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13 Mesa is an open-source implementation of the
14 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a> specification -
15 a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics.
19 A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different
20 environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration
25 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the
26 <a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering
27 Infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to
28 provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating
34 <h1>Project History</h1>
37 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul.
38 Here's a short history of the project.
42 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project
43 has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple
44 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially
45 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
46 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
50 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
51 graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the
52 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
57 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that
58 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
59 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
60 daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The
61 name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use
62 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
63 want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
64 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
68 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
69 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
70 Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
71 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
72 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
73 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
78 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
79 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
80 of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
81 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project.
83 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification.
87 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics
88 card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
89 implementation for Linux.
93 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available
94 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
98 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the
99 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
103 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key
104 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
105 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
109 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released.
110 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification.
115 November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
116 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica.
117 Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December 2008.
121 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released.
122 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification.
126 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5
127 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
128 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
132 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification
133 and OpenGL Shading Language.
137 2008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
138 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D" target="_parent">Gallium</a>
139 - a new GPU abstraction layer. The latest Mesa drivers are based on
140 Gallium and other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
144 February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0 specification
145 and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
149 Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for several types of hardware
150 made by Intel, AMD and NVIDIA, plus the VMware virtual GPU.
151 There's also several software-based renderers: swrast (the legacy
152 Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference driver) and llvmpipe
153 (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer).
154 Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
155 of the OpenGL specification.
160 <h1>Major Versions</h1>
163 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
164 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
165 of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
169 <h2>Version 9.x features</h2>
171 Version 9.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.1 API.
172 While the driver for Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is the only
173 driver to support OpenGL 3.1, many developers across the open-source
174 community contributed features required for OpenGL 3.1. The primary
175 features added since the Mesa 8.0 release are
176 GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object and GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object.
180 <h2>Version 8.x features</h2>
182 Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API.
183 The developers at Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most
184 of the OpenGL 3.0 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as
189 <h2>Version 7.x features</h2>
191 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature
192 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
196 <h2>Version 6.x features</h2>
198 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
199 extensions incorporated as standard features:
202 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
203 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
204 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
207 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
208 for the sake of consistency.
209 The old tokens are still available.
213 ------------------------------------------------------------
214 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
215 GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE
216 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
217 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
218 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
219 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
220 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
221 GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB
222 GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB
223 GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB
224 GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
225 GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
226 GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
230 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
231 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
236 <h2>Version 5.x features</h2>
238 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
239 extensions incorporated as standard features:
242 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
244 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
245 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
246 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
247 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
248 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
249 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
250 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
251 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
253 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
254 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
255 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
256 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
257 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
258 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
262 <h2>Version 4.x features</h2>
265 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
266 extensions incorporated as standard features:
270 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
271 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
272 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
273 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
274 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
275 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
276 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
277 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
278 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
281 <h2>Version 3.x features</h2>
284 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
288 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
289 <li>New texture border clamp mode
290 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
291 <li>standard 3-D texturing
292 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
293 <li>separate specular color interpolation
297 <h2>Version 2.x features</h2>
299 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
305 <li>glAreTexturesResident
309 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
310 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
314 <li>glPrioritizeTextures
323 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
325 <li>glInterleavedArrays
327 <li>glTexCoordPointer
330 <li>Client state management:
332 <li>glDisableClientState
333 <li>glEnableClientState
334 <li>glPopClientAttrib
335 <li>glPushClientAttrib