1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 2 <html lang="en"> 3 <head> 4 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> 5 <title>Mesa Introduction</title> 6 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mesa.css"> 7 </head> 8 <body> 9 10 <div class="header"> 11 <h1>The Mesa 3D Graphics Library</h1> 12 </div> 13 14 <iframe src="contents.html"></iframe> 15 <div class="content"> 16 17 <h1>Introduction</h1> 18 19 <p> 20 The Mesa project began as an open-source implementation of the 21 <a href="https://www.opengl.org/">OpenGL</a> specification - 22 a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics. 23 </p> 24 25 <p> 26 Over the years the project has grown to implement more graphics APIs, 27 including 28 <a href="https://www.khronos.org/opengles/">OpenGL ES</a> (versions 1, 2, 3), 29 <a href="https://www.khronos.org/opencl/">OpenCL</a>, 30 <a href="https://www.khronos.org/openmax/">OpenMAX</a>, 31 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU">VDPAU</a>, 32 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API">VA API</a>, 33 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Video_Motion_Compensation">XvMC</a> and 34 <a href="https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/">Vulkan</a>. 35 </p> 36 37 <p> 38 A variety of device drivers allows the Mesa libraries to be used in many 39 different environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware 40 acceleration for modern GPUs. 41 </p> 42 43 <p> 44 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the 45 <a href="https://dri.freedesktop.org/">Direct Rendering 46 Infrastructure</a> and <a href="https://x.org">X.org</a> to 47 provide OpenGL support on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating 48 systems. 49 </p> 50 51 52 53 <h1>Project History</h1> 54 55 <p> 56 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. 57 Here's a short history of the project. 58 </p> 59 60 <p> 61 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project 62 has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 63 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially 64 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. 65 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991. 66 </p> 67 68 <p> 69 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like 70 graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the 71 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission 72 to release it. 73 </p> 74 75 <p> 76 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that 77 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. 78 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a 79 daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The 80 name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use 81 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't 82 want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming 83 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep. 84 </p> 85 86 <p> 87 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. 88 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. 89 Mesa filled a big hole during that time. 90 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL. 91 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote 92 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project. 93 </p> 94 95 96 <p> 97 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during 98 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University 99 of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because 100 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html">Vis5D</a> project. 101 </p><p> 102 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification. 103 </p> 104 105 <p> 106 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics 107 card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL 108 implementation for Linux. 109 </p> 110 111 <p> 112 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available 113 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API. 114 </p> 115 116 <p> 117 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the 118 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years. 119 </p> 120 121 <p> 122 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key 123 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86. 124 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow. 125 </p> 126 127 <p> 128 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. 129 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification. 130 </p> 131 132 133 <p> 134 November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell, 135 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica. 136 Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December 2008. 137 </p> 138 139 <p> 140 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. 141 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification. 142 </p> 143 144 <p> 145 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5 146 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and 147 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions. 148 </p> 149 150 <p> 151 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification 152 and OpenGL Shading Language. 153 </p> 154 155 <p> 156 2008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop 157 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D">Gallium</a> 158 - a new GPU abstraction layer. The latest Mesa drivers are based on 159 Gallium and other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium. 160 </p> 161 162 <p> 163 February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0 specification 164 and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language. 165 </p> 166 167 <p> 168 July 2016: Mesa 12.0 is released, including OpenGL 4.3 support and initial 169 support for Vulkan for Intel GPUs. Plus, there's another gallium software 170 driver ("swr") based on LLVM and developed by Intel. 171 </p> 172 173 <p> 174 Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for devices designed by 175 Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Vivante, plus the VMware and 176 VirGL virtual GPUs. 177 There's also several software-based renderers: swrast (the legacy 178 Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference driver), llvmpipe 179 (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer) and swr (another LLVM-based driver). 180 </p> 181 <p> 182 Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions 183 of the OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan specifications. 184 </p> 185 186 187 188 <h1>Major Versions</h1> 189 190 <p> 191 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa. 192 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version 193 of the OpenGL specification is implemented. 194 </p> 195 196 197 <h2>Version 12.x features</h2> 198 <p> 199 Version 12.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.3 API, but not all drivers 200 support OpenGL 4.3. 201 </p> 202 <p> 203 Initial support for Vulkan is also included. 204 </p> 205 206 207 <h2>Version 11.x features</h2> 208 <p> 209 Version 11.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.1 API, but not all drivers 210 support OpenGL 4.1. 211 </p> 212 213 214 <h2>Version 10.x features</h2> 215 <p> 216 Version 10.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.3 API, but not all drivers 217 support OpenGL 3.3. 218 </p> 219 220 221 <h2>Version 9.x features</h2> 222 <p> 223 Version 9.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.1 API. 224 While the driver for Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is the only 225 driver to support OpenGL 3.1, many developers across the open-source 226 community contributed features required for OpenGL 3.1. The primary 227 features added since the Mesa 8.0 release are 228 GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object and GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object. 229 </p> 230 <p> 231 Version 9.0 of Mesa also included the first release of the Clover state 232 tracker for OpenCL. 233 </p> 234 235 236 <h2>Version 8.x features</h2> 237 <p> 238 Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API. 239 The developers at Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most 240 of the OpenGL 3.0 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as 241 the i965 driver. 242 </p> 243 244 245 <h2>Version 7.x features</h2> 246 <p> 247 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature 248 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language. 249 </p> 250 251 252 <h2>Version 6.x features</h2> 253 <p> 254 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following 255 extensions incorporated as standard features: 256 </p> 257 <ul> 258 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query 259 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object 260 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs 261 </ul> 262 <p> 263 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 264 for the sake of consistency. 265 The old tokens are still available. 266 </p> 267 <pre> 268 New Token Old Token 269 ------------------------------------------------------------ 270 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE 271 GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE 272 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE 273 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE 274 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE 275 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER 276 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY 277 GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB 278 GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB 279 GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB 280 GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA 281 GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA 282 GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA 283 </pre> 284 <p> 285 See the 286 <a href="https://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html"> 287 OpenGL specification</a> for more details. 288 </p> 289 290 291 292 <h2>Version 5.x features</h2> 293 <p> 294 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following 295 extensions incorporated as standard features: 296 </p> 297 <ul> 298 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture 299 <li>GL_ARB_shadow 300 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar 301 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat 302 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos 303 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color 304 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate 305 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op 306 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax 307 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract 308 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord 309 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays 310 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters 311 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color 312 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap 313 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter) 314 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap 315 </ul> 316 317 318 <h2>Version 4.x features</h2> 319 320 <p> 321 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following 322 extensions incorporated as standard features: 323 </p> 324 325 <ul> 326 <li>GL_ARB_multisample 327 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture 328 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp 329 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression 330 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map 331 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add 332 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine 333 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 334 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix 335 </ul> 336 337 <h2>Version 3.x features</h2> 338 339 <p> 340 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following 341 features: 342 </p> 343 <ul> 344 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats 345 <li>New texture border clamp mode 346 <li>glDrawRangeElements() 347 <li>standard 3-D texturing 348 <li>advanced MIPMAP control 349 <li>separate specular color interpolation 350 </ul> 351 352 353 <h2>Version 2.x features</h2> 354 <p> 355 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following 356 features. 357 </p> 358 <ul> 359 <li>Texture mapping: 360 <ul> 361 <li>glAreTexturesResident 362 <li>glBindTexture 363 <li>glCopyTexImage1D 364 <li>glCopyTexImage2D 365 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D 366 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D 367 <li>glDeleteTextures 368 <li>glGenTextures 369 <li>glIsTexture 370 <li>glPrioritizeTextures 371 <li>glTexSubImage1D 372 <li>glTexSubImage2D 373 </ul> 374 <li>Vertex Arrays: 375 <ul> 376 <li>glArrayElement 377 <li>glColorPointer 378 <li>glDrawElements 379 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer 380 <li>glIndexPointer 381 <li>glInterleavedArrays 382 <li>glNormalPointer 383 <li>glTexCoordPointer 384 <li>glVertexPointer 385 </ul> 386 <li>Client state management: 387 <ul> 388 <li>glDisableClientState 389 <li>glEnableClientState 390 <li>glPopClientAttrib 391 <li>glPushClientAttrib 392 </ul> 393 <li>Misc: 394 <ul> 395 <li>glGetPointer 396 <li>glIndexub 397 <li>glIndexubv 398 <li>glPolygonOffset 399 </ul> 400 </ul> 401 402 </div> 403 </body> 404 </html> 405
