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All of this leaves me a little bit confused. I'm not sure why we need two (or, perhaps, more) C-based shader languages, at least one of which (Cg) is hardware-specific, but API neutral.

It's not vaporware.

How do you know Doom 3 isn't going to OpenGL 2.0? Carmak has repeatedly said that he's under NDA's, and can only talk about what hardware is currently available.

You'll notice that Carmak's name is not listed as an endorser of Cg.

• opengl shader.
• a great paper on the hardware shading problem, and a very generic approach.
• stanford's rtsl.
• the proposed opengl2 also has a hardware shading abstraction language.

hopefully, opengl2's shading will become standard, and mitigate the cross-platform differences. it's seemingly a much better option than this new thing by nvidia, but we'll have to wait and see what does well in the marketplace, and with developers.

• opengl shader.
• a great paper on the hardware shading problem, and a very generic approach.
• stanford's rtsl.
• the proposed opengl2 also has a hardware shading abstraction language.

hopefully, opengl2's shading will become standard, and mitigate the cross-platform differences. it's seemingly a much better option than this new thing by nvidia, but we'll have to wait and see what does well in the marketplace, and with developers.

'Cause 3Dlabs already created it ... see their OpenGL 2.0 proposal. My fear is this is _only_ a preemptive strike against the "full programability" of the 3dlabs P10 which will sooner or later have a consumer version. High level interoperating programability is very much needed to access the power of current and more complicated future cards.

'Cause 3Dlabs already created it ... see their OpenGL 2.0 proposal. My fear is this is _only_ a preemptive strike against the "full programability" of the 3dlabs P10 which will sooner or later have a consumer version. High level interoperating programability is very much needed to access the power of current and more complicated future cards.

Check out this it's vividness is blinding.

Interesting side note, Creative Technologies (makers of SoundBlaster) acquired 3DLabs for $37 million cash and $6.3 million in stock. Press release can be found here.

CPU instruction sets are a moot point. Vertex Shader instructions pass through the drivers first. OpenGL 2.0 will include a shading language which is hardware independent. The drivers will then convert this independent shading language into the machine language for their respective GPU/VPU.

You can find a bit of info on the OpenGL 2.0 shading language over at
3DLabs' white papers section. There is also quite a bit more information on OpenGL 2.0 there as well.

A lame, fuzzy article with a superficial understanding of the issues involved in creating rendering pipelines. Just go here if you want to start reading tech docs.

people only use retained mode when you have to (alot of the time in a real game when you look at a spefic feature thats done in retain mode but the rest not)

the point is that the nice thing about D3D is that it is supported by most vendors now look on a box that a game came in you will find that they require Direct X version 99.8 (-;

the point is that although the API changes it can do the old api's in emulation

much like OpenGL 2.0 will do

all I hope is that ATI's String based extensions to OpenGL get in 2.0 rather than NVidia's so we aren't tied to their hardware

D3D is crap(ish) what make Direct X so good is all the other API's like sound and input (OpenIL and OpenAL be damned as they just dont have the people leading them)

so I have high hopes for the OpenGL ARB to produce something nice that IBM/SONY/APPLE/SUN/HP/3Dlabs can rock Microsoft's little world

try haveing a look at
http://www.3dlabs.com/support/developer/ogl2/index .htm

regards

john jones

Here are the proposals: http://www.3dlabs.com/support/developer/ogl2/index .htm

Yes, companies can change. But they have to prove it with code, not press releases. They claim to be developing Linux drivers for newer chipsets. Any word on other free OSes? Or source code? Documentation, even?

The 1600SW is fantastic but the Number Nine card could be better

It's also supported by the 3DLabs Oxygen VX1-1600SW. I don't know whether that card's better than the #9 Revolution IV-FP or not. (Presumably one reason SGI switched is that #9 is out of business....)

(and doesn't have a driver in XFree86 4).

One has been checked into the XFree86 CVS tree, so some future 4.x release will probably support it.

I don't think there's currently any XFree86 4.x support for the VX1-1600SW, but it may appear in the future.

They now supply a MultiLink adapter which allows the monitor to accept many types of video input.

...although, as I read SGI's FAQ on the MultiLink Adapter and, in particular, the answer to "What happens if my card is not SuperWide savvy?", you don't get 1600x1024 unless you have a "SuperWide Savvy" adapter - and you may need driver support for that; see the SuperWide Savvy page.

Troll eBay looking for either an SGI 1600SW or a Radius Artica ($1500-$1900) - both are the same device: 1600x1024 resolution, wide screen, awesome image quality, uber geek. Only two cards that I know of drive it directly; the now defunct Number Nine Revolution IV or the current 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1-1600. Looks like Xi Graphics have decent X support for both. Otherwise you can get the SGI multi-link adapter ($495) that will take analog DB-15 or DVP/DVI digital inputs and drive it that way. Though, whatever you do, get 100% digital from video card to display. DVI is the current standard in the PeeCee world with support from Matrox, nVidia, ATI on the video card side and more flat panels are coming out that have a DVI-D connector (i.e. Philips 150P) - see Tom's Hardware for a good write up.

Yeah, I see the pattern :-/

What's the bonus?
Do I get to sell my ATI Fury 32 (yes, I was one of those ppl who had to wait for months and DID buy the fucker in the end --stupid of me) and get one of those in exchange now?

But, to be fair, it still works and it's good nuff for what I'm doing with it (which isn't too much gaming).

But imagine the following workstation:

• 4 of those new 1.2GHz Alphas IBM plans on
• 1.5GB PC133RAM
• The graphics card in the above link.
• A couple of those cheesy 9GB, 15K rpm Cheetahs...

There is already hardware you can get for a PC that does hardware-accelerated volumetric rendering - check out 3DLabs' often sadly-overlooked hardware. All the cards based around the GLINT R3 have this capability. Although they have lost out in the megapixel wars, for serious OpenGL work their hardware is probably the best you can buy for the PC, the quality of their Windows drivers is second-to-none, and they are an ardent supporter of OpenGL, being a member of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board. Their own support for Open Source drivers is unfortuately rather poor - however Open Source developers have made up for this deficiency - the 3DLabs GLINT driver is one of the stablest and fastest 2D drivers in XFree86, and the 3DLabs GMX2000 card (their previous flagship) was the testbed for XFree86 4.0's new 3D Direct Rendering Infrastructure. No, I don't work for 3DLabs - it just pains me to see such nice hardware ignored by the mainstream.

The 3DLabs Permidia2 is a _cheap_ OpenGL board -- performs about like a Voodoo1, and has excellent GL under Win95/98/NT -- fully compliant and everything. A decent choice for a business or low end graphics workstation. I think you can get one for $40, maybe even $20.

3DLabs has a variety of much newer, more powerful boards you can learn about at their website. I'm sure some other people make GL boards -- Gloria comes to mind. All $$$$!

Under Linux you can use GL on your Voodoo1 ($30) or Voodoo2/Banshee ($80), supported thru Mesa (not as fast as it could be, since it's Mesa on top of Glide). Under Windoze, you can use 3Dfx's OpenGL ICD, which is really only a subset of GL implemented for Quake (and therefore not really any good for graphix work), and is also slo since it's going thru M$ function calls (yuck). Many other boards have GL ICD's for Windoze, and nVidia is supposed to be writing one for the TNT for Linux.