NVIDIA Releases "OpenGL 2015" + OpenGL ES 3.2 Linux Driver

Well, that didn't take long... Minutes after the embargo lifted on all of the Khronos announcements today that include new OpenGL desktop extensions, NVIDIA has put out a supported beta driver for Windows and Linux.

With The Khronos Group not declaring a new OpenGL version with the arrival of these new extensions, NVIDIA is calling this the "OpenGL 2015" driver for the new ARB extensions. This new driver also supports the brand new OpenGL ES 3.2 specifications. The updated NVIDIA Linux beta is versioned 350.00.05 and supports the GeForce 400 "Fermi" GPUs and newer.

While the driver's base hardware support extens back to the GTX 400 series, only the ARB_parallel_shader_compile, ARB_shader_atomic_counter_ops, and ARB_ES3_2_compatibility extensions work back to these Fermi GPUs. Meanwhile, the GeForce 700 Kepler GPUs add in ARB_gpu_shader_int64, ARB_shader_clock, and ARB_shader_ballot support.

Lastly, you need a brand new GeForce 900 "Maxwell" graphics card for handling ARB_post_depth_coverage, ARB_fragment_shader_interlock, ARB_texture_filter_minmax, ARB_sample_locations, ARB_shader_viewport_array_layer, ARB_sparse_texture2, and ARB_sparse_texture_clamp. You can find out all about these new extensions via this page from this morning's article.

NVIDIA's OpenGL 2015 Beta driver for Windows and Linux can be downloaded at developer.nvidia.com. I haven't heard yet whether AMD is planning a similar Catalyst Linux driver release today.

Now continue reading Khronos Debuts OpenGL ES 3.2 & New GL Extensions, But No Vulkan This Week if you haven't already.