No current hardware (that I know of) supports this extension, its meant for future hardware.
So, what you’re saying is that the ARB wasted some time that could have been spent on the uber-buffer’s extension?
If somebody writes an extension spec, but it is not implemented, then they have wasted their time. They should have just promoted EXT_texture_rectangle to ARB status, and when the new non-power-of-2 stuff is actually avaliable, then release the extension spec (along with appropriate drivers that implement it).
I’d like to know who voted against the shading language as an ARB extension. Depending on the answer it might cause me some concern.
Oh, come on. Didn’t you read some of the issues (and who brought them up)? It’s obvious who voted against glslang.
Granted, I agree with some of their reasons for it, though. I seriously doubt it is an attempt to do anything underhanded.
This, coupled with the non-power-of-2 thing, shows a shift of the ARB back towards what makes OpenGL bad: not knowing the right API to use.
Should I really need a document somewhere to tell me, “Yes, I know glslang says that feature X exists, but never use it because nobody implements it at anything anyone would reasonably call ‘fast’.” Such things are a major impediment towards the growth of the API’s usage.
Sure, it’s nice to see “texture” access facilities in vertex shaders (though I would have used a very different kind of API, one that is quite distinct from textures, since uploading modifications is more likely on vertex shaders than regulat textures in fragment shaders), but there’s no reason to require it at a point where no hardware can use it. If hardware can’t use it, it is a mis-feature; that is, a feature that exists technically, but not in any useable fashion. The same goes for this non-power-of-2 extension; there’s no reason to even have the spec if nobody can use it.
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting on the super-buffers extension, which is set to provide real, useful power and functionality that the API really needs.
It’s this kind of backwards thinking that allows an API like Direct3D to become more efficient; at least it doesn’y have 1001 functions that you should never use, but have to be there because some moron on the ARB wanted them.
[This message has been edited by Korval (edited 07-25-2003).]