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:
[download#32#image]

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!