OpenGL ES 2.0 Coming to a Desktop Near You
The Khronos Group developed OpenGL ES 2.0 to help bring modern graphics capabilities to mobile platforms. This API has been adopted by many embedded devices such as consoles, mobile phones, handheld computers, and vehicles. As a subset of the full OpenGL 2.0 specification, OpenGL ES 2.0 limits the embedded graphics API to only the most common functionality, reducing the implementation burden for embedded hardware.
The Khronos WebGL working group is developing a 3D API for the web, bringing 3D content right to the web browser using open standards. This effort uses an OpenGL ES 2.0-like interface as its backbone. OpenGL ES 2.0 was chosen as a common denominator of 3D acceleration on devices supporting web browsers.
AMD has just announced support for OpenGL ES on desktop platforms. This means ATI Radeon™, ATI Mobility Radeon™, ATI FirePro™ and ATI FireGL™ graphics cards released since 2008 will run OpenGL ES 2.0 natively. No longer do embedded developers need to exclusively use emulators or translation layers to get OpenGL ES 2.0 code up and running. Development can be done on a more accessible desktop system on either Microsoft Win7, Vista, or XP with ATI Catalyst™ software 10.8 or newer. Support for Linux is planned to follow with ATI Catalyst™ 10.9 software.
Accessing OpenGL ES 2.0 on the desktop is very similar to traditional embedded systems and can be done by using the EGL window management system. AMD has provided a simple sample app available here (updated code 1/31/12) to help developers get started using OpenGL ES on the desktop. Give OpenGL ES 2.0 a try today and let us know what you think!
Nick Haemel is a Software Development Engineer on the AMD OpenGL team. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
POSTED IN: Inside Dev Central
TAGS: ATI FireGL, ATI FirePro, ATI Radeon, embedded, OpenGL
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COMMENTS: 19
Great news, but RenderMonkey will be updated to use this API instead of the provided emulator ?
Sorry, RenderMonkey is no longer in active development and won’t be updated to support this.
Pingback: EGL & OpenGL ES Come to Windows at Vladimir Vukićević
Are there any beta drivers for Linux available?
Not yet, but stay tuned…
Is OpenGL ES 2.0 is compatible for NOKIA branded phones? If not , which mobile phones support this?
Rajeshshah
I have Nokia N900 and it supports OpenGL ES 2
Great news! When should we expect 10.8 to come out?
Doesn’t look like the drivers have a static libEGL and libGLES to link against. The ATI sample has the user pull out the function addresses with eglGetProcAddress() which is not conformant.
from the EGL 1.4 spec
eglGetProcAddress may not be queried for core (non-extension) functions in EGL or client APIs.
Step in the right direction, but not there yet.
Does the development still need the libEGL adn libGLES from the emulator?
Unhandled exception at 0×00000000 in eglSample.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation.
I compile the example, and it report the error above.
It seems that there’s problem import func. Anyone help me, please.
Finally run the program without access violation. I add a variable called loaded. If the loaded variable is false, the WM_SIZE won’t called the ResizeViewport. And after the loading gles entrypoints, the loaded variable is set true. And the WM_SIZE will work. So it’s the problem of the sample. Please fix it. Thank you.