The more I look for definitions & explanations the more confused I get:
There seems to be differnt compatability for Open Gl & I’m trying to work out what it all means. Whats the difference between:
Open GL Cards
Open GL compatable cards
Open GL Mode
Open GL Hardware accelerated card
…
etc etc.
I need to buy a card that is 100% Open GL (ie not just a compatable etc.) for use on a piece of business software.
Help…
sorry if I am pointing out the obvious but have you looked here http://www.opengl.org/users/apps_hardware/accelerators.html
Gavin. Thanks for the reply. Any help is appreciated. Oddly this site itself is where I started looking into Open GL. Unfortunately not much of it is up to date. The cards list for example was Last updated two years ago. The Creative line that I am interested in have superceeded thos listed on the site.
Thanks anyway. I still cannot actually find any definition or explanation about what I have termed (for want of a better phrase) “Level of Open GL-ness”…
Hardware support for everything described in the base OpenGL1.3 spec is present on most of the contemporary graphics chips made by the ‘big dogs’. The ‘imaging subset’ is optional though, as described in the spec.
a)NVIDIA Geforce2MX or better (exception: 3D textures force software rendering -> awfully slow), includes imaging subset
b)ATi Radeon 7xxx or better (no imaging subset, but hardware support for 3D textures)
c)Any 3DLabs Wildcat product
The trouble starts when you start considering supported extensions. Have a look at http://www.delphi3d.net/ for these.
I don’t want to get into flamewars here, but there are at least two bugs in the Radeon drivers that have never been fixed, although I’ve reported them about six months ago. Can’t speak for the NVIDIA side of things.