2 <title>Wine and OpenGL</title>
5 Written by &name-lionel-ulmer; <email>&email-lionel-ulmer;</email>,
6 last modification : 2000/06/13
9 (Extracted from <filename>wine/documentation/opengl</filename>)
12 <sect1 id="opengl-required">
13 <title>What is needed to have OpenGL support in Wine</title>
16 Basically, if you have a Linux OpenGL ABI compliant libGL
17 (<ulink url="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/ABI/">
18 http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/ABI/</ulink>)
19 installed on your computer, you should everything that is
23 To be more clear, I will detail one step after another what
24 the <command>configure</command> script checks.
27 If, after Wine compiles, OpenGL support is not compiled in,
28 you can always check <filename>config.log</filename> to see
29 which of the following points failed.
33 <title>Header files</title>
36 The needed header files to build OpenGL support in Wine are :
41 <term><filename>gl.h:</filename></term>
44 the definition of all OpenGL core functions, types and enumerants
49 <term><filename>glx.h:</filename></term>
52 how OpenGL integrates in the X Window environment
57 <term><filename>glext.h:</filename></term>
60 the list of all registered OpenGL extensions
67 The latter file (<filename>glext.h</filename>) is, as of
68 now, not necessary to build Wine. But as this file can be
69 easily obtained from SGI
70 (<ulink url="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/ABI/glext.h">
71 http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/ABI/glext.h</ulink>),
72 and that all OpenGL should provide one, I decided to keep it here.
77 <title>OpenGL library thread-safety</title>
80 After that, the script checks if the OpenGL library relies
81 or not on the pthread library to provide thread safety (most
82 'modern' OpenGL libraries do).
85 If the OpenGL library explicitly links in libpthread (you
86 can check it with a <command>ldd libGL.so</command>), you
87 need to force OpenGL support by starting
88 <command>configure</command> with the
89 <parameter>--enable-opengl</parameter> flag.
92 The reason to this is that Wine contains some hacks done by
93 Ove to cohabit with pthread that are known to work well in
94 most of the cases (glibc 2.1.x). On the other hand, we never
95 got Wine to work with glibc 2.0.6. Thus, I deemed preferable
96 to play it safe : by default, I suppose that the hack won't
97 work and that it's the user's responsibility to enable it.
100 Anyway, it should be pretty safe to build with
101 <parameter>--enable-opengl</parameter>.
106 <title>OpenGL library itself</title>
109 To check for the presence of 'libGL' on the system, the
110 script checks if it defines the
111 <function>glXCreateContext</function> function. There should
117 <title>glXGetProcAddressARB function</title>
120 The core of Wine's OpenGL implementation (at least for all
121 extensions) is the <function>glXGetProcAddressARB</function>
122 function. Your OpenGL library needs to have this function
123 defined for Wine to be able to support OpenGL.
126 If your library does not provide it, you are out of luck.
130 this is not completely true as one could rewrite a
131 <function>glXGetProcAddressARB</function> replacement
132 using <function>dlopen</function> and friends, but well,
133 telling people to upgrade is easier :-).
139 <sect1 id="opengl-configure">
140 <title>How to configure</title>
143 Configuration is quite easy : once OpenGL support has been
144 built in Wine, this internal OpenGL driver will be used each
145 time an application tries to load
146 <filename>opengl32.dll</filename>.
149 Due to restrictions (that do not exist in Windows) on OpenGL
150 contexts, if you want to prevent the screen to flicker when
151 using OpenGL applications (all games are using double-buffered
152 contexts), you need to set the following option in your
153 <filename>~/.wine/config</filename> file
154 in the [x11drv] section :
157 DesktopDoubleBuffered = Y
160 and to run Wine with the <parameter>--desktop</parameter>
165 <sect1 id="opengl-works">
166 <title>How it all works</title>
169 The core OpenGL function calls are the same between Windows
170 and Linux. So what is the difficulty to support it in Wine ?
171 Well, there are two different problems :
177 the interface to the windowing system is different for
178 each OS. It's called 'GLX' for Linux (well, for X Window)
179 and 'wgl' for Windows. Thus, one need first to emulate one
180 (wgl) with the other (GLX).
185 the calling convention between Windows (the 'Pascal'
186 convention or 'stdcall') is different from the one used on
187 Linux (the 'C' convention or 'cdecl'). This means that
188 each call to an OpenGL function must be 'translated' and
189 cannot be used directly by the Windows program.
195 Add to this some brain-dead programs (using GL calls without
196 setting-up a context or deleting three time the same context)
197 and you have still some work to do :-)
201 <title>The Windowing system integration</title>
204 This integration is done at two levels :
210 At GDI level for all pixel format selection routines (ie
211 choosing if one wants a depth / alpha buffer, the size
212 of these buffers, ...) and to do the 'page flipping' in
213 double buffer mode. This is implemented in
214 <filename>graphics/x11drv/opengl.c</filename> (all these
215 functions are part of Wine's graphic driver function
216 pointer table and thus could be reimplemented if ever Wine
217 works on another Windowing system than X).
222 In the <filename>OpenGL32.DLL</filename> itself for all
223 other functionalities (context creation / deletion,
224 querying of extension functions, ...). This is done in
225 <filename>dlls/opengl32/wgl.c</filename>.
232 <title>The thunks</title>
235 The thunks are the Wine code that does the calling
236 convention translation and they are auto-generated by a Perl
237 script. In Wine's CVS tree, these thunks are already
238 generated for you. Now, if you want to do it yourself, there
239 is how it all works....
242 The script is located in <filename>dlls/opengl32</filename>
243 and is called <command>make_opengl</command>. It requires
244 Perl5 to work and takes two arguments :
250 The first is the path to the OpenGL registry. Now, you
251 will all ask 'but what is the OpenGL registry ?' :-)
252 Well, it's part of the OpenGL sample implementation
253 source tree from SGI (more informations at this URL :
254 <ulink url="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/">
255 http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/</ulink>.
258 To summarize, these files contain human-readable but
259 easily parsed information on ALL OpenGL core functions
260 and ALL registered extensions (for example the
261 prototype, the OpenGL version, ...).
266 the second is the OpenGL version to 'simulate'. This
267 fixes the list of functions that the Windows application
268 can link directly to without having to query them from
269 the OpenGL driver. Windows is based, for now, on OpenGL
270 1.1, but the thunks that are in the CVS tree are
271 generated for OpenGL 1.2.
274 This option can have three values:
275 <literal>1.0</literal>, <literal>1.1</literal> and
276 <literal>1.2</literal>.
282 This script generates three files :
288 <filename>opengl32.spec</filename> gives Wine's linker
289 the signature of all function in the
290 <filename>OpenGL32.DLL</filename> library so that the
291 application can link them. Only 'core' functions are
297 <filename>opengl_norm.c</filename> contains all the
298 thunks for the 'core' functions. Your OpenGL library
299 must provide ALL the function used in this file as these
300 are not queried at run time.
305 <filename>opengl_ext.c</filename> contains all the
306 functions that are not part of the 'core' functions.
307 Contrary to the thunks in
308 <filename>opengl_norm.c</filename>, these functions do
309 not depend at all on what your libGL provides.
312 In fact, before using one of these thunks, the Windows
313 program first needs to 'query' the function pointer. At
314 this point, the corresponding thunk is useless. But as
315 we first query the same function in libGL and store the
316 returned function pointer in the thunk, the latter
324 <sect1 id="opengl-problems">
325 <title>Known problems - shortcomings</title>
328 <title>Missing GLU32.DLL</title>
331 GLU is a library that is layered upon OpenGL. There is a
332 100% correspondence between the
333 <filename>libGLU.so</filename> that is used on Linux and
334 <filename>GLU32.DLL</filename>.
337 As for the moment, I did not create a set of thunks to support this
338 library natively in Wine (it would easy to do, but I am waiting for
339 a better solution than adding another autogenerated thunk file), you
340 can always download anywhere on the net (it's free) a
341 <filename>GLU32.DLL</filename> file (by browsing, for example,
342 <ulink url="http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/index.shtml">
343 http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/index.shtml</ulink>).
348 <title>OpenGL not detected at configure time</title>
351 See section (I) for a detailed explanation of the
352 <filename>configure</filename> requirements.
357 <title>When running an OpenGL application, the screen flickers</title>
360 See section (II) for how to create the context
361 double-buffered and thus preventing this flicker effect.
366 <title>Wine gives me the following error message : </title>
369 Extension defined in the OpenGL library but NOT in opengl_ext.c...
370 Please report (&email-lionel-ulmer;) !
374 This means that the extension requested by the application
375 is found in the libGL used by Linux (ie the call to
376 <function>glXGetProcAddressARB</function> returns a
377 non-<constant>NULL</constant> pointer) but that this string
378 was NOT found in Wine's extension registry.
381 This can come from two causes :
387 The <filename>opengl_ext.c</filename> file is too old
388 and needs to be generated again.
393 Use of obsolete extensions that are not supported
394 anymore by SGI or of 'private' extensions that are not
395 registered. An example of the former are
396 <function>glMTexCoord2fSGIS</function> and
397 <function>glSelectTextureSGIS</function> as used by
398 Quake 2 (and apparently also by old versions of Half
399 Life). If documentation can be found on these functions,
400 they can be added to Wine's extension set.
406 If you have this, run with <parameter>--debugmsg
407 +opengl</parameter> and send me
408 <email>&email-lionel-ulmer;</email> the TRACE.
413 <title><filename>libopengl32.so</filename> is built but it is still not working</title>
416 This may be caused by some missing functions required by
417 <filename>opengl_norm.c</filename> but that your Linux
418 OpenGL library does not provide.
421 To check for this, do the following steps :
427 create a dummy <filename>.c</filename> file :
437 try to compile it by linking both libwine and
438 libopengl32 (this command line supposes that you
439 installed the Wine libraries in
440 <filename>/usr/local/lib</filename>, YMMV) :
443 gcc dummy.c -L/usr/local/lib -lwine -lopengl32
448 if it works, the problem is somewhere else (and you can
449 send me an email). If not, you could re-generate the
450 thunk files for OpenGL 1.1 for example (and send me your
451 OpenGL version so that this problem can be detected at
460 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
463 sgml-parent-document:("wine-devel.sgml" "set" "book" "part" "chapter" "")