will NVIDIA let anyone else implement NV_vertex_program?

if they will, i’ll just be happy.
if they won’t, are the ARB working on some other way to get vertex programs into the API? when i read through the spec i thought it was written in a way so that other IHVs would be allowed to use it, but that was probably just my imagination.
as far as i’m concerned, vertex programs(/shaders) are the only thing i miss in OpenGL. actually, i wouldn’t miss vertex programs either, but i run Linux. and it seems like NVIDIA is trying to promote DX8 by releasing updated but not new drivers for Linux (eg. they have been updated, but there are no new features).
and whatever happened to the ARB notes from what, May, June, July – 2000? is something wrong with the ARB or do you just think we don’t care? i know a lot of OpenGL developers are quite a bit irritated at this (and i’m one of them) :stuck_out_tongue:

There are strange and complicated legal issues involved that I do not fully understand, but the basic idea is that yes, other vendors can implement our extensions. I am neither able nor qualified to discuss this further. Technically speaking (i.e., ignoring said legal issues), it’s almost identical to the DX8 vertex shaders, so if another vendor implements those, they could implement vertex programs with little difficulty.

I don’t know what you’re talking about with the Linux drivers – the new Linux drivers include multimon and TwinView support, among other thiings.

  • Matt

I dunno Matt. I’m not really impressed with the latest linux drivers either. I got about a 20% speed decrease on all full screen OpenGL apps, my entire box will freeze when I close X and the GL_NV_fence extension is still beign reported as if it were supported…when it’s not. Switching back to 0.9-5 fixed all of those problems except the GL_NV_fence thing. I’ve also made sure that my modifications to os-registry.c in the 0.9-5 kernel mod were the same in 0-9.6. My system is an AMD Athlon 1GHz, VIA KT133 chipset, GeForce2 GTS 32MB (Elsa Gladiac) running Linux kernels 2.4.0 and 2.2.18. This isn’t what I expect from the world’s leading 3D graphics card manufacturers. And another thing I was pondering about one day. When are the drivers going to be able to do page flipping under XFree86? Blitting is too friggin slow

Well, I never run Linux, so I wouldn’t know. I work exclusively under Win2K.

I can say with certainty that VIA chipsets are known to be a source of many problems (numerous chipset bugs and motherboard problems), but I think we’ve (mostly) worked around those problems by now…

As for the fence bug, I can very clearly see that the problem that caused that bug has been fixed – in fact, it was fixed last September. The extension entry points should definitely be accessible now.

  • Matt

ok, maybe i was little bit unfair. there are new features in the new drivers. but there are no new extensions, afaik.
i might be wrong, but i think NV_vertex_program was supported in the 7.17 drivers?
i’ve been waiting for NV_vertex_program a long time now, and i was quite disappointed when it wasn’t supported in 0.9-6
so, sorry for the redundant flaming. it wasn’t fair. but are you allowed to say when Linux drivers with support for NV_vertex_program are going to be released?

and to everyone else, i’m still wondering what happened to the ARB notes…

There was never any intent that this release would have any new OpenGL extensions supported. The 0.9.6 drivers are based on the 6.xx source base.

  • Matt

ok. i take that as “no, i’m not allowed to say when Linux drivers with support for NV_vertex_program will be released”

anyway, thanks for all the info Matt. NVIDIA is still my favorite company.

Hi,

Could anyone tell me if the NV_vertex_program and the register combiners will take over from some extensions like GL_EXT_texture3D ? Clearly, does NVIDIA intent to impose its “psychology” nearer to HW ?

Best regards.

Register combiners and vertex programs can’t take the place of 3D texturing, because they are used for completely different things.

nVidia should be supporting 3D texturing in hardware with their next chipset.

j

Quite cool that nvidia will present the new chipset in paris, in the eiffel tower. 28. February

Cool if you live in Paris, maybe.

Where did you hear this?

My computer magazine told me so. It’s called C’t (computer technics (or techniques?))
I always trust in it…