With the Vulkan backend development going underway, I was wondering what they're planning on doing with the GLES 3 backend. I'm hoping they still keep it because my GPU does not support vulkan, and it would suck a lot to drop to GLES 2 because of that.
I don't know for sure, but making a Vulkan-only engine is pretty daring, since it will exclude a lot of end-users. And this news article seems to imply that there will be a continuing support for OpenGL. So, that'll be a reserved "no".
Thank you for your answer, but I think I'll wait for one that's a little more, Mmmmmmmmmm definite.
I don't know for sure, but I believe the plan for Godot 4.1 is to support Vulkan for most platforms, and OpenGL ES 2 for more resource limited platforms.
According to the initial plans back in 2018, there will be support for OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenGL ES 2.0, and Vulkan until Vuklan support is ready, and then OpenGL ES 3 may be deprecated and removed.
For a while, we will then offer three backends to choose from: OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 3.0, and Vulkan (the default, when ready). Once the Vulkan backend is well tested and proven to fulfill everything we need it to, the OpenGL ES 3.0 backend might be deprecated and replaced.
That said, I'm not sure if plans have changed since then. Personally I hope they keep OpenGL ES 3.0 around for awhile, as my GPU just barely supports Vulkan.
GLES 2 will still be there, but from what I understand GLES 3 renderer will be removed, not just deprecated. I could be mistaken though.
@SIsilicon28 said: With the Vulkan backend development going underway, I was wondering what they're planning on doing with the GLES 3 backend. I'm hoping they still keep it because my GPU does not support vulkan, and it would suck a lot to drop to GLES 2 because of that.
Is you game needs features that Godot GLES 2 doesn't provide ?
@NeoD said:
@SIsilicon28 said: With the Vulkan backend development going underway, I was wondering what they're planning on doing with the GLES 3 backend. I'm hoping they still keep it because my GPU does not support vulkan, and it would suck a lot to drop to GLES 2 because of that.
Is you game needs features that Godot GLES 2 doesn't provide ?
I have, and will have projects where I need GLES 3 for features such as HDR rendering and certain shader features like derivatives. My GPU does support OpenGL 4, but no compute shaders. :P But I'm ok with that. I'm always trying to find ways to do things that normally use compute shaders. For example, it's possible to implement forward clustered rendering without compute shaders. Just set up the lighting data on the CPU end, and pass the data to the shaders via a buffer texture or something. I mean GLES 3.0 introduced transform feedbacks, which is required for Godot's GPU based particles. Now I'd be okay with using the CPU variant, if they even allow you to modify the particles by code! You might as well just implement your own particle system.
I hope this didn't sound like a rant. I did not intend for it to sound like that.
NeoD Is you game needs features that Godot GLES 2 doesn't provide ?
Hi.
Is there a list somewhere of which features OpenGL 2 version doesn't provide ?
When creating a new project it tells me that "some functions will not be available" if i choose OpenGL 2 but I don't know which.
Since I don't need anything overly complex I guess open GL 2 should be enough, but I'd like to be sure.
It's mostly special effects, like full screen glow, depth of field, and those types of effects. So 2D games, or even simple 3D games, GLES 2.0 is enough. But if you are working on a 3D game with better graphics, you'd want GLES 3.0.
We're heavily necroing :-)
Don't confuse OpenGL and OpenGL ES, which are very different in functionality. But ES can be seen as a subset of OpengGL, though grossly stripped. Also, OpenGL and ES, just like Vulkan, have a long list of extensions that make up for a lot if their functionality.
There are a lot of differences in the back end between OpenGL ES 2 and ES 3. Godot 4.0 renders with Vulkan as of now, in future (4.x) some sort of OpenGL, presumably ES 3, as well as to satisfy commercial needs and deeds a DirectX 12 back-end.
For people making games with the Godot editor the differences certainly are/will be documented somewhere. I have seen a docu page in the Godot 3.x documentation that mention the differences as far as Godot is concerned. For people extending the engine, well they have to take up the struggle with Vulkan.
Yeah, might be good just to make a new thread, as this one is super old and has outdated information. As far as I know, Godot on desktop has always used regular OpenGL. OpenGL ES is used on mobile. However, to make things simpler, the desktop GL implementation is restricted to the features and functions available in ES, that way they work the same.
