I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this topic, but what the heck…
I’m looking into getting a Radeon 9700 card. I also want to program fragment shaders in OpenGL 2.0.
Has ATI anounced anything conserning OpenGL 2.0 support on Radeon 9700 cards?
If not, what card should I get thats available now that comes the closest to supporting all the features of OpenGL 2.0? (cheepest card, that is)
Any input will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
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.
This would make a great integrated solution :
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.
EDITED: Sorry, I didn’t see the word “cheepest”. Get a GeForce 6200 or, much better a GeForce 6600(about 150 euro - which is also much).
A 6200 won’t perform very well i fear.
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.
ATI cards doesn’t support GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate,
GL_ARB_draw_buffers,
GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
Try an nVidia Geforce 6x00 with Release 75 Forceware driver for full OpenGL 2.0 support
@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.
yooyo
For ATI you don’t even need a beta. 
The latest Catalyst has OpenGL 2.0 support.
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…
For ATI you don’t even need a beta
For most of ATI’s driver version number. I think they should add a postfix: “beta”
For most of ATI’s driver version number. I think they should add a postfix: “beta”
True … and finally add support for EXT_framebuffer_object.
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.
Driver is a software too.Every software has BUGs.
But in gerneal . NVidia’s OpenGL driver is more better…
Whith D3D. I think ATI’s product is more fast thank Nvidia
Originally posted by stanlylee:
…
Whith D3D. I think ATI’s product is more fast thank Nvidia
Hm, and with fBuffers, and superBuffers, what about ATI…?
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 $200, I’d get a GeForce 6600GT. Good performance and it has the benifit of nVidia drivers. Plus it support vertex texturing.
If you can’t afford that, I imagine that 9800’s are pretty cheap these days.
I read about that the ati drivers are less stable in terms of opengl. Well 200$ should be the maximum I wanted to spend 100€ so like 100-150$
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