FurMark 1.6.5 Won the OpenGL Fight Against Catalyst 9.1!
Yes dear readers, FurMark is now robust with the buggy Catalyst 9.1. Thanks to Geeks3D readers we have found all workarounds to make FurMark Catalyst 9.1 compliant!
You can download the result of this collective work right here:
Okay let’s see the main bugs the Catalyst 9.1 has brought to OpenGL users / developers:
- 1 – first of all, a nice crash in one of the most basic OpenGL function, glGetString(GL_VERSION), when an OpenGL 3.0 rendering context is enabled. With an OpenGL 2.1 context, there is no problem.
- 2 – second bug with Catalyst A.I. (A.I. for Artificial Intelligence) (or CCC A.I.):
- CCC A.I enabled (slider on Advanced): crash
- CCC A.I enabled (slider on Quality): OK
- CCC A.I disabled: OK
The crash (in the glTexImage2D function) with CCC A.I. came from texture pixel format. Some textures used by FurMark were in 3-channel RGB format and when CCC A.I. is set to Advanced, I think the driver expects a 4-channel RGBA texture to perform some clever (what?) anti-aliasing tricks. And if the application provides a 3-channel RGB texture, the driver crashes in glTexImage2D. So I simply bypassed Catalyst bug by setting to 4-channel RGBA all textures used by FurMark. Now, no matter if CCC A.I is enabled or disabled, FurMark works fine.
Catalyst Control Center (CCC) and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) feature. Intelligence is sometimes really artificial…
Some Geeks3D readers have reported crashes with other OpenGL applications like Second Life. Disabling CCC A.I. fixes these crashes.
FurMark 1.6.5 ChangeLog:
- Change: workaround for Catalyst 9.1 when Catalyst A.I is enabled: all textures used by FurMark are now in 4-channel RGBA format (in the previous versions, some textures were in 3-channel RGB format…).
- Change: the OpenGL version used by the renderer is now displayed in stability test mode (near renderer’s description) – thanks to David Legrand
- Change: by default the creation of an OpenGL 3.0 rendering context is disabled. If you want to enable it, just start FurMark in command line with the /gl3 parameter or use the batch file called Start-FurMark-OGL3.bat.
- Change: small modifications in OpenGL 3.0 context creation.
- Change: workaround for Catalyst 9.1 bug in glGetString(GL_VERSION) when an OpenGL 3.0 context is used.
- Removed: timer check in contest mode.
I want to thank very much all readers that helped me to debug FurMark and especially Crishan who pointed out the source of crash.
Thank you guys:
- Zeuz
- chris
- Zalamander
- Xain
- Slagathor
- AlterMax (your english is perfectly understandable mate!)
- Sado
- evgen.05
- polux400
- wim
- dredg
The road to FurMark 1.7.0 is now ready! Now I can switch back to my GeForce and at last enjoy again OpenGL programming…
And to end up this chapter of FurMark evolution, I dug up this nice citation that is definitely true:
“When I have a problem on NVIDIA drivers, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else’s drivers, I assume it is their fault”
- John Carmack -”;
Enjoy!
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[...] Update (2009.02.04) FurMark is officially online. Read the complete story HERE. [...]
[...] oZone3D unveiled the latest FurMark v1.6.1 Graphics stability test software. It supports ATI Catalyst 9.1 and OpenGL 3.0. But when clicking the downloading link, the version becomes FurMark v1.6.5 (The full story of FurMark 1.6.1 to 1.6.5 is available here). [...]
[...] a versão v1.6.5. Compatível com Windows XP e Vista (32bits), o download pode ser feito pelo site Geekd3D ou pelo TechPowerUp. Algumas das novidades [...]
@JeGX:
Thanks for the acknowledgement
, I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy now, hehe.
Could you report this bug to ATI, too?
Just by using this form:
http://support.ati.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=894&surveyID=486&type=web
As your description is more exhaustive by far, compared to mine (I reported the Bug to them but couldn’t provide details about texture format etc.)
Ok bugs reported!
Wait and see…
“When I have a problem on NVIDIA drivers, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else’s drivers, I assume it is their fault”
- John Carmack -”;
Oh so true, get with the program ATI.
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I think the quote in the end of news completely sucks, John Carmarck is certainly payed by nVidia to tell something like this… x-(
Take a look on the last 150MB of RAM which causes a huge decrease in performance… … … xD
FurMark 1.6.5
weird crash here when trying to use any MSAA
also one of my cpu cores is stuck on 100% sometimes after that crash.
CCC A.I. is disabled
q6600
3870×2
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