[Bf-committers] Minimal Blender specs - 5 year old systems & OS

[Morten Mikkelsen]

I just wanted to say that I too agree that we should assume some higher
level opengl.
I think it would be rather helpful in fact if we didn't rely on traditional
fixed function rendering period
but instead keep it simple such that we're always using custom shading. It
keeps it simpler,
easier to maintain, and encourages people more to dive into special kinds
of shader dev which I know
for instance we'd like to have for sculpt mode. For instance our options
when it comes to
viewing a sculpt in FLAT vs. SMOOTH shading are significantly different
with pixel shaders than without.
We are currently passing the mesh (which is typically many millions of
triangles) to the GPU as unindexed
to support FLAT in the fixed function rendering pipeline. That's just one
example but generally speaking
I think it would make maintenance and better support easier for that end of
the code if we abandoned
the fixed function rendering pipeline and went fully custom shader as has
been the trend for years now.
I think OpenGL 3.2 makes sense but not a deal-breaker :)






On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:25 AM, Jed Frechette <jedfrechette at gmail.com>wrote:

> FWIW, I see 3D content creation as a fundamentally high-end endeavor.
> Being able to start learning Blender on low-end systems is great. However,
> I want Blender to be taken seriously as a professional tool, not just
> something you play with until you are able to afford "real" hardware and
> software.
>
> If development is being held back by attempting to support old hardware
> and OS versions and no one is willing to step up and support those bits
> then their use should be depreciated.I would much rather see the limited
> developer hours available put towards moving Blender forward rather than
> attempting to maintain compatibility with an ever increasing list of
> legacy hardware and OS versions.
>
> --
> Jed Frechette
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