News

March 7, 2003

Website and documentation overhaul.

The website content and Mesa documentation (from the doc/ directory) have been merged together. All the documentation files have been entered into the CVS repository. Many of the old plain-text files have been converted to html and modernized.

November 13, 2002

Mesa 5.0 has been released. This is a stable release which implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification.

New:
    - OpenGL 1.4 support (glGetString(GL_VERSION) returns "1.4")
    - removed some overlooked debugging code
    - glxinfo updated to support GLX_ARB_multisample
    - GLUT now support GLX_ARB_multisample
    - updated DOS driver (Daniel Borca)
Bug fixes:
    - GL_POINT and GL_LINE-mode polygons didn't obey cull state
    - fixed potential bug in _mesa_align_malloc/calloc()
    - fixed missing triangle bug when running vertex programs
    - fixed a few HPUX compilation problems
    - FX (Glide) driver didn't compile
    - setting GL_TEXTURE_BORDER_COLOR with glTexParameteriv() didn't work
    - a few EXT functions, like glGenTexturesEXT, were no-ops
    - a few OpenGL 1.4 functions like glFogCoord*, glBlendFuncSeparate,
      glMultiDrawArrays and glMultiDrawElements were missing
    - glGet*(GL_ACTIVE_STENCIL_FACE_EXT) was broken
    - Pentium 4 Mobile was mistakenly identified as having 3DNow!
    - fixed one-bit error in point/line fragment Z calculation
    - fixed potential segfault in fakeglx code
    - fixed color overflow problem in DOT3 texture env mode

October 29, 2002

Mesa 4.1 has been released. This is a new development release. For a stable release, get 4.0.4.

New:
    - GL_NV_vertex_program extension
    - GL_NV_vertex_program1_1 extension
    - GL_ARB_window_pos extension
    - GL_ARB_depth_texture extension
    - GL_ARB_shadow extension
    - GL_ARB_shadow_ambient extension
    - GL_EXT_shadow_funcs extension
    - GL_ARB_point_parameters extension
    - GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
    - GL_NV_point_sprite extension
    - GL_NV_texture_rectangle extension
    - GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays extension
    - GL_EXT_stencil_two_side extension
    - GLX_SGIX_fbconfig and GLX_SGIX_pbuffer extensions
    - GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once extension (Ian Romanick)
    - massive overhaul/simplification of software rasterizer module,
      many contributions from Klaus Niederkrueger
    - faster software texturing in some cases (i.e. trilinear filtering)
    - new OSMesaGetProcAddress() function
    - more blend modes implemented with MMX code (Jose Fonseca)
    - added glutGetProcAddress() to GLUT
    - added GLUT_FPS env var to compute frames/second in glutSwapBuffers()
    - pbinfo and pbdemo PBuffer programs
    - glxinfo -v prints transprent pixel info (Gerd Sussner)
Bug fixes:
    - better mipmap LOD computation (prevents excessive blurriness)
    - OSMesaMakeCurrent() didn't recognize buffer size changes
    - assorted conformance fixes for 16-bit/channel rendering
    - texcombine alpha subtraction mode was broken
    - fixed some blend problems when GLchan==GLfloat (Gerk Huisma)
    - clamp colors to [0,1] in OSMesa if GLchan==GLfloat (Gerk Huisma)
    - fixed divide by zero error in NURBS tessellator (Jon Perry)
    - fixed GL_LINEAR fog bug by adding clamping
    - fixed FP exceptions found using Alpha CPU
    - 3dfx/glide driver render-to-window feature was broken
    - added missing GLX_TRANSPARENT_RGB token to glx.h
    - fixed error checking related to paletted textures
    - fixed reference count error in glDeleteTextures (Randy Fayan)
Changes:
    - New spec file and Python code to generate some GL dispatch files
    - Glide driver defaults to "no" with autoconf/automake
    - floating point color channels now clamped to [0,inf)
    - updated demos/stex3d with new options

October 4, 2002

The Mesa FAQ has been rewritten.

October 3, 2002

Mesa 4.0.4 has been released. This is a stable bug-fix release.

    New:
	- GL_NV_texture_rectangle extension
	- updated glext.h header (version 17)
	- updated DOS driver (Daniel Borca)
	- updated BeOS R5 driver (Philippe Houdoin)
	- added GL_IBM_texture_mirror_repeat
	- glxinfo now takes -l option to print interesting OpenGL limits info
	- GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture extension
	- GL_APPLE_client_storage extension (for some DRI drivers only)
	- GL_MESA_pack_invert extension
    Bug fixes:
	- fixed GL_LINEAR fog bug by adding clamping
	- fixed FP exceptions found using Alpha CPU
	- 3dfx MESA_GLX_FX=window (render to window) didn't work
	- fixed memory leak in wglCreateContest (Karl Schultz)
	- define GLAPIENTRY and GLAPI if undefined in glu.h
	- wglGetProcAddress didn't handle all API functions
	- when testing for OpenGL 1.2 vs 1.3, check for GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
	- removed GL_MAX_CONVOLUTION_WIDTH/HEIGHT from glGetInteger/Float/etc()
	- error checking in compressed tex image functions had some glitches
	- fixed AIX compile problem in src/config.c
	- glGetTexImage was using pixel unpacking instead of packing params
	- auto-mipmap generation for cube maps was incorrect
    Changes:
	- max texture units reduced to six to accomodate texture rectangles
	- removed unfinished GL_MESA_sprite_point extension code

June 25, 2002

Mesa 4.0.3 has been released. This is a stable bug-fix release.

    New:
    - updated GL/glext.h file (version 15)
    - corrected MMX blend code (Jose Fonseca)
    - support for software-based alpha planes in Windows driver
    - updated GGI driver (Filip Spacek)
    Bug fixes:
    - glext.h had wrong values for GL_DOT3_RGB[A]_EXT tokens
    - OSMesaMakeCurrent() didn't recognize buffer size changes
    - assorted conformance fixes for 16-bit/channel rendering
    - texcombine alpha subtraction mode was broken
    - fixed lighting bug with non-uniform scaling and display lists
    - fixed bug when deleting shared display lists
    - disabled SPARC cliptest assembly code (Mesa bug 544665)
    - fixed a couple Solaris compilation/link problems
    - blending clipped glDrawPixels didn't always work
    - glGetTexImage() didn't accept packed pixel types
    - glPixelMapu[is]v() could explode given too large of pixelmap
    - glGetTexParameter[if]v() didn't accept GL_TEXTURE_MAX_ANISOTROPY_EXT
    - glXCopyContext() could lead to segfaults
    - glCullFace(GL_FRONT_AND_BACK) didn't work (bug 572665)
    Changes:
    - lots of C++ (g++) code clean-ups
    - lots of T&L updates for the Radeon DRI driver
    Known bugs:
    - mipmap LOD computation (fixed for Mesa 4.1)

April 2, 2002

Mesa 4.0.2 has been released. This is a stable bug-fix release.

    New:
      - New DOS (DJGPP) driver written by Daniel Borca
      - New driver interface functions for TCL drivers (such as Radeon DRI)
      - GL_RENDERER string returns "Mesa Offscreen16" or "Mesa Offscreen32"
        if using deep color channels
      - latest GL/glext.h and GL/glxext.h headers from SGI
    Bug fixes:
      - GL_BLEND with non-black texture env color wasn't always correct
      - GL_REPLACE with GL_RGB texture format wasn't always correct (alpha)
      - glTexEnviv( pname != GL_TEXTURE_ENV_COLOR ) was broken
      - glReadPixels was sometimes mistakenly clipped by the scissor box
      - glDraw/ReadPixels didn't catch all the errors that they should have
      - Fixed 24bpp rendering problem in Windows driver (Karl Schultz)
      - 16-bit GLchan mode fixes (m_trans_tmp.h, s_triangle.c)
      - Fixed 1-bit float->int conversion bug in glDrawPixels(GL_DEPTH_COMP)
      - glColorMask as sometimes effecting glXSwapBuffers()
      - fixed a potential bug in XMesaGarbageCollect()
      - N threads rendering into one window didn't work reliably
      - glCopyPixels didn't work for deep color channels
      - improved 8 -> 16bit/channel texture image conversion (Gerk Huisma)
      - glPopAttrib() didn't correctly restore user clip planes
      - user clip planes failed for some perspective projections (Chromium)

December 17, 2001

Mesa 4.0.1 has been released. This is a stable bug-fix release.

    New:
      - better sub-pixel sample positions for AA triangles (Ray Tice)
      - slightly faster blending for (GL_ZERO, GL_ONE) and (GL_ONE, GL_ZERO)
    Bug fixes:
      - added missing break statements in glGet*() for multisample cases
      - fixed uninitialized hash table mutex bug (display lists / texobjs)
      - fixed bad teximage error check conditional (bug 476846)
      - fixed demos readtex.c compilation problem on Windows (Karl Schultz)
      - added missing glGet() query for GL_MAX_TEXTURE_LOD_BIAS_EXT
      - silence some compiler warnings (gcc 2.96)
      - enable the #define GL_VERSION_1_3 in GL/gl.h
      - added GL 1.3 and GLX 1.4 entries to gl_mangle.h and glx_mangle.h
      - fixed glu.h typedef problem found with MSDev 6.0
      - build libGL.so with -Bsymbolic (fixes bug found with Chromium)
      - added missing 'const' to glXGetContextIDEXT() in glxext.h
      - fixed a few glXGetProcAddress() errors (texture compression, etc)
      - fixed start index bug in compiled vertex arrays (Keith)
      - fixed compilation problems in src/SPARC/glapi_sparc.S
      - fixed triangle strip "parity" bug found in VTK medical1 demo (Keith)
      - use glXGetProcAddressARB in GLUT to avoid extension linking problems
      - provoking vertex of flat-shaded, color-index triangles was wrong
      - fixed a few display list bugs (GLUT walker, molecule, etc) (Keith)
      - glTexParameter didn't flush the vertex buffer (Ray Tice)
      - feedback attributes for glDraw/CopyPixels and glBitmap were wrong
      - fixed bug in normal length caching (ParaView lighting bug)

October 22, 2001

Mesa 4.0 has been released. This is a stable release.

    New:
      - Mesa 4.0 implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification
      - GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip extension
      - GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp extension (aka GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp)
      - GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat extension
      - WindML UGL driver (Stephane Raimbault)
      - added OSMESA_MAX_WIDTH/HEIGHT queries
      - attempted compiliation fixes for Solaris 5, 7 and 8
      - updated glext.h and glxext.h files
      - updated Windows driver (Karl Schultz)
    Bug fixes:
      - added some missing GLX 1.3 tokens to include/GL/glx.h
      - GL_COLOR_MATRIX changes weren't recognized by teximage functions
      - glCopyPixels with scale and bias was broken
      - glRasterPos with lighting could segfault
      - glDeleteTextures could leave a dangling pointer
      - Proxy textures for cube maps didn't work
      - fixed a number of 16-bit color channel bugs
      - fixed a few minor memory leaks
      - GLX context sharing was broken in 3.5
      - fixed state-update bugs in glPopClientAttrib()
      - fixed glDrawRangeElements() bug
      - fixed a glPush/PopAttrib() bug related to texture binding
      - flat-shaded, textured lines were broken
      - fixed a dangling pointer problem in the XMesa code (Chris Burghart)
      - lighting didn't always produce the correct alpha value
      - fixed 3DNow! code to not read past end of arrays (Andrew Lewycky)

June 21, 2001

Mesa 3.5 has been released. This is a new development release.

    New:
	- internals of Mesa divided into modular pieces (Keith Whitwell)
	- 100% OpenGL 1.2 conformance (passes all conformance tests)
	- new AA line algorithm
	- GL_EXT_convolution extension
        - GL_ARB_imaging subset
        - OSMesaCreateContextExt() function
        - GL_ARB_texture_env_add extension (same as GL_EXT_texture_env_add)
        - GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS_ARB now defaults to eight
        - GL_EXT_fog_coord extension (Keith Whitwell)
        - GL_EXT_secondary_color extension (Keith Whitwell)
        - GL_ARB_texture_env_add extension (same as GL_EXT_texture_env_add)
        - GL_SGIX_depth_texture extension
        - GL_SGIX_shadow and GL_SGIX_shadow_ambient extensions
        - demos/shadowtex.c demo of GL_SGIX_depth_texture and GL_SGIX_shadow
        - GL_ARB_texture_env_combine extension
        - GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 extension
        - GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp (aka GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp)
        - OSMesaCreateContextExt() function
        - libOSMesa.so library, contains the OSMesa driver interface
        - GL/glxext.h header file for GLX extensions
        - somewhat faster software texturing, fogging, depth testing
        - all color-index conformance tests now pass (only 8bpp tested)
        - SPARC assembly language TCL optimizations (David Miller)
        - GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap extension
    Bug Fixes:
        - fbiRev and tmuRev were unitialized when using Glide3
        - fixed a few color index mode conformance failures; all pass now
        - now appling antialiasing coverage to alpha after texturing
        - colors weren't getting clamped to [0,1] before color table lookup
        - fixed RISC alignment errors caused by COPY_4UBV macro
        - drawing wide, flat-shaded lines could cause a segfault
        - vertices now snapped to 1/16 pixel to fix rendering of tiny triangles
    Changes:
        - SGI's Sample Implementation (SI) 1.3 GLU library replaces Mesa GLU
        - new libOSMesa.so library, contains the OSMesa driver interface

May 17, 2001

Mesa 3.4.2 has been released. This is basically just a bug-fix release. Here's what's new:

    Bug fixes:
        - deleting the currently bound texture could cause bad problems
        - using fog could result in random vertex alpha values
         - AA triangle rendering could touch pixels outside right window bound
        - fixed byteswapping problem in clear_32bit_ximage() function
        - fixed bugs in wglUseFontBitmapsA(), by Frank Warmerdam
        - fixed memory leak in glXUseXFont()
        - fragment sampling in AA triangle function was off by 1/2 pixel
        - Windows: reading pixels from framebuffer didn't always work
        - glConvolutionFilter2D could segfault or cause FP exception
        - fixed segfaults in FX and X drivers when using tex unit 1 but not 0
        - GL_NAND logicop didn't work right in RGBA mode
        - fixed a memory corruption bug in vertex buffer reset code
        - clearing the softwara alpha buffer with scissoring was broken
        - fixed a few color index mode fog bugs
        - fixed some bad assertions in color index mode
        - fixed FX line 'stipple' bug #420091
    Changes:
        - optimized writing mono-colored pixel spans to X pixmaps
        - increased max viewport size to 2048 x 2048

April 29, 2001

New Mesa website

Mark Manning (markem@ev1.net) produced the new website.
Thanks, Mark!

February 14, 2001

Mesa 3.4.1 has been released. Here's what's new:

    New:
        - fixed some Linux build problems
        - fixed some Windows build problems
        - GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 extension (Gareth Hughes)
    Bug fixes:
        - added RENDER_START/RENDER_FINISH macros for glCopyTexImage in DRI
        - various state-update code changes needed for DRI bugs
        - disabled pixel transfer ops in glColorTable commands, not needed
        - fixed bugs in glCopyConvolutionFilter1D/2D, glGetConvolutionFilter
        - updated sources and fixed compile problems in widgets-mesa/
        - GLX_PBUFFER enum value was wrong in glx.h
        - fixed a glColorMaterial lighting bug
        - fixed bad args to Read/WriteStencilSpan in h/w stencil clear function
        - glXCopySubBufferMESA() Y position was off by one
        - Error checking of glTexSubImage3D() was broken (bug 128775)
        - glPopAttrib() didn't restore all derived Mesa state correctly
        - Better glReadPixels accuracy for 16bpp color - fixes lots of OpenGL
          conformance problems at 16bpp.
        - clearing depth buffer with scissoring was broken, would segfault
        - OSMesaGetDepthBuffer() returned bad bytesPerValue value
        - fixed a line clipping bug (reported by Craig McDaniel)
        - fixed RGB color over/underflow bug for very tiny triangles
    Known problems:
        - NURBS or evaluator surfaces inside display lists don't always work

November 3, 2000

Mesa 3.4 has been released. Here's what's new since the 3.3 release:

    New:
    - optimized glDrawPixels for glPixelZoom(1,-1)
    Bug Fixes:
    - widgets-mesa/src/*.c files were missing from 3.3 distro
    - include/GL/mesa_wgl.h file was missing from 3.3 distro
    - fixed some Win32 compile problems
    - texture object priorities weren't getting initialized to 1.0
    - glAreTexturesResident return value was wrong when using hardware
    - glXUseXFont segfaulted when using 3dfx driver (via MESA_GLX_FX)
    - glReadPixels with GLushort packed types was broken
    - fixed a few bugs in the GL_EXT_texture_env_combine texture code
    - glPush/PopAttrib(GL_ENABLE_BIT) mishandled multi-texture enables
    - fixed some typos/bugs in the VB code
    - glDrawPixels(GL_COLOR_INDEX) to RGB window didn't work
    - optimized glDrawPixels paths weren't being used
    - per-fragment fog calculation didn't work without a Z buffer
    - improved blending accuracy, fixes Glean  blendFunc test failures
    - glPixelStore(GL_PACK/UNPACK_SKIP_IMAGES) wasn't handled correctly
    - glXGetProcAddressARB() didn't always return the right address
    - gluBuild[12]DMipmaps() didn't grok the GL_BGR pixel format
    - texture matrix changes weren't always detected (GLUT projtex demo)
    - fixed random color problem in vertex fog code
    - fixed Glide-related bug that let Quake get a 24-bit Z buffer
    Changes:
    - finished internal support for compressed textures for DRI

April 24, 2000

Mesa 3.2 has been released. Here's what's new since the beta release:

    Bug fixes:
    - fixed memcpy bugs in span.c
    - fixed missing glEnd problem in demos/tessdemo.c
    - fixed bug when clearing 24bpp Ximages
    - fixed clipping problem found in Unreal Tournament
    - fixed Loki's "ice bug" and "crazy triangles" seen in Heretic2
    - fixed Loki's 3dfx RGB vs BGR bug
    - fixed Loki's 3dfx smooth/flat shading bug in SoF
    Changes:
    - updated docs/README file
    - use bcopy() optimizations on FreeBSD
    - re-enabled the optimized persp_textured_triangle() function

March 23, 2000

I've just upload the Mesa 3.2 beta 1 files to SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/project/filelist.php?group_id=3

3.2 (note even number) is a stabilization release of Mesa 3.1 meaning it's mainly just bug fixes.

Here's what's changed:

Please report any problems with this release ASAP. Bugs should be filed on the Mesa3D website at sourceforge.
After 3.2 is wrapped up I hope to release 3.3 beta 1 soon afterward.

-- Brian

December 17, 1999

A Slashdot interview with Brian about Mesa (questions submitted by Slashdot readers) can be found at http://slashdot.org/interviews/99/12/17/0927212.shtml.

December 14, 1999

Mesa 3.1 is released!

September 21, 1999

There appear to be two new files on the ftp site, MesaLib-3.1beta3.tar.gz and MesaDemos-3.1beta3.tar.gz, that seem to be... yes, I've just received confirmation from the beta center, they are indeed the THIRD beta release of Mesa 3.1! Happy Days. Happy Days. Thanks Keith Whitwell for preparing these for us during Brian's absence.

September 17, 1999

Re: Brian's email address: Do not send mail to me @ avid.com since I no longer I won't be regularly reading email until October 11.

August 30, 1999

I'm pleased to announce that I've accepted a position with Precision Insight, Inc. effective October, 1999. I'll be leaving Avid Technology in September.

I've been working on Mesa in my spare time for over five years. With Precision Insight I now have the opportunity to devote my full attention to advancing Mesa and OpenGL on Linux.

While I'll be focused on Linux, the X Window System, and hardware acceleration, my work will continue to be open sourced and available to any other programmers who may want to contribute to it, or use it for other projects or platforms

PS: I'm going to be traveling until Sep 6 and won't be reading email until then.

August 23, 1999

Anonymous CVS access is back online so suck up all the bandwidth you can afford. Note that this is a new archive, so you will need to re-checkout the archive. That means don't cvs update from a previous download.

August 17, 1999

A report from the SIGGRAPH '99 Linux/OpenGL BOF meeting is now available.

-Brian

August 14, 1999

www.mesa3d.org is having technical problems due to hardware failures at VA Linux systems. The Mac pages, ftp, and CVS services aren't fully restored yet. Please be patient.

-Brian

June 7, 1999

RPMS of the nVidia RIVA server can be found at ftp://ftp.mesa3d.org/mesa/misc/nVidia/.

June 2, 1999

nVidia has released some Linux binaries for xfree86 3.3.3.1, along with the full source, which includes GLX acceleration based on Mesa 3.0. They can be downloaded from http://www.nvidia.com/Products.nsf/htmlmedia/software_drivers.html.

May 24, 1999

Beta 2 of Mesa 3.1 has been make available at ftp://ftp.mesa3d.org/mesa/beta/. If you are into the quake scene, you may want to try this out, as it contains some optimizations specifically in the Q3A rendering path. Remember to report any bugs submitted bugs are at http://www.mail-archive.com/mesa-bugs@mesa3d.org/.

May 13, 1999

For those interested in the integration of Mesa into XFree86 4.0, Precision Insight has posted their lowlevel design documents at http://www.precisioninsight.com/piinsights.html.

May 13, 1999

May 1999 - John Carmack of id Software, Inc. has made a donation of
US$10,000 to the Mesa project to support its continuing development.
Mesa is a free implementation of the OpenGL 3D graphics library and id's
newest game, Quake 3 Arena, will use Mesa as the 3D renderer on Linux.

The donation will go to Keith Whitwell, who has been optimizing Mesa to
improve performance on 3d hardware.  Thanks to Keith's work, many
applications using Mesa 3.1 will see a dramatic performance increase
over Mesa 3.0.  The donation will allow Keith to continue working on
Mesa full time for some time to come.

For more information about Mesa see www.mesa3d.org.  For more
information about id Software, Inc. see www.idsoftware.com.

--------------------------------

This donation from John/id is very generous.  Keith and I are very
grateful.

May 1, 1999

John Carmack made an interesting .plan update yesterday:

April 7, 1999

Updated the Mesa contributors section and added links to RPM Mesa packages.

March 18, 1999

The new webpages are now online. Enjoy, and let me know if you find any errors. For an eye-candy free version you can use http://www.mesa3d.org/txt/.

February 16, 1999

SGI releases its GLX source code.

January 22, 1999

www.mesa3d.org established


$Id: news.html,v 3.1 2003/03/08 17:38:57 brianp Exp $