[Mesa-dev] Gallium3D and Glide

[Brian Paul]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Blaž Tomažič <blaz.tomazic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Mesa developers,
>
> I am really interested in Gallium3D and I'm thinking about a project for
> my diploma (I think this is the same as bachelor's degree) on a computer
> university. I'm thinking about writing a Glide state tracker for
> Gallium3D. I know that Glide hasn't been used for a decade, but I think
> it would be relatively "easy" to implement an old 3D API and a great way
> to learn a part of Gallium3D on the way.
>
> Some old games (only Glide: Need for Speed 2; Glide and OpenGL: Unreal,
> Quake 2) used Glide API for rendering and Gallium3D could therefore
> accelerate them on newer hardware and more importantly, render them with
> nicer graphics instead of software rendering as is with some glide only
> games. I don't know if there were any Linux games, but Gallium3D works
> on Windows too if I'm not mistaken.
>
> So I have a few question for you:
>  - How hard and how much work would be involved in implementing such an
> API? (Any help on implementing it would be welcomed and appreciated of
> course)
>  - Are Glide to OpenGL wrappers a better solution because of changing
> nature of Gallium3D interface? (Personally I think they are, but I would
> like to work directly on Gallium)
>  - Do you think this project would fit well in Gallium3D or do you have
> any other/better proposals for a project including Gallium3D?

I don't mean to discourage you, but I this probably wouldn't be a very
good project.

The Glide API and 3dfx hardware is lacking in a number of areas,
particularly shaders.  Gallium was intended for newer hardware so it
wouldn't be a good fit for this older technology.

I'm sure there are other projects you could do related to
OpenGL/gallium if that's where your interest lies.  Other people on
this list might have some ideas.  I could probably come up with a few
otherwise.  What do you think?

-Brian