OpenGL support in Linux

    [EXPERIMENTAL] RetroPlayer: OpenGL hardware rendering for game clients by sunlollyking · Pull Request #151 · garbear/xbmc
    Paired with kodi-game/game.libretro#164, which must land alongside this one — the Game API version moves to 7.0.0. How strictly Kodi should refuse older…
    github.com

    I've managed to get OpenGl support built into garbears retroplayer repo and now have successfully built a libreelec image generic image.

    I'm after some good critique and testing from you all if possible. Aware this is fairly thrown together but if it all works I'd love to keep chipping away and get it into Kodi and LE.

    Please test review and give me all feedback

    sunlollyking There was a time where LE13 development images used GL instead, but as GLES now has feature parity with GL in Kodi (and surpasses GL in a few areas) we switched LE13 back to GLES again. The buildsystem supports a Generic 'OpenGL' build target if you want to make one for testing, but we have no plan to release GL images.

    NB: I spotted a comment from you in a Kodi PR/Issue thread about lack of testing hardware. Drop me an email on my username @ LE or Kodi domains.

    Cool no worries - i'm nearly finished down this path currently - this build is just for my personal use I just thought i'd open and share the work.

    If GLES is the strategic route - i think once i've got OpenGL working great on my instance i'll see how easy it is to port to GLES and hopefully once working we can then see how to get it merged in.

    I've managed to get GLES all up running and it's running all cores. It does seem to have broken shaders (Video filters) so just working through some kinks on this.

    In terms of merge strategy i'm thinking i'll try and get the OpenGL branch in first allowing regular linux folks to use OpenGL and then it's only a small diff ++ to get GLES working so i'll then work on getting that merged. I'll share the branch and a PR hopefully next week - but as always keen on any reviews.

    FYI the Linux flatpak for Piers has switched to GLES too, so maybe non-LE, non-flatpak users will stress test the GL pathway, but it may not be the overwhelming majority that once did.

    IMHO the OpenGL path is probably most-used among Kodi overall, due to most of the big distros packaging it, but the preferred direction among the folks currently active and working on Kodi is OpenGLES, so that may evolve and change over time.