Intel Sandy Bridge OpenGL Support Lags Behind

[Andrecorreia]

well..

I read somewhere that between December and January they will give OpenGL 3.3 support for SandyBridge also to mesa 10.1. geometry shaders is a pain in ass

[imamdxl]

You do realize that on Windows, the driver is also limited to OpenGL 3.1...

Windows driver is way ahead in terms of performance and selective features set. Windows driver is like a smart boat, they only implement features that are required by games while Linux developers try to expose all features set recommended by spec and it is way slow for actually playing any game other than non shader based games.

on my gen45 chip (GMA 4500), Windows driver specially direct3d is way advanced, on Windows you can play Trine 1+2, and many other games with aceptable performance in lower resolution while Linux driver can only play those games in slide show mode.

All gen gpus from Intel are slower on Linux in terms of 3D performance.

No one need every set of features and 3D drivers are for performance not for show casing I have implemented this much features

[Andrecorreia]

well..

Windows driver is way ahead in terms of performance and selective features set. Windows driver is like a smart boat, they only implement features that are required by games while Linux developers try to expose all features set recommended by spec and it is way slow for actually playing any game other than non shader based games.

on my gen45 chip (GMA 4500), Windows driver specially direct3d is way advanced, on Windows you can play Trine 1+2, and many other games with aceptable performance in lower resolution while Linux driver can only play those games in slide show mode.

All gen gpus from Intel are slower on Linux in terms of 3D performance.

No one need every set of features and 3D drivers are for performance not for show casing I have implemented this much features

you are comparing dx drivers with opengl drivers, you can t do that, see the haswell benchmarks is not windows perfomance but its close

[rudregues]

Another article in phoronix will come

I read somewhere that between December and January they will give OpenGL 3.3 support for SandyBridge also to mesa 10.1. geometry shaders is a pain in ass

In a few days Michael will publish an article saying that Intel will make this because one of him 'trusted sources' told him!

[johnc]

We really need some ARM competition in this market to start pushing things forward quicker... and getting us off of the Wintel monopoly.

[ltcommander.data]

Yes even on Windows SB supports OpenGL 3.1 only, afaik the hardware can't do 3.3 and higher on Sandy Bridge.

https://developer.apple.com/graphicsimaging/opengl/capabilities/index.html

Apple provided OpenGL 3.2 drivers for Sandy Bridge when it first shipped on Mac in 2011 in Lion and they've since added OpenGL 3.3 drivers in Mavericks. I'm not sure about performance, but the hardware functionality appears to be there.

[smitty3268]

https://developer.apple.com/graphics...ies/index.html

Apple provided OpenGL 3.2 drivers for Sandy Bridge when it first shipped on Mac in 2011 in Lion and they've since added OpenGL 3.3 drivers in Mavericks. I'm not sure about performance, but the hardware functionality appears to be there.

The entire point of 3.3 was to backport 4.0 features that would run on 3.2 hardware. So anything that can run 3.2 can run 3.3. And Sandybridge can run 3.2, given good enough drivers.

[hosch]

As an owner of a Sandy Bridge GPU this saddens me; however, I agree that they should focus their resources on the newer hardware.

This is not a random "throw me away in two years" smartphone from Google.

We are talking about a general-computing (PC, x86_64) platform by a reliable hardware-vendor (Intel). This hardware is expensive and still available for purchase. What a customer can aspect is a long-term support for the hardware. Intel should care about this. And think they will - as they done in the past :-)

The facts:
3.1 on Windows
3.3 on MacOS X
3.1 on GNU/Linux

Linux can outperform Windows here and catch up to MacOS! *bamm*
So I'm really looking forward for OpenGL 3.3 on my SandyBridge based laptop.

Furthermore the long-term support for hardware as proofen to by in better shape on GNU/Linux than on Windows. SNA supports all graphics from 2005 till today, the really old Raedeons are still supported and sometimes faster than on Windows. Fun story, aside: I'm still using my soundcard from Aureal (purchased by Create around 2000) AurealVortex2 (you know the A3D/EAX options on old games) on Linux, while their are only bad working beta drivers for Win2k ;-)

A3D is really cool stuff, I need to check if I can turn it on on CS1.6 on Linux.