This article is more than 1 year old

Valve set for OpenGL BIG REVEAL at upcoming conference

Gaming firm set to give details on glNext

Games giant Valve says it will release details about a promised successor to the OpenGL graphics API at a conference in San Francisco next month.

The company has scheduled a session for March 5 at the Games Developer Conference where it will talk about the new release of the graphics API in a presentation called glNext: The Future of High Performance Graphics.

"glNext will be the singular choice for developers who demand peak performance in their applications," the presentation's summary reads. "We will present a technical breakdown of the API, advanced techniques and live demos of real-world applications running on glNext drivers and hardware."

The hour-long presentation will also feature developers from Epic Games, Oxide Games, Electronic Arts and Unity Technologies.

Although OpenGL is maintained by nonprofit industry consortium the Khronos Group, Valve has good reason to take a particular stake in its development. The company's Linux-based SteamOS platform, which it hopes will become a viable alternative to the likes of the Xbox One and PS4, relies on the spec to deliver its gaming graphics.

The Khronos Group, meanwhile, has been enlisting outside developers in to help with the development of OpenGL. The company said in 2014 that it was looking for companies – including gaming studios – to help it develop a new generation of OpenGL designed for better support of multi-threading and management of both GPU and CPU hardware.

Khronos has admitted that OpenGL, now at 20 years of age, is in need of an overhaul to take better advantage of modern graphics hardware on both desktops and mobile devices.

As games developers make some of the most taxing software for GPU and CPUs on desktops, the studios have been seen as ideal advisors to Khronos in the development of the standard. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like