I am trying to track down information on GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit on current consumer hardware (ie: ATI/NVidia hardware). Specifically I am wondering why my NVidia 7 series hardware does not seem to support it with any of the latest drivers I can find.
As I read NVidias latest ‘8800 supported extensions’ PDF, this should be supported on drivers since release 95. I have tested every driver I can get my hands on, with no success on a 7600GT. Is nvidia incorrect, or am I reading the spec wrong? is it only supported on 8800+?
This extension is I believe very critical to using readback multisample FBOs, which is something I badly need to do as the manual alternatives are not pretty. Any pointers/help would be greatly appreciated.
I think it is a question of driver implementation, Delphi 3D says that GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit is supported on the GF8800 with version 97.02 and the latest official driver is 93.72, maybe it’s like this because it’s easier to implement on the GF8800.
Anyway, i heard that GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample would come in the next major version of the forceware driver, that would be 100.xx or something like that, but it’s pretty safe to assume it’s sister extension GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit comes at the same time.
It’s not like it’s totally impossible to do on GF 6 and 7 hardware (i can do it more or less manually), it just might not get that great performance (but still not to bad).
Should be supported on NV4x and higher with latest G80 drivers (both blit and multisample)… I can’t test it hovewer, because my card is broken and every driver version above 84.21 makes the system instable I still wait for my salary to buy a new card
Well I may have answered my own question also this afternoon.
I installed the beta 97.42 drivers on my linux machine with an old 5700ultra, and glxinfo reports the _blit extension… 97.02 under windows on a 7600GT does not, but I suspect does for others.
My suspicions are that the 97.02 8800 windows 2000/xp drivers are rather ‘touchy’ and seem not to hook in reliably to quite a range of hardware, hopefully this will improve with subsequent non-beta releases (any comments from nvidia people?)
At least I know the extension can happen on older hardware, so can star evaluating it.
By the look of things NVidia for one is finally taking off-screen rendering seriously, as using this along with multisample modes really starts to make FBO, et al useful.
Now if only I could track down someone at NVidia who could actually tell me why my developer registration wont let me into the moved boardstore… oh well, hope springs eternal.
My new 7900GS came today, and all known framebufer-related extensions are being reported under 97.28 drivers (I got them from guru3d). I will try this out this week…
I still wait for my salary to buy a new card