14 DAY TRIAL // Collabora's Emil Velikov announced today, January 19, 2017, the availability of the first of many Release Candidate (RC) development versions of the upcoming and highly anticipated Mesa 17.0.0 3D Graphics Library.
Mesa 17 is shaping up to be a huge milestone that should dramatically improve the performance of the bundled open-source graphics drivers for Intel, AMD Radeon, Nvidia graphics cards on a Linux-based operating system. Just the other day it enabled OpenGL 4.5 support for Intel Haswell GPUs, which is already a big achievement.
It also looks like Mesa 17 3D Graphics Library is bringing OpenGL 4.0 or later support for 7th-generation Intel Core graphics thanks to the joint contributions of various Intel and Igalia developers. Additionally, there will be OpenGL 4.0 support for Intel Ivy Bridge GPUs as well in the upcoming Mesa 17 stable branch.
"With the above work, the Intel Linux driver will provide the same [or even greater] functionality than the respective Windows and Android ones, across the board. This is a very huge milestone, which should not go unmentioned," said Emil Velikov, Software Release Engineer at Collabora, in a mailing list announcement.
Mesa 17.0.0 to be released in early February
Improving the Linux Intel open-source graphics driver to be on par or even better than its Windows and Android counterparts is indeed a massive milestone, but Mesa 17.0.0 3D Graphics Library will include hundreds of improvements and bug fixes that should boost the performance of your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
In other words, Mesa 17 promises a better Linux gaming experience, especially if you're using an older Intel or AMD Radeon GPU. The first Release Candidate (RC) version is now available for download if you want to test drive it on your favorite OS, and the final release is expected in early February 2017.
In time, Mesa 17.0.0 will replace the current Mesa 13.0 stable branch, which will be supported with bi-weekly point releases until after the release of the first maintenance update of Mesa 17 later this spring. Until then, if you can't wait, you can always use Mesa Git if you're on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu 16.10.