Microsoft Achieves OpenGL 4.5 Atop Direct3D 12 With Mesa

[timofonic]

So many people simply forget that much of the Windows user experience is built over the DirectX stack. And the biggest benefit of all this is that Microsoft directly manages and maintains every aspect of this stack so that DirectX as a whole. Just. Simply. Works. Properly.

Open source punks demanding Microsoft to surrender all three decades of development of these key technologies to them smacks of pure idiocy and sour grapes.

Going back to Windows last month after 16 years of Linux was the best thing I ever done for my mental health.

Never go back to Linux, please. Choose to visit other news sites such as WindowsCentral and Arstechnica.

[ET3D]

DirectX is not only Direct3D, but also:

DirectDraw (raster graphics library),
Direct2D (2D vector graphics),
Direct3D,
DirectWrite (text render library),
DirectInput (a library for using the mouse, keyboard, joysticks and gamepads),
DirectPlay (network support in games),
DirectSound (sound, effects, dsp support),
DirectMusic,
DirectShow (support for video),
DirectSetup (management of component, installation and deinstallation)

It's worth noting that many of these are deprecated. There are also newer "direct" APIs, like DirectStorage and DirectML.

[ViSU]

zink is very buggy on windows, d3d12 just simply works better atm. Im not sure why, but zink crashes a lot more for me then d3d12

I havent had such a bad experience with Zink, its not buggy to me. Sure some glitches here and there due to some missing features, but no crashes and its about the same perf as native GL to me.

I do be very curious about the d3d impl already because of the dxgi swapchain benefits, glon12 has awesomely low input latency and feels smoother than native gl and zink despite the lower framerate

[Sonadow]

Sony and Nintendo also have their own APIs. Are they also boycotting OpenGL?

It's just that Microsoft has been developing its own gaming API for 30 years.

Direct3D is part of the framework supporting DirectX games - uniform, object-oriented, convenient, with the support of the platform creator.

And as you can see, DrirectX is liked by developers because they often use it and many do, but they don't have to.

DirectX is not only Direct3D, but also:

DirectDraw (raster graphics library),
Direct2D (2D vector graphics),
Direct3D,
DirectWrite (text render library),
DirectInput (a library for using the mouse, keyboard, joysticks and gamepads),
DirectPlay (network support in games),
DirectSound (sound, effects, dsp support),
DirectMusic,
DirectShow (support for video),
DirectSetup (management of component, installation and deinstallation)

So many people simply forget that much of the Windows user experience is built over the DirectX stack. And the biggest benefit of all this is that Microsoft directly manages and maintains every aspect of this stack so that DirectX as a whole. Just. Simply. Works. Properly.

Open source punks demanding Microsoft to surrender all three decades of development of these key technologies to them smacks of pure idiocy and sour grapes.

Going back to Windows last month after 16 years of Linux was the best thing I ever done for my mental health.

[Quackdoc]

Sony and Nintendo also have their own APIs. Are they also boycotting OpenGL?

It's just that Microsoft has been developing its own gaming API for 30 years.

Direct3D is part of the framework supporting DirectX games - uniform, object-oriented, convenient, with the support of the platform creator.

And as you can see, DrirectX is liked by developers because they often use it and many do, but they don't have to.

DirectX is not only Direct3D, but also:

DirectDraw (raster graphics library),
Direct2D (2D vector graphics),
Direct3D,
DirectWrite (text render library),
DirectInput (a library for using the mouse, keyboard, joysticks and gamepads),
DirectPlay (network support in games),
DirectSound (sound, effects, dsp support),
DirectMusic,
DirectShow (support for video),
DirectSetup (management of component, installation and deinstallation)

its worth noting directx is not just for games, a lot of their driver structure is around "DirectX" too, DXGI is for their graphics infrastructure for instance

[HEL88]

Microsoft is against OpenGL and boycott it.

Sony and Nintendo also have their own APIs. Are they also boycotting OpenGL?

It's just that Microsoft has been developing its own gaming API for 30 years.

Direct3D is part of the framework supporting DirectX games - uniform, object-oriented, convenient, with the support of the platform creator.

And as you can see, DrirectX is liked by developers because they often use it and many do, but they don't have to.

DirectX is not only Direct3D, but also:

DirectDraw (raster graphics library),
Direct2D (2D vector graphics),
Direct3D,
DirectWrite (text render library),
DirectInput (a library for using the mouse, keyboard, joysticks and gamepads),
DirectPlay (network support in games),
DirectSound (sound, effects, dsp support),
DirectMusic,
DirectShow (support for video),
DirectSetup (management of component, installation and deinstallation)

[Quackdoc]

The more pressing matter is when will they write an official directx1-12 state tracker for mesa so people don't have to use Vulkan as a middleman?

there is a d3d10 state tracker for gallium which can be expanded to d3d11. d3d12 would need it's own implementation however.

[bemerk]

The more pressing matter is when will they write an official directx1-12 state tracker for mesa so people don't have to use Vulkan as a middleman?

[mannerov]

Congrats Microsoft !

I think this move benefits everyone.

On one side WSL will get better support from linux apps and make dev life easier.
On the other side, this makes Mesa even more the OpenGL standard driver, and the one apps should check behaviour against. Thus guaranteeing better compatibility for Mesa drivers with new apps.

[Quackdoc]

MS can't win for losing. Don't contribute to FOSS and they're walled garden bastards, contribute to FOSS and they're subversive EEE fucks.

Right, I for one am glad that microsoft is making good progress on migrating to more foss stuff

How do I use this?

I have an OpenGL app that doesn't work right on AMD graphics cards, and newer drivers make it worse.

Is there a way that I can plug in this OpenGL to Direct3d driver myself? I don't have source code for the application.

wsl2 will already be having this, but if you want it on native windows, don't use it. it's not ready yet.

Forgot to mention that you can, per usual, tell mesa to use d3d12 explicitly:

GALLIUM_DRIVER=d3d12

but of course, there also is

GALLIUM_DRIVER=zink

if your device supports Vulkan. This option should also be more performant

zink is very buggy on windows, d3d12 just simply works better atm. Im not sure why, but zink crashes a lot more for me then d3d12

EDIT: woops s/firefox/microsoft