SWR Software Rasterizer Now Supports Geometry Shaders

[phoronix]

Phoronix: SWR Software Rasterizer Now Supports Geometry Shaders

Intel's "SWR" software rasterizer living within Mesa now has support for OpenGL geometry shaders...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-SWR-Geometry-Shaders

[Creak]

If you want a graphical representation and a comparison with the other software drivers:

https://mesamatrix.net/#Version_OpenGL3.2-GLSL1.50

[devius]

Why so many software rasterizers?

[smitty3268]

Why so many software rasterizers?

They each serve different purposes and excel at 1 niche.

It would be nice to merge swr and llvmpipe, but that would take a lot of work. (originally one was written by vmware and another by intel)

[devius]

They each serve different purposes and excel at 1 niche.

Which are...?

[cb88]

Which are...?

softpipe is a generic fallback that works everywhere period, it also serves as a testbed sometimes for new extensions. llvmpipe and swr are roughly in the same niche... faster software rendering on x86 cpus.

[andrei_me]

softpipe is a generic fallback that works everywhere period, it also serves as a testbed sometimes for new extensions. llvmpipe and swr are roughly in the same niche... faster software rendering on x86 cpus.

AFAIK swr were meant to be used on cluster rendering, like for bio molecular/chemical rendering, rendering stuff that doesn't fit on VRAM

[ldo17]

AFAIK swr were meant to be used on cluster rendering, like for bio molecular/chemical rendering...

This sounds like offline rendering, which wouldn’t use OpenGL anyway.

[smitty3268]

This sounds like offline rendering, which wouldn’t use OpenGL anyway.

Yes, it's designed for use with offline rendering of complex scenes with high levels of geometry.

llvmpipe is more geared towards rendering your 3D desktop in realtime. It does not handle lots of geometry very well, as it focuses more on threading the fragment shaders.