lower opengl requirements for software gsdx?

[Gusar]

Intel Ironlake only provides opengl 2.1, not enough for GSdx. ZZogl runs when compiled for Cg, but at 5fps, so way too slow. I suspect a driver bug, but Intel stop caring about Ironlake years ago, so I don't expect anything to happen in this area.

I have an old compile of GSdx which used SDL for software. It works well, at least with Final Fantasy X that I'm playing currently. But I'd prefer to use the latest GSdx version.

So, would it be possible to make GSdx software run on Intel Ironlake and other GPUs that don't provide enough for hardware GSdx?

[ssakash]

In software mode, only a rendering of a Texture quad is done. you don't even need the recent API's to do those stuffs.

[gregory]

Well ZZogl has only an HW renderer. Way too much for your GPU.

The theory rendering a quad doesn't need an advance API. The reality,
1/ GSdx has only one engine to draw stuff. It is used for both SW/HW renderer.
2/ opengl 2/3 api sucks
3/ opengl 2.1 is from 2006 and ironlake from 2010
4/ Intel drop the support of your GPU
5/ Unsupported GPU is less than 3% of the market (steam stat)

I'm not against a new gl implementation to support only SW/GL2. Personally I prefer spend my time to improve GSdx for the remaining 97%. New hardwares are released every years so maybe it is time to think about an upgrade.

[Gusar]

Well ZZogl has only an HW renderer. Way too much for your GPU.

GSdx does quite a good job in Windows using d3d9 (the last time I tried, which was some years ago ). But it's been a long time since I've had Windows on this machine, and I wouldn't want to dual-boot just to play ps2 games.

I'm not against a new gl implementation to support only SW/GL2. Personally I prefer spend my time to improve GSdx for the remaining 97%.

That's fully understandable.

New hardwares are released every years so maybe it is time to think about an upgrade.

My main machine is Haswell, so I'm covered . For the Ironlake machine, I'll keep around the old SDL version then. Until it stops working.

[gregory]

You can't compare them. DirectX9/10 (your gpu support dx10) is faster than Gl2. The quality of the driver isn't really the same. So Win driver > lnx driver + Dx > gl2 => d3d win >> gl on lnx. Besides Gsdx has more optimization than zzogl.