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Welcome to the MSOpenTech ANGLE wiki!

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1. What is ANGLE?
2. Which versions of OpenGL ES are supported?
3. Where to get ANGLE
4. Requirements for using ANGLE
5. [Quick start from source] (#quickstartfromsource)
6. Sample code and tutorials
7. Improve your ANGLE app's performance
8. Known issues and Breaking Changes
9. Contributing to ANGLE
10. Any more questions?

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What is ANGLE?

ANGLE allows Windows users to seamlessly run OpenGL ES content by efficiently translating OpenGL ES API into DirectX 11 API calls.

The ms-master branch in this repository is maintained by Microsoft to support the use of ANGLE by Windows Store app developers. It contains:

• A copy of ANGLE that is regularly updated from the ANGLE master branch
• Recent changes made by Microsoft that have not yet been merged back to ANGLE master (our goal is to eventually merge everything, but if you want the latest and greatest Windows Store features, you will find them here first)
• Documentation and project templates focused on Windows Store app development
• Sample code and utilities such as DDS and WIC texture loaders
• This branch is the source for building the ANGLE binaries that we publish on NuGet

ANGLE fully supports these C++ app types:

• Universal Windows apps (Windows 10)
• Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 apps
• Windows desktop applications

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What versions of OpenGL ES does ANGLE support?

ANGLE supports different versions of OpenGL ES depending on the capabilities of the underlying hardware. In particular, the supported version depends on which D3D Feature Levels the hardware supports:

Hardware Feature Levels	Example devices	What does ANGLE support?
11_1 11_0 10_1 10_0	Modern Desktop PCs Surface Pros	OpenGL ES 2.0 Parts of OpenGL ES 3.0
9_3	Windows Phones	OpenGL ES 2.0 (except minor corner cases)
9_2 9_1	Surface RT	OpenGL ES 2.0 (via software emulation)
None	Raspberry Pi 2	OpenGL ES 2.0 (via software emulation)

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Getting ANGLE

There are three ways to get ANGLE for Windows Store applications:

1. Use Visual Studio 2015's OpenGL ES template, targeting Windows (via ANGLE), iOS and Android
2. Download compiled ANGLE binaries as a NuGet package. Instructions are available here
3. Download and compile the ANGLE source code from this GitHub repository

Option 3 has also includes some additional Visual Studio app templates:

• Learn more about installing our Visual Studio templates!
• Visit this wiki page for help with deciding which template (e.g. CoreWindow vs XAML) is most suitable for your app.

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Requirements for using ANGLE

Windows 10 Development:

• Visual Studio 2015 Community or higher
• Windows 10 for local Windows development

Windows 8.1 and/or Windows Phone 8.1 Development:

• Visual Studio Community 2013 (Update 4), or higher/later.
• Windows 8.1 for local Windows development.

Clasic Windows (Desktop) Development:

• Visual Studio 2015 Community or higher.

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Quick start from source

1. Clone or download ANGLE from our GitHub repository
2. Install our easy-to-use Visual Studio templates by running install.bat in the /templates/ directory of your copy of ANGLE, or follow these manual steps.
3. Open the appropriate ANGLE Visual Studio solution for your project, and build all flavors of it
4. In Visual Studio go "File -> New -> Project", create a new ANGLE application, and hit F5 to run it!

The Windows 10 Visual Studio solution for ANGLE is located here:

• /winrt/10/windows/src/angle.sln

The Windows 8.1 Visual Studio solutions for ANGLE are located here:

• /winrt/8.1/windows/src/angle.sln
• /winrt/8.1/windowsphone/src/angle.sln

The Visual Studio solution for Windows desktop applications is located here:

• /src/angle.sln

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Sample code and tutorials

Initialization:

• Choosing a Visual Studio template
• Initializing ANGLE on D3D11 Feature Level 9

Imaging:

• Loading compressed images into ANGLE (for example: DDS, BC, DXT, ETC)
• Loading general image files into ANGLE (for example: JPEG, PNG, BMP)

Debugging:

• Performing basic OpenGL ES graphics debugging with ANGLE (Coming soon!)
• Using Microsoft's Graphics Diagnostics (formerly PIX) with ANGLE (Coming soon!)

Performance:

• Avoiding recompiling shaders by saving/restoring program binaries
• Scaling your app to run at a different resolution on the device
• Gaining performance by using Instancing

Windows Store Application Certifcation:

• Supporting the Windows Store Certification D3D Device Trim requirement

Interop between OpenGL ES code and DirectX code:

• Using other DirectX content within ANGLE rendering, and vice-versa

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Improve your ANGLE app's performance

Here is a list of best practices for using ANGLE on Windows devices.

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Known issues and Breaking Changes

Here are the known issues with ANGLE, which we are either trying to fix or are unable to fix.

Here are the recent breaking changes that we have made, which might affect your app if you update to the latest version of ANGLE.

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Contributing to ANGLE

If you wish to contribute to ANGLE, then please contribute to the master version of ANGLE. Your change can then be merged back into MSOpenTech/ANGLE.

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Any more questions?

Please feel free to file an issue on this GitHub repository, or email any of the Microsoft contributors.