OpenGL ES 2.0 doesn’t have support for either gl_InstanceID or glDrawElementsInstanced. Then inside the vertex shader you can use that value to reference shader constants and read the required data to transform that particular mesh instance. There are various approaches but the basic idea is to have the hardware reissue the mesh list N times, while at the same time incrementing a value in the shader called gl_InstanceID. Other APIs (including big brother OpenGL since version 3.1, and ES since version 3.0) work around this issue by using a feature called instancing. In plain OpenGL ES 2.0 there is no way to draw a single mesh N times, with N different transforms, in a single draw call. Unfortunately changing the transform implies a draw call. To make it look nice you want to give each mesh its own transform you have complete freedom on where to locate or rotate it. For example a grass mesh, or maybe some weird alien equivalent. Say that you want to repeat a mesh, many times, in a 3D scene. Modern GPUs, including those in smartphones, are very powerful and properly optimized have enormous throughput. One of the things I wanted to do was put a lot of detail on the planet surface. We wanted to do a game about planet exploration and colonization, with randomly generated maps. The first prototype of what became The Spatials was in full 3D. The first tool you use should probably be lspci, but if you are interested in more details is you can use lshw.Įxample from my laptop: prompt>lspci | grep VGAĠ0:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)Ġ1:00.Faking mesh instancing in OpenGL ES 2.0 14 August, 2014 For Intel, there are only open source drivers. They are called nvidia-current for nvidia and fglrx for ATI. If your check turns up that your hardware supports OpenGL 2.0 (which most do), you can try the proprietary drivers. Ubuntu comes with open source versions, which are not bad, but generally a step behind the proprietary drivers released by the graphic card manufacturers (which are often referred to as binary drivers or proprietary drivers). There are multiple video drivers for each chip generation for Linux. To be able to run OpenGL libraries, you also need a driver which supports them. Remember that these only say which version the hardware supports. GeForce 7 series if you have a GeForce 7600 GS NVidia graphic cards - here you have to click to the page for the correct generation, e. Then go to Wikipedia's comparison tables for video cards to find out the OpenGL version your card supports. Read through the list until you have seen something about ATI or nVidia or one of Intel's models. This lists everything connected over PCI or PCI express, including the video card. I am afraid you'll have to open the command line of your first day of Linux (don't worry, happened to me too).

Use only opengl es 2.0