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View Full Version : [Slightlt OT] Congrats to 3DLabs


sqrt[-1]
11-12-2003, 02:22 PM
Usually when I have to do testing on cards not from the big "2", I cringe as it is usually a day of lockups and texture corruption if you stray from the Quake3 path.

However, I have to say I am EXTREMLY impressed with the latest drivers from 3DLabs for their wildcat series (testing a VP870 on Win2K). I have not had one lockup or bluescreen and while I did crash the OpenGL driver twice (once was my fault - the other I am unsure of) - I got no 2D display corrution and could contine to do OpenGL work without having to "reset" the driver with a re-boot.


On top of that, their vertex programs seem to be very fast (perhaps a bit below Radeon 9700 level)

My only gripe is their stencil buffer support may be a little flaky and they support a weird combination of extensions. (ie there is

GL_ARB_shader_objects
GL_ARB_vertex_shader
GL_ARB_fragment_shader
GL_ARB_shading_language_100

but no ARB vertex program or fragment program. (not that I tested much of the above)

Overall a nice card with very nice drivers.
Humus
11-12-2003, 07:32 PM
Originally posted by sqrt[-1]:
GL_ARB_shader_objects
GL_ARB_vertex_shader
GL_ARB_fragment_shader
GL_ARB_shading_language_100

So they got official GL2 support? That's nice to know. Do you know if it's accelerated to any extent or if it's all software?
markfcsl
11-12-2003, 10:32 PM
I agree with sqrt that 3D labs do have some nice drivers for their Wildcat range, and they have become a lot more stable (at least from my point of view). Their developer relations are also very helpful and very prompt at replying with answers.

They've had GLSL support in their drivers for quite a while (since 3D labs wrote the specs, that's not surprising).

A lot of it is h/w accelerated but as it's not complete support (AFAIK) there are still some s/w paths or things that just don't work. Download their GL2 SDK on their website - I think this is where they have a note of what is and what isn't supported currently. I certainly have some "simple" accelerated shaders working on a Wildcat.
azazello
11-12-2003, 11:51 PM
As I understand, P10 doesn't have trigonometric functions(at least). Additionally, ARB-fp/vp outside of the interest of 3dlabs team - it was a long discussion about this in his support forum.

P10 was a test system for GLSlang - since summer 2002 they have particular support.

But now GLSlang is supported(unofficial - can be switched on with regedit :-) ) by ATI - and looks like in nearest time it became to be official.
AdrianD
11-13-2003, 01:03 AM
Originally posted by ayaromenok:
[...]
But now GLSlang is supported(unofficial - can be switched on with regedit :-) ) by ATI [...].

how ? which key ?
azazello
11-13-2003, 03:28 AM
2AdrianD
Registry monitor from www.sysinternals.com (http://www.sysinternals.com) will be helpful.
as I know, keys can be different for different version of catalyst.