Raspberry Pi 4's OpenGL Driver Development Update

As we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible with the Raspberry Pi, our team at Igalia has been hard at work developing new features for the open source VC4 and V3D OpenGL drivers used by Raspberry Pi. In this post, we'd like to share some updates on our progress and give you a glimpse into what's in store for the future.

Before diving into the technical details, let's provide some context about the GPU hardware and current driver status for Raspberry Pi 4. The VideoCore VI GPU that comes bundled with Raspberry Pi 4 is capable of OpenGL ES 3.2, a significant step up from the VideoCore IV found in Raspberry Pi 3, which only supported OpenGL ES 2.0.

Our team has been working tirelessly to learn about the V3D GPU hardware and Eric's driver design over the past few months. We're proud to say that we've made good progress and are excited to share some of our recent contributions with you.

As many of you may know, Eric Anholt, the original developer of the open source VC4 and V3D OpenGL drivers used by Raspberry Pi, is no longer actively developing these drivers. However, a team from Igalia has stepped in to continue his work, ensuring that the community continues to benefit from these important projects.

In this article, we'll take a closer look at some of our recent contributions to the driver and share our plans for the future. So, without further ado, let's dive into the technical details.

Blender opengl 4.3