 112 software driver ("swr") based on LLVM and developed by Intel.
 113
 114 Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for devices designed by
 115 Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Vivante, plus the VMware and
 116 VirGL virtual GPUs. There's also several software-based renderers:
 117 swrast (the legacy Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference
 118 driver), llvmpipe (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer) and swr
 119 (another LLVM-based driver).
 120
 121 Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
 122 of the OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan specifications.
 123
 124 Major Versions
 125 --------------
 126
 127 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa. Mesa's major version
 128 number has been incremented whenever a new version of the OpenGL
 129 specification is implemented.
 130
 131 Version 12.x features
 132 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 133
 134 Version 12.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.3 API, but not all drivers
 135 support OpenGL 4.3.
 136
 137 Initial support for Vulkan is also included.
 138
 139 Version 11.x features
 140 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 141
 142 Version 11.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.1 API, but not all drivers
 143 support OpenGL 4.1.
 144
 145 Version 10.x features
 146 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 147
 148 Version 10.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.3 API, but not all drivers
 149 support OpenGL 3.3.
 150
 151 Version 9.x features
 152 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 153
 154 Version 9.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.1 API. While the driver for
 155 Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is the only driver to support OpenGL
 156 3.1, many developers across the open-source community contributed
 157 features required for OpenGL 3.1. The primary features added since the
 158 Mesa 8.0 release are GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object and
 159 GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object.
 160
 161 Version 9.0 of Mesa also included the first release of the Clover state
 162 tracker for OpenCL.
 163
 164 Version 8.x features
 165 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 166
 167 Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API. The developers at
 168 Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most of the OpenGL 3.0
 169 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as the i965 driver.
 170
 171 Version 7.x features
 172 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 173
 174 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature of
 175 OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
 176
 177 Version 6.x features
 178 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 179
 180 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 181 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 182
 183 -  GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 184 -  GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 185 -  GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 186
 187 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 for the
 188 sake of consistency. The old tokens are still available.
 189
 190 ::
 191
 192    New Token                   Old Token
 193    ------------------------------------------------------------
 194    GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 195    GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 196    GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 197    GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 198    GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 199    GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 200    GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 201    GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 202    GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 203    GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 204    GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 205    GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 206    GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 207
 208 See the `OpenGL
 209 specification <https://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html>`__ for
 210 more details.
 211
 212 Version 5.x features
 213 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 214
 215 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 216 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 217
 218 -  GL_ARB_depth_texture
 219 -  GL_ARB_shadow
 220 -  GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 221 -  GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 222 -  GL_ARB_window_pos
 223 -  GL_EXT_blend_color
 224 -  GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 225 -  GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 226 -  GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 227 -  GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 228 -  GL_EXT_fog_coord
 229 -  GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 230 -  GL_EXT_point_parameters
 231 -  GL_EXT_secondary_color
 232 -  GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 233 -  GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 234 -  GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 235
 236 Version 4.x features
 237 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 238
 239 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 240 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 241
 242 -  GL_ARB_multisample
 243 -  GL_ARB_multitexture
 244 -  GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 245 -  GL_ARB_texture_compression
 246 -  GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 247 -  GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 248 -  GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 249 -  GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 250 -  GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 251
 252 Version 3.x features
 253 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 254
 255 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 256 features:
 257
 258 -  BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 259 -  New texture border clamp mode
 260 -  glDrawRangeElements()
 261 -  standard 3-D texturing
 262 -  advanced MIPMAP control
 263 -  separate specular color interpolation
 264
 265 Version 2.x features
 266 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 267
 268 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 269 features.
 270
 271 -  Texture mapping:
 272
 273    -  glAreTexturesResident
 274    -  glBindTexture
 275    -  glCopyTexImage1D
 276    -  glCopyTexImage2D
 277    -  glCopyTexSubImage1D
 278    -  glCopyTexSubImage2D
 279    -  glDeleteTextures
 280    -  glGenTextures
 281    -  glIsTexture
 282    -  glPrioritizeTextures
 283    -  glTexSubImage1D
 284    -  glTexSubImage2D
 285
 286 -  Vertex Arrays:
 287
 288    -  glArrayElement
 289    -  glColorPointer
 290    -  glDrawElements
 291    -  glEdgeFlagPointer
 292    -  glIndexPointer
 293    -  glInterleavedArrays
 294    -  glNormalPointer
 295    -  glTexCoordPointer
 296    -  glVertexPointer
 297
 298 -  Client state management:
 299
 300    -  glDisableClientState
 301    -  glEnableClientState
 302    -  glPopClientAttrib
 303    -  glPushClientAttrib
 304
 305 -  Misc:
 306
 307    -  glGetPointer
 308    -  glIndexub
 309    -  glIndexubv
 310    -  glPolygonOffset