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Valve Has Posted Their Direct3D To OpenGL Translation Layer Onto Github

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Well this was a surprising move, Valve creators of Steam have posted their Direct3D to OpenGL translation layer onto github.

Features
  • Limited subset of Direct3D 9.0c
  • Bytecode-level HLSL -> GLSL translator
  • Some SM3 support: Multiple Render Targets, no Vertex Texture Fetch


It is provided as-is and with no support, it may be useful for projects like Wine and for other developers looking to make the porting job easier.

They have left in some hardcoded Source Engine stuff as it was literally ripped out from DOTA2.

Find it on github here.

I do wonder if many people will take advantage of it, imagine how big a project this could be if a few developers pick it up and work on it removing things like hardcoded Source Engine behaviour, more documentation etc. It could enable some bigger AAA games to get ported to Linux faster (or give them more of an incentive to try), but that's just my wishful thinking. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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5 comments

Bart Mar 11, 2014
Surely this is a good thing. Valve wants SteamOS support and this can enable some developers a shorter path to achieve it.
aaaaaaaa Mar 11, 2014
as far as i remember wine uses their own WGL layer, not classic OpenGL. this kinda makes me wonder if there could be anything beside reference implementations of some methods and maybe shader converter, since shaders were always piss poor on wine.

but, living as its own project i could see a lot of worth if it people would start on improving it. painless porting would be the 1st result
Speedster Mar 11, 2014
Ok this is the sort of present that those who grumbled about gifting of non-free games to debian/ubuntu devs should be impressed with! Way to go Valve!
s_d Mar 11, 2014
Yes, bravo! :D

Also, Valve appear to have released it using their own variant of a 2-clause BSD-style license.
TPLAR Mar 24, 2014
I wished if AMD released her Mantle for linux then the whole story would change but unfortunately ...
but still good to c such a thing.^_^
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