Mesa 9.1 Released, Brings Many Driver Improvements

For those users of the open-source Linux graphics drivers, if you're not a habitual Mesa Git follower, go forth and download Mesa 9.1 now that it's been officially released.

With Mesa 9.1 incorporating six months worth of changes and improvements to this library for OpenGL support (and other functionality via Gallium3D state trackers) used most notably by the Intel, Nouveau (NVIDIA), and AMD Radeon graphics drivers, there's a hell of a lot of good stuff.

For those not closely following Mesa Git development, be sure to read Nine Exciting Features Coming To Mesa 9.1 and Reasons Mesa 9.1 Is Still Disappointing For End-Users. These articles provide concise overview of the major work in Mesa 9.1 while there's also dozens of Phoronix articles covering individual aspects of Mesa 9.1.

For those interested in Mesa 9.1 OpenGL performance benchmarks, there will be many new benchmarks coming soon. However, for recent Mesa 9.1 benchmarks that look at the current performance situation, see:

- Legacy Radeon Performance On Mesa 9.1 Gallium3D (R300g)
- Mesa 9.1 Results Are Mixed For Radeon Gallium3D (R600g)
- Intel Sandy Bridge Looks Good On Mesa 9.1 (i965)
- Mesa 9.1 Delivers Faster Intel OpenGL Graphics (i965; Ivy Bridge)
- Five-Way NVIDIA GeForce Comparison On Nouveau (Nouveau)

The (rather uninformative) Mesa 9.1 release announcement was sent out on Friday night. Stay tuned for more Mesa 9.1 testing coverage.