Great deal of the GL2 functionality (including GLSlang) is available now through extensions, so imho there shouldn’t be too much problems with writing GL2 implementation (still, I don’t do such things so it’s only a guess). R9700 already supports GLSlang and (at least from what ATI says) multiple render target.
I don’t know the prices, but maybe you should compare Radeon’s features with GF6600 for example - especially in terms of fragment programs. You can check the available extensions on www.delphi3d.net with their hw info.
Our experience with GLSL on the 9700-class cards has been extremely poor. The old ARB FP/VP programs are fine because you have a great deal more control. It’s just the GLSL compilation and running that is terrible.
If you’re looking to use the full shader language capabilities, then steer clear of this and the 9800. You’ll need to get at least the X800 or the nVidia 6600-6800 class cards in order to be able to develop non-trivial code using GLSL.
Originally posted by Zengar: A 6200 won’t perform very well i fear.
Yes, but it is much better than a 5200 and it has SM3.0
It’s good for light gaming and learning GLSL.
@N64Marin: And NV still lacks GL_ARB_draw_buffers for full OpenGL 2.0 support. However, I’d still go for a NV card as I’ve both heared and experienced much more GLSL issues with ATI cards (read: drivers) than with NV.
Originally posted by eyebex: @N64Marin: And NV still lacks GL_ARB_draw_buffers for full OpenGL 2.0 support. However, I’d still go for a NV card as I’ve both heared and experienced much more GLSL issues with ATI cards (read: drivers) than with NV.
ARB_draw_buffers will be avaible in FW release 75. Even now, if you install beta 75.90, driver returns OpenGL 2.0 version with ALL GL2 extensions.
If you want to learn GLSL . I think you should buy a NV4x(GeForce 6200 6600 6800). ATI’s OpenGL Driver’s performance is very very poor…
I have a ATI R9700 pro in company.and try the ATI 5.3 driver. It’s not very well (eg. not support FBO .it’s very convenient for you to implement RTT ).
And . ATI 's product is not cheaper than Nvidia. So I will not buy any ATI’s Graphic card utill they make their OpenGL driver better…
Originally posted by stanlylee: For most of ATI’s driver version number. I think they should add a postfix: “beta”
I could rant a bit about the poor quality of nVidia’s driver too if I felt for it. Most of my SDK samples didn’t work and/or crashed on exit on the 6800 with the latest official drivers.
I plan on buying a radeon 9600 (pro) would you recommend this, I don’t have much money to spend and need a card that supports opengl 2.0.
any other recommendations ?
I plan on buying a radeon 9600 (pro) would you recommend this, I don’t have much money to spend and need a card that supports opengl 2.0.
Define “Much money”. If you can spend $200, I’d get a GeForce 6600GT. Good performance and it has the benifit of nVidia drivers. Plus it support vertex texturing.
If you can’t afford that, I imagine that 9800’s are pretty cheap these days.
Well in terms of cheap speaking - I found the radeon costs about 150€ ~ 180$, which is roughly equal to the price of a gforce 6600gt
I need a card that supports opengl 2.0 - glsl and is not that pricy (200$ should be the maximum), I don’t need that card for playing (since I don’t have enough time to play) just coding stuff