On the Subject of OpenGL 2.0

zendal writes "The danger with pixel shaders and vertex shaders is that there is no standard for programmability of graphics hardware. A schism has formed within DirectX between the competing demands of GPU makers Nvidia and ATI. Noted analyst Jon Peddie gives THG an exclusive first look at a White Paper on how OpenGL 2.0 is trying to bring stability and open standards to programmable graphics and GPUs."

Comments

Exclusive first look?

[Jonathan Blocksom]

I don't think so. The 2.0 proposal was brought up at the September 2001 OpenGL ARB meeting -- about five months ago. And the OpenGL 2.0 White Paper has been since at least November. While this stuff is important, there's nothing new about it. (Good thing, too; good standards take time.)

Re:The problem with OpenGL on Windows...

[syzxys]

"Blue Screens" are caused by a fault in the Kernel or something writing to memory it's not meant to be writing to.

This is almost correct. Blue screens are caused by a fault in *kernel mode* (Ring 0 on Intel architecture), which is not equivalent to "in the kernel." WDM drivers (like the nVidia graphics drivers), as well as all NT drivers and in fact the entire USER and GDI subsystem (since NT4), all run in kernel mode. None of these components are technically the kernel. Btw, wild pointer writes are a kind of "fault in kernel mode."

Assuming normal user processes can only write to their own memory space, then it is a fault of the kernel.

No argument there. See also this page. But as I already pointed out, the nVidia driver runs in kernel mode, not user mode, so this argument is not relevant.

Sure, Open GL might be buggy,

OpenGL can't be buggy, it's just a specification. nVidia's implementation is buggy, like I said. This is especially apparent considering that the blue screen errors have the name of nVidia's kernel mode driver in them.

but it's your Windows kernel that's causing the blue screen.

Again, confusing "the Kernel" with "kernel mode." Hey, I hate Windows as much as the next guy, but that's no reason to post incorrect technical information about it and hope nobody will realize you're blowing smoke out your ass. Next time, do a little more research first.

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Windows 2000/XP stable? safe? secure? 5 lines of simple C code say otherwise!

Re:The problem with OpenGL on Windows...

[Namarrgon]

I've read so many comments on the high quality of nVidia's OpenGL drivers over the years - from people I tend to believe, like John Carmack & Brian Hook. Things like "it just works", "best in the industry", "better than any other [consumer?] vendor's", etc.

What exactly leads you to say otherwise? Presumably personal experience, rather than just a desire to trash nVidia, but compared to what? Given that 3D game luminaries have repeatedly stated they prefer nVidia's OpenGL drivers to those from ATI or (shudder) Matrox, that really only leaves the few remaining "professional space" vendors (sgi, 3DLabs), and I can't imagine they're universally perfect either.

Perhaps your perspective needs widening? Or perhaps you're running into the same bug over & over and have not bothered to notify nVidia about it? (or perhaps they just think it too isolated a case to get a high priority)