The format of the GL_RENDERER string returned by glGetString() is not
specified by the OpenGL spec. However, I believe it's worthwhile to
have an unofficial standard for the format of this string for Linux
drivers.
I'm not proposing this should be part of the "OpenGL ABI for Linux"
standard. This is just a heads-up for our plans with the DRI project,
and probably the UtahGLX project.
Here's the format:
"[Mesa | SI] [DRI | UtahGLX] <card> <version> <card-specific>"
"Mesa" indicates it's a Mesa-based renderer. "SI" might indicate
an SI-based renderer.
"DRI" or "UtahGLX" would indicate either a DRI or UtahGLX-based
driver.
<card> is a string (w/out whitespace) identifying the hardware.
Examples: "Voodoo3", "G400", "i810", "RagePro", etc.
<version> is a version number for the driver in the format YYYYMMDD.
Whether this is a release date, compile date, etc isn't too
important. It's just a way to for end users to compare their
driver's version to what might be available for download from
a website. It may also be used to identify driver versions for tech
support and in bug reports.
<card-specific> (the remainder of the string) can be anything which
might further describe the hardware, such as amount of memory, SLI
mode, etc. The format of this part is dependant on <card>. Whitespace
is legal.
-Brian
