Zink OpenGL-On-Vulkan Performance Looking Very Good For Intel Arc Graphics

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Zink OpenGL-On-Vulkan Performance Looking Very Good For Intel Arc Graphics

Mesa's Zink driver that implements OpenGL atop the Vulkan API has for a while been in wonderful shape for open-source AMD Radeon graphics and even in decent shape for the NVIDIA proprietary driver stack while it's also been getting into more robust shape for use on Intel's dedicated graphics cards...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Zink-Intel-Arc-Graphics-Doom

[emblemparade]

Some heroes wear capes. Some heroes are Mike Blumenkrantz, who is singlehandedly (OK, not totally alone) carving a path for game and app preservation in a more efficient future.

[RejectModernity]

Oh wow, at this point opengl drivers should be put into the garbage bin.

[Veto]

The not so subtle heads up:

If anyone out there happens to be a prominent hardware benchmarking site, this would probably be an interesting comparison on the upcoming Mesa 23.1 release.

[Quackdoc]

I myself also found benefits in MPV, but the "INTEL_DEBUG=norbc" bug is really killing me here, MPV and gamescope both have issues without it, but with it it's a noticable perf hit

[hwertz]

Oh wow, at this point opengl drivers should be put into the garbage bin.

I think that's effectively the long-term plan, keep the "OpenGL on Gallium" support for older hardware that has poor or no Vulkan support; use Zink for hardware with good Vulkan support.

I imagine the OpenGL on Gallium "could" have been rewritten to use newer Gallium functionality to gain speed, but you'd then have either spaghetti-code of multiple code paths for supporting newer cards with those newer Gallium functions and older cards without them; or you'd start breaking support on older cards. Neither is desirable, and redundant given Zink.

[smitty3268]

Oh wow, at this point opengl drivers should be put into the garbage bin.

Not so fast, there are still plenty of issues with Zink.

However, it's making good progress. I'd say 23.1 is about the first version ready to be taken seriously.

[CommunityMember]

Oh wow, at this point opengl drivers should be put into the garbage bin.

Not quite. Some very important applications may require a very specific OpenGL driver from the GPU vendor to be used to be considered supported (certified), and that is likely to continue for quite a long time.

[ResponseWriter]

Oh wow, at this point opengl drivers should be put into the garbage bin.

This may not be the best benchmark but it shows how close Zink is. However, radeonsi is getting closer to using ACO and that may give it a small boost.

image.png

Ryzen 5800X3D + Radeon 6800 XT, Mesa 23.1rc2.

[dragorth]

Oh wow, at this point opengl drivers should be put into the garbage bin.

It is surprisingly useful to have multiple versions that hang around. An example in another project is Dolphin has both a MoltenVK backend and a Metal backend on OS X with plans to keep both. Having multiple versions with the same feature sets allow testing for regressions against a known good version. Dolphin has a great section in one of their recent reports that detail their specific use cases, not to mention earlier articles that dealt with the same issues with OpenGL.