Different capabilities - different boards confusion!

[Robbo]

Hi ppl,

I've tested my application with a GeForce 2MX and it works great. With a TNT2 M64 it works mostly (minor niggles with some aspects of lighting, which I have mentioned in this forum frequently). I've tried a crappy ATI Rage XL and it doesn't like my app at all and most recently I've tried a Voodoo 3000 - which doesn't work correctly either (almost as bad as the XL).

Now my question is therefore: how can I detect minimum capability support for things such as GL_LUMINANCE or GL_ALPHA, etc. Will this stuff be available in the DX caps structure? How the hell do you guys get your games to work on so many platforms!!?!!

[jide]

i think you've done all under Windows.
OK.

there are some extensions define in glext.h
make sure your drivers are OK.
Concerning the differences you got between 2 nvidia cards, i think it's just disgusting!
Nvidia uses the same pilot for all its cards which are differents: mx has got less capacities, so some tricks won't work as it does with normal gpu.

i can't be more precise.

JD

[mcraighead]

Robbo, I _will_ look at that one, I've just been very busy (as usual!).

- Matt

[Elixer]

I wouldn't even bother to support *dead* products.

The voodoo is dead, and the drivers were never really that good.

The Rage XL (if this is a pre Rage 128/Radeon board, then skip it!)

For the record, your app/game should support minimum rage 128 or TNT2 or Kyro 1/2. Anything else is just wishfull thinking. (Oh, I suppose the matrox G400 also.)

However, personally, I say only support GF2 and higher or Radeon 7500 or better, and Kyro 2.

[Robbo]

Well my idea is to say GeForce 2MX or better. But I'm puzzled that cross platform compatibility doesn't involve any actualy compatibility at all! I guess thats just the driver writing (would be great to do things correctly in software if they aren't available in hardward of course).

Anyway, I'm happy using NVIDIA cards and we buy the hardware for our customers when we sell them the software. It would just be nice to have a more robust product

[Robbo]

Originally posted by mcraighead:
Robbo, I _will_ look at that one, I've just been very busy (as usual!).

- Matt

Matt, if you weren't busy I'd assume you weren't doing your job properly

[Robbo]

Well I got it to work with the Voodoo 3000. It was just a case of dumping GL_BGR (and swapping texels over myself manually) and not using odd shaped textures. For some reason, the card doesn't mind 512x512 RGB but hates 512x512 RGBA (memory constraints?).