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 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. 23 </p> 24 25 <p> 26 A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different 27 environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration 28 for modern GPUs. 29 </p> 30 31 <p> 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 36 systems. 37 </p> 38 39 40 41 <h1>Project History</h1> 42 43 <p> 44 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. 45 Here's a short history of the project. 46 </p> 47 48 <p> 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. 54 </p> 55 56 <p> 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 60 to release it. 61 </p> 62 63 <p> 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. 72 </p> 73 74 <p> 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. 81 </p> 82 83 84 <p> 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. 89 </p><p> 90 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification. 91 </p> 92 93 <p> 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. 97 </p> 98 99 <p> 100 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available 101 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API. 102 </p> 103 104 <p> 105 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the 106 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years. 107 </p> 108 109 <p> 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. 113 </p> 114 115 <p> 116 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. 117 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification. 118 </p> 119 120 121 <p> 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. 125 </p> 126 127 <p> 128 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. 129 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification. 130 </p> 131 132 <p> 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. 136 </p> 137 138 <p> 139 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification 140 and OpenGL Shading Language. 141 </p> 142 143 <p> 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. 148 </p> 149 150 <p> 151 February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0 specification 152 and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language. 153 </p> 154 155 <p> 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. 163 </p> 164 165 166 167 <h1>Major Versions</h1> 168 169 <p> 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. 173 </p> 174 175 176 <h2>Version 12.x features</h2> 177 <p> 178 Version 12.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.3 API, but not all drivers 179 support OpenGL 4.3. 180 </p> 181 182 183 <h2>Version 11.x features</h2> 184 <p> 185 Version 11.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.1 API, but not all drivers 186 support OpenGL 4.1. 187 </p> 188 189 190 <h2>Version 10.x features</h2> 191 <p> 192 Version 10.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.3 API, but not all drivers 193 support OpenGL 3.3. 194 </p> 195 196 197 <h2>Version 9.x features</h2> 198 <p> 199 Version 9.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.1 API. 200 While the driver for Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is the only 201 driver to support OpenGL 3.1, many developers across the open-source 202 community contributed features required for OpenGL 3.1. The primary 203 features added since the Mesa 8.0 release are 204 GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object and GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object. 205 </p> 206 <p> 207 Version 9.0 of Mesa also included the first release of the Clover state 208 tracker for OpenCL. 209 </p> 210 211 212 <h2>Version 8.x features</h2> 213 <p> 214 Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API. 215 The developers at Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most 216 of the OpenGL 3.0 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as 217 the i965 driver. 218 </p> 219 220 221 <h2>Version 7.x features</h2> 222 <p> 223 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature 224 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language. 225 </p> 226 227 228 <h2>Version 6.x features</h2> 229 <p> 230 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following 231 extensions incorporated as standard features: 232 </p> 233 <ul> 234 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query 235 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object 236 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs 237 </ul> 238 <p> 239 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 240 for the sake of consistency. 241 The old tokens are still available. 242 </p> 243 <pre> 244 New Token Old Token 245 ------------------------------------------------------------ 246 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE 247 GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE 248 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE 249 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE 250 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE 251 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER 252 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY 253 GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB 254 GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB 255 GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB 256 GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA 257 GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA 258 GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA 259 </pre> 260 <p> 261 See the 262 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html"> 263 OpenGL specification</a> for more details. 264 </p> 265 266 267 268 <h2>Version 5.x features</h2> 269 <p> 270 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following 271 extensions incorporated as standard features: 272 </p> 273 <ul> 274 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture 275 <li>GL_ARB_shadow 276 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar 277 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat 278 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos 279 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color 280 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate 281 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op 282 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax 283 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract 284 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord 285 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays 286 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters 287 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color 288 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap 289 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter) 290 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap 291 </ul> 292 293 294 <h2>Version 4.x features</h2> 295 296 <p> 297 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following 298 extensions incorporated as standard features: 299 </p> 300 301 <ul> 302 <li>GL_ARB_multisample 303 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture 304 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp 305 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression 306 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map 307 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add 308 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine 309 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 310 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix 311 </ul> 312 313 <h2>Version 3.x features</h2> 314 315 <p> 316 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following 317 features: 318 </p> 319 <ul> 320 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats 321 <li>New texture border clamp mode 322 <li>glDrawRangeElements() 323 <li>standard 3-D texturing 324 <li>advanced MIPMAP control 325 <li>separate specular color interpolation 326 </ul> 327 328 329 <h2>Version 2.x features</h2> 330 <p> 331 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following 332 features. 333 </p> 334 <ul> 335 <li>Texture mapping: 336 <ul> 337 <li>glAreTexturesResident 338 <li>glBindTexture 339 <li>glCopyTexImage1D 340 <li>glCopyTexImage2D 341 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D 342 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D 343 <li>glDeleteTextures 344 <li>glGenTextures 345 <li>glIsTexture 346 <li>glPrioritizeTextures 347 <li>glTexSubImage1D 348 <li>glTexSubImage2D 349 </ul> 350 <li>Vertex Arrays: 351 <ul> 352 <li>glArrayElement 353 <li>glColorPointer 354 <li>glDrawElements 355 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer 356 <li>glIndexPointer 357 <li>glInterleavedArrays 358 <li>glNormalPointer 359 <li>glTexCoordPointer 360 <li>glVertexPointer 361 </ul> 362 <li>Client state management: 363 <ul> 364 <li>glDisableClientState 365 <li>glEnableClientState 366 <li>glPopClientAttrib 367 <li>glPushClientAttrib 368 </ul> 369 <li>Misc: 370 <ul> 371 <li>glGetPointer 372 <li>glIndexub 373 <li>glIndexubv 374 <li>glPolygonOffset 375 </ul> 376 </ul> 377 378 </div> 379 </body> 380 </html> 381
