Valve makes translation layer from Direct3D to OpenGL open source

Valve has made public the translation layer the company itself uses for many of its Linux ports. “ToGL” is not officially supported by Valve and is not easy to use, but can still be useful for developers of Linux ports.

Pierre-Loup Griffais of Valve announced on GitHub that the translation layer is now open source. The component was taken directly from the source code of Dota 2 and, according to Griffais, supports a limited part of DirectX 9.0c. Also, bytecode can be translated from hlsl to glsl and the Shader Model 3.0 is supported. There are still some Source Engine elements incorporated in the code that still need to be removed.

Valve itself is highly committed to Linux. For example, Linux ports of Portal 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are in the works, and practically every game from Valve has been ported to Linux. Valve is also working on its own operating system: SteamOS. Gabe Newell has argued in the past that Linux and open source are the future of gaming, so Valve’s move isn’t exactly a surprise; games that can be ported to OpenGL using this translation layer can go straight to Valve’s SteamOS, which runs on Linux and OpenGL.