OS/2 and ArcaOS.

I would like to ask, that OpenGL v4.6, the OpenGL Shader language, the development system and documentation, be ported over to OS/2 4.00, and to ArcaOS. ArcaOS is based on the fully updated OS/2 Warp 4 Merlin Convenience Pack 2 (MCP pack 2 for short), and is sold by Arca Noae. Everything else that’s developed here, including OpenVR, can be ArcaOS only ports.

Unfortunately, both OS/2 Warp 4 and ArcaOS are still stuck on OpenGL v1.0, though there is a v1.1 update available, that also has some of OpenGL v1.2 in it. As it stands, ArcaOS, and OS/2 Warp 4 in general, has fallen way behind in terms of graphics API’s, and I would like this to be redressed.

Link to Arca Noae below.

Edit:

I nearly forgot to say, that Arca Noae has licensed the Scitech Snap drivers, and will be using it to add higher resolutions and colour depths, to ArcaOS. Important, considering the maximum resolutions and colour depths, that graphics cards and monitors can handle, these days.

Plenty of views, but no replies, yet. Shame.

Also, it may be better if the OpenGL Developers were to port over the current version Hardware Drivers to OS/2 and ArcaOS. This does make sense, as the OpenGL Developers know these drivers. So they’ll know how to properly port the drivers over. I do know it’ll take time and money to do this. But once the drivers have been ported over, OpenGL itself, and the Shader Language, can also be ported over.

OpenGL is not a software library and there are no “OpenGL developers”. There is an OpenGL specification and hardware vendors implement that specification in their drivers. Each hardware vendor’s implementation is developed by that hardware vendor, not by any central body, and is not portable to other vendor’s hardware. You would need to petition each hardware vendor individually for this.

Also, the fact that ArcaOS is a proprietary OS, close-sourced and most probably with few users, will not help hardware vendors implementing drivers in that OS.
You can however try to build Mesa3D. I highly doubt you’ll succeed. And if you will, I believe that you’ll have to stick with a full software implementation of OpenGL.

Whew!!

If only this had been explained, before now! Sorry, everyone, I’m not jumping on anyone. Just saying, is all.

Another thing I’ve learned, since my original post, is that the Panorama drivers aren’t really drivers, if you understand what I mean. All they do, really, is to use the graphics card BIOS, to provide the resolutions and colour depths needed. The problem, is that there are different VESA BIOS’s out there, and there’ll be differences in the VESA specification.

Also, I haven’t received an update from Arca Noae on the porting over of the higher resolutions and colour depths I mentioned. By way of higher resolutions and colour depths, I mean those above 1600 x 1200 DPI, with up to 32bit colour depth.

It has also occurred to me, that since Arca Noae has licensed the Scitech Snap Drivers, they could port over the current version 3D Hardware Acceleration Drivers for those graphics drivers contained in the Scitech Driver Package. Just those ones, I think, for now. It would be up to Arca Noae, I think, to petition the graphics card manufacturers, to port the rest over to their graphics cards.

It has been explained, multiple times, but it always comes up again. I believe it’s a combination of two factors: the word “open” in the name (which is actually nothing whatsoever to do with open source, and OpenGL actually pre-dates the open source movement) plus the fact that OpenGL drivers are available on Linux OSs leads people to a bunch of very incorrect assumptions about what OpenGL is and how it works.