Per pixel lighting

[yossi]

Hello guys,
I would like to know how to implement per pixel lighting in OpenGL. I have heard that in Direct3D it his done by dot3product feature.
Can I do it in OpenGL?
Doe's the new extensions GL_EXT_TEX_ENV_COMBINE and GL_EXT_TEX_ENV_ADD makes life easier?
Can someone give me pointers to tutorial/articals that explain this issue?
Many thanks,
Yossi

[Quaternion]

Hi,
Try http://www.nvidia.com/developer.nsf
They have some demos and tutorials about it.
(Check the Advanced Per-Pixel Lighting demo).

Make sure you have one of the GeForce family installed http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif

[Moz]

Is it possible to do per-pixel lighting with something else than a Geforce?
If yes how?

And is there a way of doing it that is supported by more than one vendor?

[davepermen]

when you do the ppl without the registercombiners but with GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3, you can run it on geforce, geforce2, geforce3 (soon http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif) and radeon. voodoos are dead, and others have cards older than one year.. so these are the only to support currently..

[DFrey]

I wouldn't go so far as to say Voodoo cards were dead. Driver support for them is, but still, a lot of people have them. I'm sure if you were to ask any major game developer if they would release a product that didn't support Voodoo cards they would answer with a resounding no, for now.

[This message has been edited by DFrey (edited 02-21-2001).]

[mcraighead]

As far as I'm concerned, if it's not a GeForce, there's really no point supporting it.

http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif

- Matt

[j]

Why does everybody think that the NV20 is going to be called the GeForce3?

I haven't seen anything official from nVidia saying so.

When the GeForce256 was released, most people thought it would be the TNT3, but it wasn't.

That said, I think GeForce3 would be a cool name for a graphics card.

End Rant

Sorry, I don't know what came over me..... http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif

(edit): Just found out that the NV20 actually will be called GeForce3.

I guess that makes me look pretty stupid http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif


j

[This message has been edited by j (edited 02-22-2001).]

[DFrey]

If that ain't the definition of bias, I don't know what is Matt. http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/tongue.gif

[This message has been edited by DFrey (edited 02-21-2001).]

[DFrey]

Some website posted a picture of the alleged box for the Hercules NV20 based card and printed on the box in big bold green text was Geforce3.

[j]

Ah, I see.

[davepermen]

two things, first, you cant do much things with voodoos except rendering faces.. so when you support them, you can forget every nice thing of your geforce/radeon or even matrox..

second, i call it geforce3 because sometimes when i say nv20, guys dont know what it is.. but the geforce 1 and 2, everyone knows.. and then, as result, i say geforce3 so everyone knows what i mean (the nv20, in fact http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif)

[DFrey]

you cant do much things with voodoos except rendering faces
The same could be said of the majority of video cards in use. Remember, most people don't even know what video card their computer has much less contemplate upgrading it. You can write your programs to a limited audience if you want, but I would rather shoot for as large an audience as was practical. Especially since I'm one of the ones that does not have and can not afford anything better at the moment than my TNT.

Even if people do contemplate upgrading
their graphics card, many can't, because
it's built-into their north bridge or
soldered on the motherboard.

I'm hoping there is a future where hardware
transform & lighting is as available as
multitexturing is today. Oh, wait, the i810
doesn't multitexture, does it now?

[Humus]

Originally posted by mcraighead:
As far as I'm concerned, if it's not a GeForce, there's really no point supporting it.

http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif

- Matt

I think it's time for nVidia to change their attitude, many consumers really don't like it (me included). I think it's a shame that nVidia didn't take their responsibility for the 3dfx consumers after they bought up 3dfx. How much would it take to let a few of the old driver writers from 3dfx that you most likely have employed continue to update the drivers for Voodoo cards at least a year or so? No respect to the consumer => No consumer respect for you. If you looks at forums for gamers you'll see that most old Voodoo owners are upgrading to Radeons, while few goes for GF cards.

[mcraighead]

Geez, it was a joke, get over it.

As to your question -- how much would it take -- it would be a far bigger burden than you probably think, and at the same time, it would distract us from supporting _our_ customers and from focusing on producing future products. One of the concerns 3dfx management obviously had in looking for a deal was continued support for customers. However, I don't think a lot of people realize just how poor 3dfx's financial situation has been for the last 6 months. We've all heard horror stories about buying a product from a company that it turns out has gone out of business, leaving no options for support or product returns. If 3dfx had not made the deal they did, they probably would have _already_ shut down all end-user support, whereas if you go to their site today, you'll see that 3dfx customers still can get end-user support. (If you doubt me, a quick look at 3dfx's balance sheet should convince you that the company was really on death's door. Even though I did not know about the deal until the day it happened, it was plain as day to me last October that 3dfx as an independent company was done for. When I read message boards, I couldn't understand how so many folks could be in such deep denial about it.)

I remember when we were the "good guys". Now, for some strange reason, all sorts of people seem to think of us as some kind of "evil big corporation". As far as I can tell, not a single thing in our behavior has changed; we're simply on the other side of the "root for the underdog" equation. I don't understand it. If striving to always put out the best product and wanting to be part of a successful, industry-leading company is a crime, consider me guilty as charged.

- Matt

>When I read message boards, I couldn't
>understand how so many folks could be in
>such deep denial about it.

You just WAIT until the AMIGA comes back!

ELVIS will introduce it!

[LordKronos]

Originally posted by mcraighead:
Geez, it was a joke, get over it.

Actually, in a way, it wasnt a joke. As far as you are concerned, you get paid to update and fix drivers and provide developer support for the Geforce cards. Your job isnt to support Voodoos and Radeons, so in a matter of speeking, you were telling the truth http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif



[This message has been edited by LordKronos (edited 02-22-2001).]

[Siigron]

mcraighead, i think one of the reasons some people now consider NV a "bad company" is because back in the old days, there wasn't much proprietary features in your HW. sure, the TNT had 32-bit support and even a stencil buffer, but since the majority of the consumer boards didn't, almost no games supported it back then.
now the situation is different, and there are probably a few owners of 3Dfx video boards who don't like it when they take a look at their GeForce friends' bumpmapped games with perpixel lighting.
just a thought, i'm probably all wrong http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif

but i think NV should work more with ATI (and maybe Matrox, but ... well, we'll see what will happen to them in the next two years) to set more standards. i personally don't care about supporting Voodoo[1|2|3|4|5], but i do care about supporting Radeon since it is about equal to the GeForce in features.
the ARB doesn't have to approve the extensions, IMO. if there was something like NV_vertex_program and some pixel shader extension, and you both supported ATI's np_triangle extension, it would be just fine.
the important thing is that extensions are supported by multiple vendors, not that they are called "ARB_something".

i think NV is a damn fine company, i think ATI is almost as fine, but writing proprietary extensions is evil. and stupid... what's the point of having one NV pixel shader extension, and one ATI pixel shader extension? (ATI is working on one, and i assume you too are)

work together, take OpenGL to the skies, and i'll like you even more. i think that's enough ranting for today...

[Humus]

Originally posted by mcraighead:
Geez, it was a joke, get over it.

As to your question -- how much would it take -- it would be a far bigger burden than you probably think, and at the same time, it would distract us from supporting _our_ customers and from focusing on producing future products. One of the concerns 3dfx management obviously had in looking for a deal was continued support for customers. However, I don't think a lot of people realize just how poor 3dfx's financial situation has been for the last 6 months. We've all heard horror stories about buying a product from a company that it turns out has gone out of business, leaving no options for support or product returns. If 3dfx had not made the deal they did, they probably would have _already_ shut down all end-user support, whereas if you go to their site today, you'll see that 3dfx customers still can get end-user support. (If you doubt me, a quick look at 3dfx's balance sheet should convince you that the company was really on death's door. Even though I did not know about the deal until the day it happened, it was plain as day to me last October that 3dfx as an independent company was done for. When I read message boards, I couldn't understand how so many folks could be in such deep denial about it.)

I remember when we were the "good guys". Now, for some strange reason, all sorts of people seem to think of us as some kind of "evil big corporation". As far as I can tell, not a single thing in our behavior has changed; we're simply on the other side of the "root for the underdog" equation. I don't understand it. If striving to always put out the best product and wanting to be part of a successful, industry-leading company is a crime, consider me guilty as charged.

- Matt

I understood it was a joke, but it had the tone of the overall attitude I see coming more and more from nVidia these days. nVidias attitude has most definitely changed. The care for the customers is gone. (Riddle: If ATi and nVidia were to define the getCustomerSupport(char *problem) function, how would they differ?
A: nVidias would return void.)
I see nVidida walking the same way as M$ and Intel, and it's really sad. Sure, the underdog stuff is also a part of the equation. But in the end, ATi is the bigger company and have been so for a long time, but still they don't have that attitude. 3dfx lost many customers because of their attitude. I think nVidia will do it too now, and especially their potential customners (the old 3dfx customers).

[mcraighead]

Originally posted by Siigron:
writing proprietary extensions is evil. and stupid...

This is one of those attitudes that I simply do not understand at all.

The inescapable _fact_ is that 3D hardware is diverging. SGI previously set the standard (remember that what is today called "OpenGL" was previously a proprietary SGI standard). There were competing architectures, but the SGI architecture won out in the end.

Today, in the consumer space, people have finished copying virtually all of the SGI features. What does that mean? New innovation requires moving in _new_ directions. This means that new chips will be fundamentally _incompatible_ with each other.

This is not optional -- in fact, it is a prerequisite for innovation. If every company moved in the same direction, there would be no way for any one company to produce everything novel!

The inevitable result of this inevitable trend is that there will be more and more proprietary extensions.

Furthermore, design cycles are long enough that companies can't just "get together" and "agree" on a common feature set. Even if this does occur, the ARB is really not the best forum for it, for a number of reasons.

The choice is simple: you can either have proprietary extensions, or you can have no innovation. I think you'd rather have proprietary extensions.

- Matt

[mcraighead]

Originally posted by Humus:
I understood it was a joke, but it had the tone of the overall attitude I see coming more and more from nVidia these days. nVidias attitude has most definitely changed. The care for the customers is gone. (Riddle: If ATi and nVidia were to define the getCustomerSupport(char *problem) function, how would they differ?
A: nVidias would return void.)
I see nVidida walking the same way as M$ and Intel, and it's really sad. Sure, the underdog stuff is also a part of the equation. But in the end, ATi is the bigger company and have been so for a long time, but still they don't have that attitude. 3dfx lost many customers because of their attitude. I think nVidia will do it too now, and especially their potential customners (the old 3dfx customers).

I also don't understand this attitude.

First of all, we have no contact with direct retail customers, so I don't see how it is even possible for us to somehow "stop caring" about them. The customers we support are all OEMs. I think a lot of people vastly underestimate the importance of the OEM channel, as opposed to the retail channel. Remember that over 90% of the graphics market is OEM.

3dfx's problems had nothing to do with any attitude. They were far more fundamental. I think the history books are pretty clear on that.

You compare us to Microsoft and Intel. A lot of "techy" people hate Microsoft and Intel, for reasons that I think are ridiculous. It's the whole "monopolist" thing, as far as I can tell; "they care about money more than they care about me!" In the real world, as opposed to the fantasy world that Judge Jackson lives in, however, _all_ companies are striving to grow their market share and attain a monopoly. Unfortunately, our silly antitrust laws have made it OK to think that a privately attained monopoly or near-monopoly, which is a sign of an extraordinarily succesful company, is somehow a "bad" thing. I would _love_ for NVIDIA to be just as successful as Microsoft and Intel. Today we're not. Hopefully some day we will be.

You say we care less -- but I haven't seen a single concrete example. I, on the other hand, see it the other way around. The only way that our growth over the last few years _can_ be explained is that we _have_ cared more. Companies are successful for exactly one reason: they meet the needs of consumers better than their competitors do.

In the end, our level of support is certainly not measured by how much we hold customers' hands. I would much rather you judge our level of support by the quality of products we put out. For example, I've implemented a lot of extensions in our OpenGL driver. Every one of those extensions, in my opinion, constitutes real, genuine _support_ to developers.

Do you have a real complaint? If you do, I'd be happy to try to address it. That's why I'm here. (I've found and fixed several driver bugs due to reports on this forum.)

If you don't have a real complaint, well, then, I don't see what the problem is.

- Matt

[LordKronos]

I would say that it is an inevitable cycle. Very few things in this world start out standardized. Usually its that case that you dont know what requirements a standard needs to meet until at least a few people/companies have tried their hand at it. Its natural for several non-compatible proprietary formats to emerge initially, and as many people use them and begin to see the benefits and weaknesses of each one, a common ground eventaully emerges and a standard is formed.

[daveg]

There are ways to do per-pixel lighting without a GeForce. There is a DOT3 EXT extension supported on the Radeon:
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/EXT/texture_env_dot3.txt

You can also check out a sample using this extension as well as 3D textures to get a nice per-pixel falloff in the Radeon SDK sample:
http://www.ati.com/na/pages/resource_cen...otProduct3.html (http://www.ati.com/na/pages/resource_centre/dev_rel/sdk/RadeonSDK/Html/Samples/OpenGL/RadeonDotProduct3.html)

dave

[LordKronos]

As far as level of support, nvidia's support is mainly for developers and OEM. If they didnt provide quality support to OEMs, do you really think nvidia could have passed up ATI percentage-wise in the OEM market (and ATI has dominated the OEM market for many years).

As far as developer support, they seem to be the ones giving developers the new features. And I dare anyone to try and quantify the ammount of support from nvidia in these forums and compare it to the ammount of support from 3dfx, ATI, or Matrox. Im also on the official DirectX developer mailing list, and I can say it is the same situation there (hundreds upon hundreds of posts from nvidia, vs. 1 or 2 posts every now and then from ATI or 3dfx).

[Siigron]

Today, in the consumer space, people have finished copying virtually all of the SGI features. What does that mean? New innovation requires moving in _new_ directions. This means that new chips will be fundamentally _incompatible_ with each other.

This is not optional -- in fact, it is a prerequisite for innovation. If every company moved in the same direction, there would be no way for any one company to produce everything novel!

i think it's ok to make proprietary extensions, incompatible chipsets and whatever, as long as other companys CAN implement them, if they want to. you can implement SGI features. you should let other companys implement NV features.



The inevitable result of this inevitable trend is that there will be more and more proprietary extensions.

Furthermore, design cycles are long enough that companies can't just "get together" and "agree" on a common feature set. Even if this does occur, the ARB is really not the best forum for it, for a number of reasons.

as i said, i don't care if the extension is called ARB_foobar or NV_foobar or ATI_foobar, as long as it's supported by most highend, mainstream consumer boards. the companys producing those boards (or chipsets for them in your case) right now are you and ATI.
if the ARB is not the best forum, start a small group called something like "OpenGL for games" where NV, ATI, Matrox and perhaps VIA/S3 can standardize on SOME extensions, like npatches, pixel shaders, vertex programs (ie let them implement it, but you've already confirmed that you will let them do that) etc.
D3D 8 things that we all know your HW will support.



The choice is simple: you can either have proprietary extensions, or you can have no innovation. I think you'd rather have proprietary extensions.

or you can have proprietary extensions that are later implemented by multiple vendors.
D3D 8 has several things in it originating from different companys that you and everyone else will implement just to support D3D 8. something similar for OpenGL would be great.

i don't think i made myself clear in the previous post... proprietary extensions aren't really stupid (i take back what i said), but having more than one extension doing the same thing is.
like ATI_pixel_shader and NV_pixel_shader... you may not be able to "get toghether" and "agree" on a common feature set (even if that's pretty much exactly what you seem to have done in D3D 8), but at least you can agree on how you should write the OpenGL extensions to expose features sets that already ARE common.


[This message has been edited by Siigron (edited 02-22-2001).]

[Nil_z]

DX is made by MS, so you can not get new feature until the new version come out. If you want something more than Dx8 can give, you must wait for the Dx9. And who knows when will Dx9 be released and will it support what you want? By proprietary extensions, we can get more and more good features from new HW and new drivers(this is one of reasons why I like OpenGL better than DX). If a new feature is that important, every company will try to implement it, and in the end, it will be made into a new version of OpenGL(1.4 or 1.5?) That is the correct way to make standards, not by a single "evil big" company http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif

BTW: LordKronos, I would like to join the DirectX developer mailing list(It is always good to learn more), where should I go(on the internet)? and is it for everyone who want to join or must I be qualified ?

[Humus]

Originally posted by mcraighead:
I also don't understand this attitude.

First of all, we have no contact with direct retail customers, so I don't see how it is even possible for us to somehow "stop caring" about them.


This is the first problem, you take no responibility for any retail customers. Say the average nontechie joe buys a computer from compaq or whatever. He knows he have a GF2 MX for example. After a while when he maybe gets some problem with hes card the most obvious thing to do is to mail to nVidia. He don't know his card is manufactured by ASUS or whoever. So what is nVidia doing? Nothing. Do the guy even get a reply? No. I have been active on many forums for quite a while and I have never ever heard about anyone who has got a reply from nVidia, even if the question is related to the chip itself, reference driver or anything else. On the other hand I've seen hundreds and hundreds of people complaining that nVidia don't care about them.
At least a reply recommending the guy to talk to ASUS instead would be nice.



Originally posted by mcraighead:
3dfx's problems had nothing to do with any attitude. They were far more fundamental. I think the history books are pretty clear on that.


I had problems with 3dfx attitude a while. Many other had too. Many went over to nVidia those days. Many today are going from nVidia to ATi these days for just about the same reason. It's not the whole story, but it's a part of the story why 3dfx went down.


Originally posted by mcraighead:
You compare us to Microsoft and Intel. A lot of "techy" people hate Microsoft and Intel, for reasons that I think are ridiculous. It's the whole "monopolist" thing, as far as I can tell; "they care about money more than they care about me!" In the real world, as opposed to the fantasy world that Judge Jackson lives in, however, _all_ companies are striving to grow their market share and attain a monopoly. Unfortunately, our silly antitrust laws have made it OK to think that a privately attained monopoly or near-monopoly, which is a sign of an extraordinarily succesful company, is somehow a "bad" thing. I would _love_ for NVIDIA to be just as successful as Microsoft and Intel. Today we're not. Hopefully some day we will be.


Sure all companies want to expand their market share, but the ways to do this can be more or less ethical. You should compete with competive products and competive price. If a company attains monopoly by doing so, I have no problems with it. I have no problems with Cisco owning the router market.
But if a company tries to force and lock you to their products, then voices could and should be raised against it. When M$ decided to first offer IE for free and later on integrate it into the OS it wasn't decisions based on technological advantages, cost reductions or anything like that. It was a move to force the users to use their browser and force Netscape out of the market, which in turn would lead/force the user into using their technologies and all the stuff that would follow. That is unethical, and I really hope M$ has to pay for it when the court decides. Similar moves has come Intel. Design decision has been made with the only purpose to cause incompatibilty with AMD cpu's to force the users to stay with Intel.
Oki, I'm not saying nVidia has done such things yet, but I see the first small setps in a direction that would possibly end there is taken. When a company starts growing their market share, then when big parts of the market is theirs they start to change attitude, and then starts to lock OpenGL extensions with IP stuff to prevent other vendors from implementing them, well then I see it as a bad sign, which may or may not evolve to something worse.


Originally posted by mcraighead:
You say we care less -- but I haven't seen a single concrete example. I, on the other hand, see it the other way around. The only way that our growth over the last few years _can_ be explained is that we _have_ cared more. Companies are successful for exactly one reason: they meet the needs of consumers better than their competitors do.

In the end, our level of support is certainly not measured by how much we hold customers' hands. I would much rather you judge our level of support by the quality of products we put out. For example, I've implemented a lot of extensions in our OpenGL driver. Every one of those extensions, in my opinion, constitutes real, genuine _support_ to developers.

Do you have a real complaint? If you do, I'd be happy to try to address it. That's why I'm here. (I've found and fixed several driver bugs due to reports on this forum.)

If you don't have a real complaint, well, then, I don't see what the problem is.

- Matt

Well, concrete examples could be found in any gamers forums. I've seen numerous people who have been in contact with for example ATi and recieved help and support and later on passes their new knowledge on to other customers on the forums. But honestly, I've also seen examples of people who didn't get replies from ATi either.
The reason nVidia have grown so much has been competive products (yeah, I saw that demo of doom3 engine on a GF3 a few hours ago and I'm impressed http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif, even though the price wasn't equally competive http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/frown.gif). A great product will sell even if the customer support is poor, even though it could sell better with it.
When it comes to developer support I have no complaints though, rather I could rant equally long about ATi's sucky driver development team and their stupidity of not getting that good drivers are equally important as good hardware, but I have no driver writer from ATi here to complain to http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/frown.gif. ATi could learn a lot from nVidia here.

In summary, well, I'm not as negative to nVidia as I may sound, I just felt for ranting a little http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif. You see nVidia from the inside and I see nVidia from the outside, so you're probably not seeing what I'm seeing and I expect you to deeply disagree with almsot everything I've said ... but I could live with that http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/wink.gif

[mcraighead]

Originally posted by Humus:
Say the average nontechie joe buys a computer from compaq or whatever

For OEM parts, the OEMs are _always_ the ones who provide support -- and that's true whether it's us or any other vendor. Sometimes OEMs have customized boards, for example. If you have a problem with an NVIDIA board in a Compaq computer, or in a Dell, Gateway, HP, or anyone else, it is the OEM that you should be going to. In fact, if you have _any_ problem with a Compaq computer, it is Compaq that you should be going to.


This is not really the place to debate antitrust issues, but if Microsoft or Intel want to take "monopolistic" or "uncompetitive" or even "unethical" actions, I am 100% in support of them. If Via clones Intel's bus without a license, for example, and Intel then changes their CPUs to make them incompatible with Via chipsets, my response would be, "It's Intel's choice. If you don't like it, don't buy their product." (I would support the full repeal of all antitrust laws; I think they're a disaster.)

Don't trust anything you read on a 3D hardware forum. I see so much garbage on most forums -- all sorts of claims that are simply and blatantly outright false, both about us and about the products of many other companies. (Just today I saw someone claim that [paraphrased] "the GF3 looks a lot like a TNT2 that's faster and with a few extra features bolted on!". Ummm, yeah... and a Pentium IV is just a 8086 but faster, and with a few more features bolted on.)

We clearly state on our web site that we do _not_ provide end-user support. If you buy a card at retail, you should go to the vendor you bought it from. This is simply our business model. We've decided that we should focus our attention on delivering good products and supporting our OEM customers. Maybe some day we will provide end-user support; maybe not. It all depends on what we think will allow us to deliver the best products and provide the best support.

If you buy an ASUS motherboard with an Intel chipset, do you go to Intel for support or ASUS? Clearly you go to ASUS first, and Intel only if ASUS can't help you. No one complains that Intel should provide direct end-user support for their motherboards. (True, motherboards are different in many ways, but the basic idea is the same.)

- Matt

[Humus]

Originally posted by mcraighead:
This is not really the place to debate antitrust issues, but if Microsoft or Intel want to take "monopolistic" or "uncompetitive" or even "unethical" actions, I am 100% in support of them. If Via clones Intel's bus without a license, for example, and Intel then changes their CPUs to make them incompatible with Via chipsets, my response would be, "It's Intel's choice. If you don't like it, don't buy their product." (I would support the full repeal of all antitrust laws; I think they're a disaster.)


100% in support for unethical and uncompetive actions? Ok, then I at least know where I have you and it certainly seams that my fear about nVidia going the same way as Intel and M$ is somewhat grounded.


Originally posted by mcraighead:
If you buy an ASUS motherboard with an Intel chipset, do you go to Intel for support or ASUS? Clearly you go to ASUS first, and Intel only if ASUS can't help you. No one complains that Intel should provide direct end-user support for their motherboards. (True, motherboards are different in many ways, but the basic idea is the same.)

- Matt

Sure, I'd go to Asus first, but I'd need to go to Intel to get new chipset drivers. And I'd expect support from Intel if the I had problems with them. The same would go for reference drivers from nVidia.

[Won]

mcraighead = nVidia?

Are Matt's views necessarily those of NV? I don't think it's really fair to attack NV on the basis of one engineer's opinions. I'm sure not everyone at NV share Matt's views.

And I don't see how NV is moving towards being some evil corporation, doing unethical things to sell a product that really sells itself based on its own merits. They're not the underdog anymore, but they're also not stagnating or cheating to stay on top.

Damn, and I thought I was going to learn something about per-pixel lighting. http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif

[Gorg]

The thread should change to per-pixel bashing.

[mcraighead]

No, my views definitely do not represent those of everyone at NVIDIA. They represent my personal political views, which are generally considered extremely "radical" in today's political environment. http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif (read Ayn Rand: "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" if you want to know more about how I feel about these things)

I do not claim that it is a _correct_ decision to do something "unethical". I merely claim that I will not go crying about it, simply because it violates someone's code of "fair business practices" (which are in the eye of the beholder, of course). The correct decision, in my opinion, for any business is the decision that maximizes profits -- other criteria are not relevant to running a business.

Can we agree to end this thread?

- Matt

[Humus]

I'm sorry that I went in here and got completely off topic and destroyed this thread ranting about details in nv's behaviour that's annoying me ... Sorry, my fault. http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/redface.gif
Sorry to you Matt for all my bashing and that I implied that your political views were nVidias. While I don't share your political opinions it certainly doesn't belong to this forum and has absolutely nothing to do with per pixel lighting. I hope we still can have interesting technical discussions without you seeing me as "that guy that always complaining about all and everything".

[Michael Steinberg]

Hey, wait, Humus? Don't I know the name? Wasn't that the one who kept always complaining about all and everything that Matt said?

http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/wink.gif

[zed]

even though i dont agree with a lot of matts views i think its great that he expresses his opinion, which in america i gather is a bit of a nono for fear of getting your ass sued by all and sundry.

[Funk_dat]

I am in full agreement with Matt in that maximizing profits is the whole point. I do think it's very dangerous, though, to forego ethics for a greater bottom line. ..and you wonder why people call some of the larger ethically-challenged companies 'evil'. Breeding cynicism is counter-productive to capitalism/democracy.

Wow has this thread gotten off track...

Funk.

[davepermen]

in fact the extension GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 does the live the most easy, cause its just easy to use.. to do specular lighing you have to use the register combiners or much passes.. not sure what the ati supports there ..

(i always talk about per pixel bump mapped lighing, when you dont use bumps, means something like phongshading, its more easy (but then you dont have bumps http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/smile.gif )