openlGL win vs linux

SDL Development
1

the same application written with SDL and opengl in linux runs with a very
low framerate and not in win.

am i miising some drivers??

thanks_________________________________________________________________
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2

the same application written with SDL and opengl in
linux runs with a very
low framerate and not in win.

am i miising some drivers??

thanks

Umm, very general question, but the answer is:
probably. You’ll need XFree86 4.2.0 or higher (I think
that’s the right version) to even allow hardware
acceleration (via the DGA extension), and you’ll need
a vendor specific driver for your card as well. For
example, check out www.nvidia.com for nvidia cards.
They have the linux driver install available for
download there. RH9, at least, dosn’t include any HW
acceleration by default that I know of (definatly not
my TNT2). Dunno about other distros.__________________________________
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3

Actually, I don’t think you need DGA to have hardware acceleration of OpenGL.
When I run Q3 or any other OpenGL game for Linux, I don’t need to be root
(you need to be root to use DGA), and I’m 100% positive that I’m getting
hardware acceleration despite this. You just need a driver that supports
hardware acceleration of OpenGL. The reason that RedHat (and other distros if
memory serves) don’t come with 3D acceleration support out of the box for
nVidia cards is that, unfortunately, it seems the open source drivers for
nVidia hardware that come with XFree86 don’t support 3D hardware acceleration
on those cards.

You’ll need nVidia’s closed source driver to get OpenGL acceleration on nVidia
hardware.

-Sean RidenourOn Friday 26 September 2003 9:30 pm, Michael Rickert wrote:

the same application written with SDL and opengl in
linux runs with a very
low framerate and not in win.

am i miising some drivers??

thanks

Umm, very general question, but the answer is:
probably. You’ll need XFree86 4.2.0 or higher (I think
that’s the right version) to even allow hardware
acceleration (via the DGA extension), and you’ll need
a vendor specific driver for your card as well. For
example, check out www.nvidia.com for nvidia cards.
They have the linux driver install available for
download there. RH9, at least, dosn’t include any HW
acceleration by default that I know of (definatly not
my TNT2). Dunno about other distros.

4

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1On Saturday 27 September 2003 04:59, david roguin wrote:

the same application written with SDL and opengl in linux runs with a
very low framerate and not in win.

am i miising some drivers??

You should check glxinfo (especially the output Direct rendering: Yes/No -
indirect rendering is slow) at first. If it says something about Software
or Indirect Rendering, it’s a missing driver.

You should also print out the various GL identification strings (GL_VERSION,
GL_RENDERER, GL_VENDOR) at the startup of your applications. Some drivers
are sensitive to the particular visual configuration you’re using.

cu,
Nicolai
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5

[…]

Actually, I don’t think you need DGA to have hardware acceleration
of OpenGL.

Right; most drivers are not using DGA. (In fact, I’ve never used one
that does.) The GLX drivers don’t, and nor do the closed source
drivers for ATI and nVidia cards.

[…]

You’ll need nVidia’s closed source driver to get OpenGL
acceleration on nVidia hardware.

This goes for some of the ATI Radeon and related cards as well; you
need ATI’s closed source drivers, or a driver from Xi Graphics.
(Includes the FireGL 8x00, X1, Z1 etc.) I think there are Free/Open
Source drivers that support some of these cards, but last time I
looked, they supperted only the “gamer” cards; no FireGL cards.

If you’re on a Matrox Parhelia, I think you’re out of luck… :-/ The
only Linux driver in excistence (AFAIK) is 2D only.

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Audiality -----------------------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source audio engine for games and multimedia. |
| MIDI, modular synthesis, real time effects, scripting,… |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -’
— http://olofson.net — http://www.reologica.se —On Saturday 27 September 2003 10.35, Sean Ridenour wrote:

6

[…]

In the context of accelerated OpenGL, DGA doesn’t really make much of
a difference. It can give you h/w page flipping without totally
bypassing the X server, but that’s about it from the functional
perspective, AFAIK. Either way, I have yet to see an OpenGL driver
that uses DGA.

As to versions, I’ve used accelerated OpenGL with XFree86 3.x (3.3.x
for sure; possibly some older version as well…), 4.1.x and 4.2.x,
so far. In at least one case, the 3.x driver was faster than the
4.1.x driver, though that was probably because the latter was newer
and not as carefully optimized as the former.

The closed source ATI driver I’m using now is available for 4.1.x,
4.2.x and 4.3.x. (Seems to be the same driver with minor tweaks to
compile for each X version.) I believe the situation is similar with
the closed source nVidia drivers as well.

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Audiality -----------------------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source audio engine for games and multimedia. |
| MIDI, modular synthesis, real time effects, scripting,… |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -’
— http://olofson.net — http://www.reologica.se —On Saturday 27 September 2003 06.30, Michael Rickert wrote:

the same application written with SDL and opengl in
linux runs with a very
low framerate and not in win.

am i miising some drivers??

thanks

Umm, very general question, but the answer is:
probably. You’ll need XFree86 4.2.0 or higher (I think
that’s the right version) to even allow hardware
acceleration (via the DGA extension),

7

— David Olofson wrote:

[…]

Actually, I don’t think you need DGA to have
hardware acceleration
of OpenGL.

Right; most drivers are not using DGA. (In fact,
I’ve never used one
that does.) The GLX drivers don’t, and nor do the
closed source
drivers for ATI and nVidia cards.

Whoops, I meant DRI (I’m 99% sure) :). I remember the
xfree version being noted as required to install the
(nVidia) driver… I’d scrounge around and find where
it said that, but I’m booted in windows at the
moment…> On Saturday 27 September 2003 10.35, Sean Ridenour wrote:

[…]

You’ll need nVidia’s closed source driver to get
OpenGL
acceleration on nVidia hardware.

This goes for some of the ATI Radeon and related
cards as well; you
need ATI’s closed source drivers, or a driver from
Xi Graphics.
(Includes the FireGL 8x00, X1, Z1 etc.) I think
there are Free/Open
Source drivers that support some of these cards, but
last time I
looked, they supperted only the “gamer” cards; no
FireGL cards.

If you’re on a Matrox Parhelia, I think you’re out
of luck… :-/ The
only Linux driver in excistence (AFAIK) is 2D only.

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source
Advocate

.- Audiality
-----------------------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source audio engine for games and
multimedia. |
| MIDI, modular synthesis, real time effects,
scripting,… |
`----------------------------------->
http://audiality.org -’
— http://olofson.net —
http://www.reologica.se —

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SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

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8

Whoops, I meant DRI (I’m 99% sure) :).

And on that note (sorry for reply to self):
http://dri.sourceforge.net

looks like DRI requires 4.0+, not 4.2.0+ :).__________________________________
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