RadeonSI / Gallium3D Wires In Support For 64-bit Integers

Within Mesa Git this morning is another feature flipped on for the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver: ARB_gpu_shader_int64.

The ARB_gpu_shader_int64 extension provides 64-bit integer support in the driver, just as ARB_gpu_shader_fp64 is for floating-point data types. All the technical details on it via the Khronos registry.

The ARB_gpu_shader_int64 extension is a post-4.5 feature and thus not currently part of any released OpenGL specification version. INT64 support won't be a big deal for gamers, but alas it's another feature that can be scratched off the list for Mesa 17.1. There still are more than one dozen other extensions though that are post-4.5 that have yet to be implemented by the Mesa drivers, a number of which can be useful for games on Linux.

With the work that landed today in Mesa Git, it's now enabled in the Gallium3D space not only for the RadeonSI driver but also the Softpipe and LLVMpipe drivers too. On the Intel side, 64-bit integers are supported for Broadwell graphics and newer.