VMware Plumbing OpenGL 4.x Support For The VMWGFX Graphics Stack

VMware's VMWGFX open-source Linux graphics driver stack for interfacing with their virtualization software to offer guest VM 3D acceleration that is in turn handled by the host's drivers will soon be offering OpenGL 4.x support.

It's been a while since last having any big news to share on the VMWGFX stack either for their Linux kernel DRM or Mesa Gallium3D code. But they've been busy working on all of the bits necessary to implement for being able to handle OpenGL 4.0 support.

VMware's Roland Scheidegger on Friday sent out a patch series providing the necessary kernel-side bits for OpenGL 4 functionality with their Direct Rendering Manager driver. Various new commands and other capabilities were required for allowing their OpenGL driver to move beyond OpenGL 3.3.

The kernel-side portion is in turn set to land with the upcoming Linux 5.7 kernel merge window while the VMWGFX Gallium3D portion will hopefully be all squared away in time for Mesa 20.1's release next quarter.