NVIDIA ForceWare 190.15 Brings OpenGL 3.1 Support And New Extensions!

A new set of ForceWare graphics drivers is available:

• ForceWare 190.15 XP 32
• ForceWare 190.15 Vista/Seven 32
• ForceWare 190.15 Vista/Seven 64

ForceWare 190.15 is a BETA version and is the first available graphics driver of the new 190-series. This driver initially planned for Quadro boards has been repackaged (thanks to Guru3D and laptopvideo2go) to support all GeForce 6/7/8/9/GT200. Currently there is no much information about what’s new in 190-series but one new thing I can tell you is that this new driver supports OpenGL 3.1 and the latest update of the OpenGL Shading Language, I mean GLSL 1.40. But curiously, OpenGL 3.1 support was already supported by ForceWare 182.47 and has been removed later. OpenGL extensions look like a game for our two main GPU suppliers 😉

Here are some GPU Caps Viewer screenshots:

ForceWare 190.15 adds five new OpenGL extensions (compared to ForceWare 185.66 or ForceWare 185.85/186.08):

• GL_ARB_compatibility: this an OpenGL 3.1 extension. The major change in OpenGL 3.1 is that all deprecated functions in OpenGL 3.0 are no longer supported. Features removed from OpenGL 3.0 have been moved into the new extension GL_ARB_compatibility. This extension is not mandatory and NVIDIA, ATI, S3 can decide to add or not add it in their drivers.
• GL_ARB_copy_buffer: ah ah it’s funny, in this post I said that ATI was the first to add GL_ARB_copy_buffer in Catalyst 9.6. And few days after, NVIDIA adds this extension officially. This extension provides a mechanism to do an accelerated copy from one buffer object to another. This may be useful to load buffer objects in a loading thread while minimizing cost and synchronization effort in the rendering thread. GL_ARB_copy_buffer introduces a new function called CopyBufferSubData().
• GL_EXT_separate_shader_objects: not yet documented
• GL_NV_copy_image: not yet documented
• GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object2: not yet documented

Graphics driver information:
– Operating System: Windows XP 32-bit SP2
– Drivers Version: Forceware 6.14.11.9015 (6-8-2009)
– OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GTX 280/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!
– OpenGL Version: 3.1.0
– GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Version: 1.40 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
– ARB Texture Units: 4
– 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: 8192.0
– Max Dynamic Lights: 8 (with OpenGL 3.1 this value has no longer meaning…)
– Max Viewport Size: 8192×8192
– Max Vertex Uniform Components: 4096
– Max Fragment Uniform Components: 2048
– Max Geometry Uniform Components: 2048
– Max Varying Float: 60
– Max Vertex Bindable Uniforms: 12
– Max Fragment Bindable Uniforms: 12
– Max Geometry Bindable Uniforms: 12
– MSAA: 2X
– MSAA: 4X
– MSAA: 8X
– MSAA: 16X

CUDA Capabilities
– Device name: GeForce GTX 280
– Compute Capability: 1.3
– Total Memory: 1023 Mb
– Shader Clock Rate: 1296 MHz
– Multiprocessors: 30
– Warp Size: 32
– Max Threads Per Block: 512
– Threads Per Block: 512 x 512 x 64
– Grid Size: 65535 x 65535 x 1
– Registers Per Block: 16384
– Texture Alignment: 256 byte
– Total Constant Memory: 64 Kb

ForceWare 190.15 exposes 184 extensions. Extensions exposed by old ForceWare drivers are available HERE. You can use GPU Caps Viewer to retrieve the list of extensions of your graphics card.

• GL_ARB_color_buffer_float
• GL_ARB_compatibility
• GL_ARB_copy_buffer
• GL_ARB_depth_buffer_float
• GL_ARB_depth_texture
• GL_ARB_draw_buffers
• GL_ARB_draw_instanced
• GL_ARB_fragment_program
• GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow
• GL_ARB_fragment_shader
• GL_ARB_half_float_pixel
• GL_ARB_half_float_vertex
• GL_ARB_framebuffer_object
• GL_ARB_geometry_shader4
• GL_ARB_imaging
• GL_ARB_map_buffer_range
• GL_ARB_multisample
• GL_ARB_multitexture
• GL_ARB_occlusion_query
• GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object
• GL_ARB_point_parameters
• GL_ARB_point_sprite
• GL_ARB_shadow
• GL_ARB_shader_objects
• GL_ARB_shading_language_100
• GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
• GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object
• GL_ARB_texture_compression
• GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
• GL_ARB_texture_env_add
• GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
• GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
• GL_ARB_texture_float
• GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat
• GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
• GL_ARB_texture_rectangle
• GL_ARB_texture_rg
• GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
• GL_ARB_vertex_array_object
• GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
• GL_ARB_vertex_program
• GL_ARB_vertex_shader
• GL_ARB_window_pos
• GL_ATI_draw_buffers
• GL_ATI_texture_float
• GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once
• GL_S3_s3tc
• GL_EXT_texture_env_add
• GL_EXT_abgr
• GL_EXT_bgra
• GL_EXT_blend_color
• GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate
• GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
• GL_EXT_blend_minmax
• GL_EXT_blend_subtract
• GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
• GL_EXT_Cg_shader
• GL_EXT_bindable_uniform
• GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test
• GL_EXT_direct_state_access
• GL_EXT_draw_buffers2
• GL_EXT_draw_instanced
• GL_EXT_draw_range_elements
• GL_EXT_fog_coord
• GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit
• GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample
• GL_EXT_framebuffer_object
• GL_EXTX_framebuffer_mixed_formats
• GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB
• GL_EXT_geometry_shader4
• GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters
• GL_EXT_gpu_shader4
• GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
• GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil
• GL_EXT_packed_float
• GL_EXT_packed_pixels
• GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object
• GL_EXT_point_parameters
• GL_EXT_provoking_vertex
• GL_EXT_rescale_normal
• GL_EXT_secondary_color
• GL_EXT_separate_shader_objects
• GL_EXT_separate_specular_color
• GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
• GL_EXT_stencil_two_side
• GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
• GL_EXT_texture3D
• GL_EXT_texture_array
• GL_EXT_texture_buffer_object
• GL_EXT_texture_compression_latc
• GL_EXT_texture_compression_rgtc
• GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
• GL_EXT_texture_cube_map
• GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp
• GL_EXT_texture_env_combine
• GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3
• GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
• GL_EXT_texture_integer
• GL_EXT_texture_lod
• GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
• GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp
• GL_EXT_texture_object
• GL_EXT_texture_sRGB
• GL_EXT_texture_swizzle
• GL_EXT_texture_shared_exponent
• GL_EXT_timer_query
• GL_EXT_vertex_array
• GL_EXT_vertex_array_bgra
• GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip
• GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat
• GL_KTX_buffer_region
• GL_NV_blend_square
• GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color
• GL_NV_copy_image
• GL_NV_depth_buffer_float
• GL_NV_conditional_render
• GL_NV_depth_clamp
• GL_NV_explicit_multisample
• GL_NV_fence
• GL_NV_float_buffer
• GL_NV_fog_distance
• GL_NV_fragment_program
• GL_NV_fragment_program_option
• GL_NV_fragment_program2
• GL_NV_framebuffer_multisample_coverage
• GL_NV_geometry_shader4
• GL_NV_gpu_program4
• GL_NV_half_float
• GL_NV_light_max_exponent
• GL_NV_multisample_coverage
• GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint
• GL_NV_occlusion_query
• GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil
• GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object
• GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object2
• GL_NV_pixel_data_range
• GL_NV_point_sprite
• GL_NV_primitive_restart
• GL_NV_register_combiners
• GL_NV_register_combiners2
• GL_NV_texgen_reflection
• GL_NV_texture_compression_vtc
• GL_NV_texture_env_combine4
• GL_NV_texture_expand_normal
• GL_NV_texture_rectangle
• GL_NV_texture_shader
• GL_NV_texture_shader2
• GL_NV_texture_shader3
• GL_NV_transform_feedback
• GL_NV_transform_feedback2
• GL_NV_vertex_array_range
• GL_NV_vertex_array_range2
• GL_NV_vertex_program
• GL_NV_vertex_program1_1
• GL_NV_vertex_program2
• GL_NV_vertex_program2_option
• GL_NV_vertex_program3
• GL_NVX_conditional_render
• GL_NV_vertex_buffer_unified_memory
• GL_NV_shader_buffer_load
• GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
• GL_SGIS_texture_lod
• GL_SGIX_depth_texture
• GL_SGIX_shadow
• GL_SUN_slice_accum
• GL_WIN_swap_hint
• WGL_EXT_swap_control
• WGL_ARB_buffer_region
• WGL_ARB_extensions_string
• WGL_ARB_make_current_read
• WGL_ARB_multisample
• WGL_ARB_pbuffer
• WGL_ARB_pixel_format
• WGL_ARB_pixel_format_float
• WGL_ARB_render_texture
• WGL_ATI_pixel_format_float
• WGL_ARB_create_context
• WGL_EXT_extensions_string
• WGL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB
• WGL_EXT_pixel_format_packed_float
• WGL_NV_float_buffer
• WGL_NV_multisample_coverage
• WGL_NV_render_depth_texture
• WGL_NV_render_texture_rectangle

A more detailed description of each extension can be found at the following addresses:

• OpenGL Extensions @ NVIDIA
• OpenGL Extensions @ OpenGL