1.. include:: contents.rst
2
3Introduction
4============
5
6The Mesa project began as an open-source implementation of the
7`OpenGL <https://www.opengl.org/>`__ specification - a system for
8rendering interactive 3D graphics.
9
10Over the years the project has grown to implement more graphics APIs,
11including `OpenGL ES <https://www.khronos.org/opengles/>`__ (versions 1,
122, 3), `OpenCL <https://www.khronos.org/opencl/>`__,
13`OpenMAX <https://www.khronos.org/openmax/>`__,
14`VDPAU <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU>`__, `VA
15API <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
19A variety of device drivers allows the Mesa libraries to be used in many
20different environments ranging from software emulation to complete
21hardware acceleration for modern GPUs.
22
23Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the `Direct Rendering
24Infrastructure <https://dri.freedesktop.org/>`__ and
25`X.org <https://x.org>`__ to provide OpenGL support on Linux, FreeBSD
26and other operating systems.
27
28Project History
29---------------
30
31The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. Here's a short
32history of the project.
33
34August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project has
35no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 3D
36graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially
37inspired by the *VOGL* library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. I had
38been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
39
40November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my
41OpenGL-like graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally
42receptive to the idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal
43department, I get permission to release it.
44
45February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that a
46few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. I was soon
47receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a daily basis.
48That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The name Mesa just
49popped 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
51new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming language and the
52Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
53
54In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. It even
55took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. Mesa
56filled a big hole during that time. For a lot of people, Mesa was their
57first introduction to OpenGL. I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually
58helped to promote the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the
59project.
60
611995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and
62during my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the
63University of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me
64do this because Mesa is now being using for the
65`Vis5D <https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html>`__ project.
66
67October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1
68specification.
69
70March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo
71graphics card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular
72hardware OpenGL implementation for Linux.
73
74September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available
75implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
76
77March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the
78development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
79
80September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key
81component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for
82XFree86. Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon
83follow.
84
85October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.3
86specification.
87
88November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
89Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica. Tungsten Graphics was
90acquired by VMware in December 2008.
91
92November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.4
93specification.
94
95January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5
96specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
97GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
98
99June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1
100specification and OpenGL Shading Language.
101
1022008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
103`Gallium <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D>`__ - a new GPU
104abstraction layer. The latest Mesa drivers are based on Gallium and
105other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
106
107February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0
108specification and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
109
110July 2016: Mesa 12.0 is released, including OpenGL 4.3 support and
111initial support for Vulkan for Intel GPUs. Plus, there's another gallium
112software driver ("swr") based on LLVM and developed by Intel.
113
114Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for devices designed by
115Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Vivante, plus the VMware and
116VirGL virtual GPUs. There's also several software-based renderers:
117swrast (the legacy Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference
118driver), llvmpipe (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer) and swr
119(another LLVM-based driver).
120
121Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
122of the OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan specifications.
123
124Major Versions
125--------------
126
127This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa. Mesa's major version
128number has been incremented whenever a new version of the OpenGL
129specification is implemented.
130
131Version 12.x features
132~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
133
134Version 12.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.3 API, but not all drivers
135support OpenGL 4.3.
136
137Initial support for Vulkan is also included.
138
139Version 11.x features
140~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
141
142Version 11.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 4.1 API, but not all drivers
143support OpenGL 4.1.
144
145Version 10.x features
146~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
147
148Version 10.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.3 API, but not all drivers
149support OpenGL 3.3.
150
151Version 9.x features
152~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
153
154Version 9.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.1 API. While the driver for
155Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is the only driver to support OpenGL
1563.1, many developers across the open-source community contributed
157features required for OpenGL 3.1. The primary features added since the
158Mesa 8.0 release are GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object and
159GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object.
160
161Version 9.0 of Mesa also included the first release of the Clover state
162tracker for OpenCL.
163
164Version 8.x features
165~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
166
167Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API. The developers at
168Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most of the OpenGL 3.0
169features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as the i965 driver.
170
171Version 7.x features
172~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
173
174Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature of
175OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
176
177Version 6.x features
178~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
179
180Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
181extensions incorporated as standard features:
182
183-  GL_ARB_occlusion_query
184-  GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
185-  GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
186
187Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 for the
188sake 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
208See the `OpenGL
209specification <https://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html>`__ for
210more details.
211
212Version 5.x features
213~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
214
215Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
216extensions 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
236Version 4.x features
237~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
238
239Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
240extensions 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
252Version 3.x features
253~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
254
255Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
256features:
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
265Version 2.x features
266~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
267
268Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
269features.
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
311