Intel Mesa Driver Shows Support For OpenGL Games To Set/Get Their Own NIR

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Mesa Driver Shows Support For OpenGL Games To Set/Get Their Own NIR

Via ARB_get_program_binary Intel is working on allowing programs to retrieve or load their own NIR representation...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-ARB_get_program_binary

[andrei_me]

How does this work from the game developer perspective? The same binary would work for intel drivers in Linux, Mac and Windows? Or should it have one for each OS?

[VikingGe]

How does this work from the game developer perspective?

This feature can only be used to implement a shader cache. Basically, the game compiles the raw GLSL shader, retrieves the binary, stores it somewhere, and on the next run, passes the binary to OpenGL. If the driver rejects it for whatever reason, the game needs to compile the GLSL shader again.

In other words, you cannot ship shader binaries with your application and expect them to work anywhere.

[Masush5]

How does this work from the game developer perspective? The same binary would work for intel drivers in Linux, Mac and Windows? Or should it have one for each OS?

The cover letter for the series says:
"The binary saved can only be reloaded on the exact same Mesa build using the exact same hardware."

[davidbepo]

mesa git now should work with supertuxkart without patches:
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/me...e0d413ce38b2f2