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

Alexandr Kuznetsov kuzsasha at gmail.com
Thu Jan 31 18:31:53 CET 2013


As Wilkins and I said, we are not using OpenGL 3.0+ pipeline right now. 
We are not even close to it as it would require complete 
re-implementation. Although we got basic thing working in ES, there is a 
lot thing to be done before it will become usable. When it does 
(hopefully next year), we will still have OpenGL 1.x backend as result 
of gpu layer development.
It is to early to require 3.0 driver/card. On the other hand, we should 
not support integrated/old cards (remembering Windows Intel driver woes).

Alex

On 1/31/2013 12:14 PM, Sinan Hassani wrote:
> By the way, Mesa drives, which are hardware accelerated open source
> drivers for Linux only go up to OpenGL 3.0 at the moment.
>
> So OpenGL 3.0 should be minimum, not OpenGL 3.2.
>
> You can support an all shader pipeline with OpenGL 2.x anyway. Mesa
> hardware accelerated drivers should always serve as the minimum OpenGL
> specs, because they are the only option for some Linux users if you
> don't have NVIDIA or AMD cards.
>
> My system uses Intel® HD Graphics 4000 which are getting better and
> better with performance and for these type of cards you have to use Mesa
> drivers to use your graphics card (integrated in this case) on Linux.
>
> Sinan
>
> On 13-01-31 11:59 AM, Morten Mikkelsen wrote:
>> 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
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>
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