this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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Can somebody explain the graphics stack? Vulkan, OpenGL, Magma, DirectX, SDL, Metal, Mesa, ... wat? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 week ago by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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I just read "Google Continues Working On "Magma" For Mesa Cross-Platform System Call Interface" on Phoronix and didn't get it. That made me realise my knowledge and understanding of these things is barely existent. I did write an MS paint clone on linux in C++ a really long time ago and the entire thing was with opengl (it looked like crap), but since then... nothing.

So my understanding is that the graphics card (or CPU if there's no graphics card), writes to a component which is connected to a screen and every cycle (every 1/60 seconds if 60Hz) the contents are sent or read by the screen. OpenGL provided a common interface to do so, but has been outdated since... a while and replaced by Vulkan. Then there are libraries either built on top of are parallel to OpenGL. Vulkan can be parallel or use OpenGL if that's the only one supported IIRC.
However, I'm not sure if OpenGL is implemented at the hardware level (on the graphics card), software level, or both.

Furthermore, I don't understand where Magma, Meta, and MESA come in.

Maybe my core understanding is wrong or just outdated. I can't tell. Can anybody eplain?

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[โ€“] Kissaki@programming.dev 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

OpenGL is an API standard. It defines data structures, operation interfaces, and behavior.

Mesa 3D is an implementation of OpenGL. It can be used so users of OpenGL can call it to draw stuff.

Vulkan is a newer API standard. It is newer and was designed with a lot of new hardware and hardware capabilities in mind, and significantly reduced what the job of the API is supposed to do compared to OpenGL. Essentially giving API users many more opportunities to control graphics pipeline behavior for better efficiency and performance. Libraries and frameworks exist that provide more convenience and prepared setup or opinionated usage patterns on top of Vulkan.

DirectX had a similar shift with DirectX version 12, which also implemented closer-to-hardware APIs similar to Vulkan vs OpenGL.

/edit: Noteworthy are also OpenGL and Vulkan extensions. They extend the core API with additional APIs. An app can check if they are supported, and if the driver supports it, can use them.

[โ€“] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Thanks, this answers the questions I asked another commentor ๐Ÿ˜… Now I have to ask if Mesa is an implementation of OpenGL, what is an implementation of Vulkan? Or is the reference implementation of Vulkan also called "Vulkan" ?

Edit: alright @who@feddit.org answered the question.

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[โ€“] who@feddit.org 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mesa 3D is an implementation of OpenGL.

And OpenCL.
And VAAPI.
And Vulkan.
And more.

https://docs.mesa3d.org/

[โ€“] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 5 days ago

Lol, OK, you just answered the exact question I had! Amazing. Thank you.

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[โ€“] wewbull@feddit.uk 8 points 1 week ago

Just to add to that, a lot of the confusion comes from Microsoft and Apple wanting to lock applications to their platforms.

  • Direct X was Microsoft's competitor to OpenGL. Versions 3 to 11 were largely feature for feature comparable with the OpenGL version of the time.
  • Direct X V12 and Vulkan compete in the same way.
  • Metal is Apple's Vulkan