Recapping The OpenGL 4.5 Improvements, NVIDIA Linux Changes

[mark_kilgard]

Then why would they keep complete silence over what happened? Seems kind of strange for an open consortium, doesn't it?

No, not really. The deliberations within a standards body are known to all the member participants but dirty laundry isn't typically hung out to dry. Khronos is open in that its standards are published openly but if you want to join the process, and you are welcome to do so, you have to become a member and abide by the process.

It's bad form to discuss those deliberations outside the standards body's own process. That didn't stop some frustrated individuals after the canning of Long Peaks from doing just that. Doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it good.

Keep in mind they predicted all sorts of nonsense about how Long Peaks getting canned was going to lead to the death of OpenGL and other calamitous predictions. Seven years later, those predictions look ridiculous.

The truth is OpenGL's standards making actually got back on track after the Long Peaks debacle. From 2008 on, there's been an OpenGL standard update every single year, sometimes twice a year all the way up to OpenGL 4.5 this week.

- Mark

[Stebs]

Interesting to hear that indeed, well then let's hope the Next Generation OpenGL Initiative will produce something better this time...

About NV_path_rendering: I heard about it some time ago and that Mozilla is looking into it for Firefox acceleration. If I remember correctly, they were interested but said there were problems too. I still find it strange that on Windows, acceleration with Direct2D works quite well since some time for multiple Browsers, while on Linux etc. they are still failing to reach the same level (if any) of acceleration (with cairo, skia, opengl and whatnot).
Is Direct2D really that good?
Could NV_path_rendering be the savior here? - given that it would one day become ARB_path_rendering.
Why, after 3 years, is it still some rather "secret" extension?

It's probably too naive, but why not make an combined effort with for example the Mozilla folks (or Google/Skia) to get around the problems, invite the other IHV along and create ARB_path_rendering.

[mark_kilgard]

Could NV_path_rendering be the savior here? - given that it would one day become ARB_path_rendering.
Why, after 3 years, is it still some rather "secret" extension?

A secret? Hardly.

Jeff Bolz and I published our SIGGRAPH Asia 2012 "GPU-accelerated Path Rendering" paper discussing the approach in quite a lot of technical detail. Publishing a SIGGRAPH paper isn't a good way to keep a secret.

Likewise the OpenGL extension specification for NV_path_rendering is registered and public.

Adobe's Illustrator CC 2014 shipped in June with GPU-acceleration using OpenGL, particularly NV_path_rendering and NV_blend_equation_advanced. For the first time in its history, Illustrator is now taking advantage of the GPU.

There's a Software Development Kit available with code that builds for both Linux and Windows. Windows users can try out the SDK's pre-compiled demos.

Google's top-of-tree Skia has NV_path_rendering support enabled.

The OpenGL Extension Wrangler (GLEW) and Regal both provide extension loading support.

NV_path_rendering is ships with NVIDIA's Tegra K1-based Shield Tablet. The GameWorks SDK has a path rendering example and more are coming.

You are correct that Mozilla has experimented with NV_path_rendering. I'm a Firefox user on both Windows and Linux so I'd love to see a multi-OS GPU-acceleration approach for Firefox.

- Mark

[Stebs]

A secret? Hardly.

No, I did not mean really secret, but by "secret" i meant "not really known among common users (like me)" aka not already hyped by users that can not use things like Direct2D but want some modern accelerated path renderer used in programs.

Shortly after my post, I read publications (like the Adobe's Illustrator announcement and others from SIGGRAPH 2014) that cleared some things for me (and are making NV_path_rendering more prominent).
Did not think that you would read/reply to my post, so I did not follow my first intention to edit my post, sorry, and btw. thanks a lot for the reply!

You are correct that Mozilla has experimented with NV_path_rendering. I'm a Firefox user on both Windows and Linux so I'd love to see a multi-OS GPU-acceleration approach for Firefox.

- Mark

Mozilla is working on enabling skia as cairo alternative for Firefox, it is working right now, albeit not yet ready for release.
They have a bugzilla entry for turning on NV_path_rendering support for skia: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=978290
Would love to see it in action too
Thanks again, Stebs