Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan Now Offers Broader OpenGL Coverage Than RadeonSI, Intel

When it comes to OpenGL extension support, the Zink generic OpenGL-on-Vulkan implementation now has as robust coverage as core Mesa offers and what is implemented by the LLVMpipe software driver, RadeonSI Gallium3D, and the Intel i965 drivers.

Zink has already offered OpenGL 4.6 support but now after recently adding some additional extensions that aren't mandated by version 4.6, it is now on-par with the other drivers for the raw number of extensions exposed and exceeds the other drivers for non-core extensions.

Zink along with core Mesa / LLVMpipe / RadeonSI / i965 are at 160 extensions exposed while being the set of open-source drivers supporting OpenGL 4.6.

Over on MesaMatrix.net is the nice overview:

Zink recently added ARB_sparse_texture2, support for OpenGL external memory, support for OpenGL semaphores, and various other additions. All of this work will be found in Mesa 22.0 due out as stable later this quarter while feature work on that quarterly release series is ending later this month. Then for non-core extensions, Zink is now at 39 surpassing RadeonSI's 37 extensions and 35 for i965.

Zink lead developer Mike Blumenkrantz at Valve blogged that one of the big focuses moving forward will be on OpenGL software compatibility and correctness now that the performance and extension support is settling down. Perhaps by the end of 2022 Zink might even be fully passing the OpenGL Conformance Test Suite (CTS).