Archive for August, 2008

---

NVScene 2008: Into the Pink by Plastic (DEMO)

This demo has been released at NVScene 2008. This is an OpenGL demo.

PouetLink: www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=51454.

For high-resolution screenshots, I created a topic here: [DEMO] Into the Pink by Plastic @ oZone3D.Net Forums.

This is my favourite demo! Very impressive and depth of field effect is mastered. I like it. But this demo requires a powerful system: 20 fps on my GeForce GTX 280 / Core2Duo E8400…

---

NVScene 2008: Stargazer by Orb and Andromeda (DEMO)

This demo has been released at NVScene 2008. This is a Direct3D 9 demo.

PouetLink: www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=51438.

For high-resolution screenshots, I created a topic here: [DEMO] Stargazer by Orb and Andromeda @ oZone3D.Net Forums.

---

NVScene 2008: receptor by TBC (4k)

This 4k product (the size of the whole demo is 4k!) has been released at NVScene 2008. This is a Direct3D 9 4k demo.

PouetLink: www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=51449.

For high-resolution screenshots, I created a topic here: [4k] receptor by TBC @ oZone3D.Net Forums.

---

NVIDIA and ATI Cards Working Together Side-by-Side, This Is Revolutionary!

The guys at hardspell.com have tested a system with a Radeon HD 3850 for the graphics rendering and a GeForce 9600 GT for the PhysX:

They used the oZone3D.Net PhysX FluidMark to compare CPU PhysX (score=759) and Hardware PhysX (score=2909). This is the proof that Radeon and GeForce can work together for a better gaming experience!

Links:

• HD3850+9600GT: the performances are wonderful
• Radeon and GeForce Share Work, PhysX Applications Win

The functionality of CUDA and its implementation of GPU-accelerated PhysX processing has benefited many a GeForce user. Users of ATI accelerators lacking this incentive either use Ageia PhysX card or avoid it altogether. It has been verified by Hardspell that in an environment where Radeon accelerator(s) do graphics processing, a GeForce accelerator can be used standalone to process PhysX. Hardspell used a Radeon HD 3850 along with a GeForce 9600 GT on the same system with the display connected to the Radeon, though no form of multi-GPU graphics connection existed, the GeForce card partnered the Radeon well in processing physics, while the Radeon did graphics. Results of the oZone 3D FluidMark, a benchmark that includes routines to evaluate the machine’s capability in processing physics, showed a greater than 350% increase in scores, showing that the GeForce accelerator is doing its job.

More news about PhysX: PhysX @ Geeks3D
More news about FluidMark: FluidMark @ Geeks3D

---

[Geek3D-Test] FurMark, Catalyst 8.8 and HIS Radeon HD 4850: Torture Test PASSED!

Ok now that I have in my hands a HIS’s Radeon HD 4850, I played with this card and of course did the FurMark renaming experience with Catalyst 8.8 (see ATI Optimizes Catalyst 8.8 to be FurMark-Proof!). The difference of score in simply… incredible, better it’s shocking! Here is the score when I launch FurMark.exe: 2234 points

And now, the score when FurMark.exe is renamed in… ati.exe (why not?): 4383 points

This score is almost twice the first one. That explains now the odd result I get with FurMark in this post: ATI Catalyst 8.8 vs 8.7: OpenGL Performance Drop.

I launched in the same time the Catalyst Control Center in the Overdrive panel to check how frequencies vary:

In both tests, the frequencies were the same. ATI Catalyst 8.8 does not downclock the GPU frequency but makes the GPU running slower (what does it means???). Anyway, it seems obvious the Radeon HD 4800 series have some serious thermic problems. Maybe I could add a kind of GPU temperature limitation for Radeon HD 4800 series. If temperature exceeds 90 degrees on Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870, FurMark will stop the rendering or will render one frame over two or three… But actually I think I’m not going to do that. FurMark is a torture test but it’s most of all a standard OpenGL application. I don’t use low level code or different rendering path for Radeon or GeForce. The same code is injected in both rendering pipeline. And then any OpenGL 2.0 compliant GPU should process this code if the surrounding graphics hardware (I mean memory modules, power MOSFETs properly cooled, etc.) is well designed and implemented by graphics cards makers. The proof, HIS’s Radeon HD 4850 PASSED all FurMark tests I did, with stock clocks as well as with overclocked clocks.

Now dear readers, let’s burn HIS’s Radeon HD 4850.

- Stock clocks: GPU=625MHz and Memory=993MHz

• 94 degrees after 3 minutes in 640×480 no AA windowed mode: TEST PASSED!
• 96 degrees after 3 minutes in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode: TEST PASSED!

- Basic Overclocking: GPU=660MHz and Memory=1005MHz

• 96 degrees after 3 minutes in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode: TEST PASSED!

- Overclocking: GPU=680MHz and Memory=993MHz

• 96 degrees after 3 minutes in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode: : TEST PASSED!

- Overclocking: GPU=680MHz and Memory=1100MHz

• 97 degrees in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode. After 140 seconds, VPU Recover:
  

  

Yes the latest overclocking was a little bit extreme, but it shows HIS’s Radeon HD 4850 is a very good product and is already FurMark-Proof. No need hidden tweak in Catalyst to run FurMark. I think graphics cards that do not resist to FurMark torture tests are either bad quality products or have some bad cooled parts like the VRM (voltage regulator modules)…

Related Links:

• ATI Deliberately Retards Catalyst for FurMark @ techpowerup.com
• 4850 VRM Temps?
• ATI officially optimize catalyst for Furmark, making it run slower
• This truely sucks. (Ati slows down furmark)
• Radeon 4850; Still unstable.

---

[Geeks3D-Test] NVIDIA ForceWare 177.83 vs 177.92 – OpenGL Side

Just a little performance test of the latest ForceWare 177.92 BETA versus the latest ForceWare 177.83 WHQL using oZone3D.Net OpenGL Benchmarks Suite and Lightsmark2008:

	Release 177.83	Release 177.92	Difference
FurMark 1280×1024	4272	4272	0%
Soft Shadows Branching OFF	6054	5817	-4%
Soft Shadows Branching ON	10198	9542	-6.5%
Surface Deformer	7721	7716	0%
FluidMark GeForce PhysX	9626	9579	-0.5%
FluidMark Software PhysX	1495	1503	0%
Lightsmark2008	766.7	759.4	0%

Well… many websites have claimed that release 177.92 brings a boost in performance. Maybe in Direct3D (I also ran Aquamark and 3DMark2006 under WinXP and I didn’t see differences) under Vista. But in OpenGL, there is no performance gain.

Related links:

• Driver performance check: 175.19 VS 177.92

---

10 Things That Annoy Programmers

Kevin Pang has posted an article where he talks about some of the things that annoy programmers like:

• bad comments (comments that describe the syntax in place of the functionnality)
• interruptions
  

  Interruptions kill our train of thought and getting it back on track is a time-consuming, frustrating, and worst of all, error-prone process.

  This is really true and I think it’s one of the worst annoying things!

• management that doesn’t understand programming
• Documenting our applications:
  

  It’s not hard to see that documentation is something programmers dread doing.

  Maybe one of the 10 annoying things I’m not really agree. Documentation for end-user can be seen as a final stage of a project and it’s a kind of rest to write it. The hard work of coding and debugging is over (yes at least for the first release!) and writing doc shows the end of the project. And some programmers are also good writters…

To discover the other annoying things, read the complete article here: Top 10 Things That Annoy Programmers

---

K-3D: Free 3D Modeling and Animation Software

K-3D is free-as-in-freedom 3D modeling and animation software. It features a plugin-oriented procedural engine for all of its content, making K-3D a very versatile and powerful package. K-3D uses OpenGL for graphics hardware acceleration.

---

NVIDIA and AMD/ATI GPUs Comparison Table

Hardware Secrets has published two articles, one for NVIDIA and one for ATI that gather and compare GPU specifications. NVIDIA chips range from GeForce 4 to GeForce GTX 280 and ATI chips range from Radeon 9200 to Radeon HD 4870 X2.

Links:

• AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table
• NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table

---

NVIDIA ForceWare 177.92: GeForce GTX 280 OpenGL Extensions

[French]
Voici la liste des extensions OpenGL supportées par les pilotes Forceware 177.92 WinXP 32 pour une GeForce GTX 280.
[/French]
[English]
Here is the list of OpenGL extensions supported by Forceware 177.92 WinXP 32 drivers for a GeForce GTX 280.
[/English]

[French]
Les ForceWare 177.92 offrent les mêmes extensions OpenGL que les Forceware 177.66. Le support OpenGL 3.0 n’est pas inclut dans ces pilotes.
[/French]
[English]
ForceWare 177.92 offer the same OpenGL extensions than Forceware 177.66. OpenGL 3.0 support is not included in these drivers.
[/English]

[French]Carte graphique utilisée[/French]
[English]Graphics card used[/English]: EVGA GeForce GTX 280 / 1Gb

- Drivers Version: Forceware 6.14.11.7789
- OpenGL Version: 2.1.2
- GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Version: 1.20 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
- OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GTX 280/PCI/SSE2
- Drivers Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280
- ARB Texture Units: 16
- Vertex Shader Texture Units: 32
- Pixel Shader Texture Units: 32
- Geometry Shader Texture Units: 32
- Max Texture Size: 8192×8192
- Max Anisotropic Filtering Value: X16.0
- Max Point Sprite Size: 63.4
- Max Dynamic Lights: 8
- Max Viewport Size: 8192×8192
- Max Vertex Uniform Components: 4096
- Max Fragment Uniform Components: 2048
- Max Varying Float: 60
- Max Vertex Bindable Uniforms: 12
- Max Fragment Bindable Uniforms: 12
- Max Geometry Bindable Uniforms: 12
- Multiple Render Targets / Max draw buffers: 8
- MSAA: 2X
- MSAA: 4X
- MSAA: 8X
- MSAA: 16X
- MSAA: 32X

OpenGL Extensions: 162 extensions

[French]
Les extensions des anciens pilotes ForceWare se trouvent ICI.
Vous pouvez utiliser GPU Caps Viewer pour récupérer la liste des extensions de votre carte graphique.
[/French]
[English]
The extensions exposed by the old ForceWare drivers are HERE.
You can use GPU Caps Viewer to retrieve the list of extensions of your graphics card.
[/English]

Read more…

---

Catalyst 8.8: OpenGL Extensions – Radeon HD 4850

[French]
Voici la liste des extensions OpenGL supportées par les pilotes graphiques Catalyst 8.8 pour la Radeon HD 4850 sous Windows XP SP2 32-bit.
[/French]
[English]
Here is the list of OpenGL extensions supported by the Catalyst 8.8 graphics drivers for the Radeon HD 4850 under Windows XP SP2 32-bit.
[/English]

[French]
Les Catalyst 8.8 n’apportent pas de changement dans les extensions OpenGL.

Carte graphique utilisée: HIS Radeon HD 4850
[/French]

[English]
Catalyst 8.8 do not bring changes in OpenGL extensions.

Graphics card used: HIS Radeon HD 4850
[/English]

- Operating System: Windows XP SP2 32-bit
- Drivers Version: 8.512.0.0 – Catalyst 08.8
- ATI Catalyst Version String: 08.8
- ATI Catalyst Release Version String: 8.522-080731a-067975C-ATI
- OpenGL Version: 2.1.7873 Release
- GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Version: 1.20
- OpenGL Renderer: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
- ARB Texture Units: 8
- Vertex Shader Texture Units: 16
- Pixel Shader Texture Units: 16
- Geometry Shader Texture Units: 0
- Max Texture Size: 8192×8192
- Max Anisotropic Filtering Value: X16.0
- Max Point Sprite Size: 8192.0
- Max Dynamic Lights: 8
- Max Viewport Size: 8192×8192
- Max Vertex Uniform Components: 512
- Max Fragment Uniform Components: 512
- Max Varying Float: 68
- Max Vertex Bindable Uniforms: 0
- Max Fragment Bindable Uniforms: 0
- Max Geometry Bindable Uniforms: 0
- Multiple Render Targets / Max draw buffers: 4
- MSAA: 1X
- MSAA: 2X
- MSAA: 4X
- MSAA: 8X

OpenGL Extensions: 105 extensions

[French]
Les extensions des anciens pilotes Catalyst se trouvent ICI.
Vous pouvez utiliser GPU Caps Viewer pour récupérer la liste des extensions de votre carte graphique.
[/French]
[English]
The extensions exposed by the old Catalyst drivers are HERE.
You can use GPU Caps Viewer to retrieve the list of extensions of your graphics card.
[/English]

Read more…

---

GPU Caps Viewer 1.5.2 – Video Card Information Utility

Read more…

---

Futuremark 3D OpenGL-Powered Car Dashboard

Futuremark will show at NVISION a demonstration for Audi’s In-Car Graphics System. The demo is a fully rendered car dashboard and uses OpenGL for graphics acceleration.

Read Futuremark press release: Futuremark Announces Groundbreaking Automotive Demo for Audi at NVISION

[via]

---

Edge Detection with Direct3D 10 With Geometry Shaders

Read more…

---

DevIL 1.7.1

DevIL (also called OpenIL) seems to re-birth after almost two years of silence. DevIL is back in a new version 1.7.1. Developer’s Image Library (DevIL) is a cross-platform image library utilizing a simple syntax to load, save, convert, manipulate, filter and display a variety of images with ease.

More information here: DevIL’s homepage

As soon as possible I’ll publish a VS2005 C++ project with OpenGL and DevIL. Stay tuned…