pouët.net

d3d is pink

category: general [glöplog]
@stefan:
my computer is very old to have an AGP card (yes, that old...) so i can't know the quality of nvidia cards. But i know that GeForces are the most popular and fastest cards. Also i've heard that NV makes the best drivers (i don't mean the drivers that GF-based cards have with them, i don't think that these drivers are written by NV... i mean those from NV's site). Again i can't check this personally. But all those rumors have a base. If this is true, then you should check your programs with NV cards.

And i think that your logic is not good at this point, since if you check your stuff with cards whose drivers are perfect, then there isn't any point (except if you don't know that your program runs ok). The point is to check if your program runs in cards with badly written drivers (whatever these cards are).
added on the 2002-08-24 16:38:44 by BadSector BadSector
hey stefan,

the drivers from nVidia are improving you know =). you no longer loose 3mb of ram when you exit an opengl application now =).
added on the 2002-08-24 21:25:07 by nystep nystep
badsector, if you never used a nvidia card with d3d, then you should shut the fuck up, its CRAP, nvida never made a good card, just the cheapest,crappiest, highest fps with quake and 3dmark shit, the drivers may bug and crash on anything else to, as long as madonion and carmack doesnt get mad...
added on the 2002-08-25 16:54:20 by Hatikvah Hatikvah
stefan stop ranting =)
added on the 2002-08-25 17:04:47 by superplek superplek
i always found nvidia drivers to be the most stabel and true-to-spec ones. but of course i only know ogl drivers, there nvidia is simply the best choice.
if they don't focuse that much on lesser apis like d3d i can't blame them. :P
added on the 2002-08-25 17:16:30 by shiva shiva
their opengl driver are supposed to be stable, tho i tend to get bluescreen with them :)

their d3d drivers however are a joke
added on the 2002-08-25 19:21:20 by Hatikvah Hatikvah
*burp*

oh and shiva
while you're at it
try to spell 'stable' correctly
it'll make you look less stupid
(only marginally tho)
added on the 2002-08-25 19:38:18 by superplek superplek
BadSector:
It's true that problems don't occure only on PCs and there are several times my nerves were broken with microcomputers (Especially with Amiga)

But:

Even if I got a GF2 I still can't be sure that everything will run fine.
If I get any CRTC0 CPC then there is no doubt that any new demo coded exactly for this machine will run!

All CPC6128 with the same CRTC are the same models. All C64 are the same, etc..
But every PC has diferrent configuration. That's one important reason why I can't be sure anything will go well on PC. I didn't wanted to bash PC with my previous message, I just wanted to point the problem..
added on the 2002-08-25 20:47:08 by Optimus Optimus
"Even if I got a GF2 I still can't be sure that everything will run fine."

"If I get any CRTC0 CPC then there is no doubt that any new demo coded exactly for this machine will run!"

if you run a demo made for a geforce2 on a geforce2 i'm quite sure it'll work
added on the 2002-08-25 21:09:55 by superplek superplek
I am not sure about GF2 but what I wanted to say is: PCs are hardware with diferrent configurations. You can't be sure that anything will work. But if you have an AtariSt1040 then every demo for it will work, if you have an Amiga500 with 1MB then everything will be fine, etc. Because everyone has EXACTLY the same machine!
added on the 2002-08-25 21:14:46 by Optimus Optimus
...so this is why people invented OpenGL :-)

just get a RC and draw to it. You don't have to do anything hardware-specific. If the drivers and/or the h/w is bad then at least it's not your problem. But if you have a good PC (!=new parts, but good parts... not manli shit), you'll not get often to this situation.
added on the 2002-08-25 21:46:49 by BadSector BadSector
oh, lil plek is trying to flame, how cute :)
pity you are so pathetic at it to start with picking on spelling that i don't really can take up the challenge. *kisses*
added on the 2002-08-25 21:53:59 by shiva shiva
Well, speaking from my own experience...
I code D3D8.1 on my GF2GTS, and I test it every now and then on my brothers R8500, and with refrast.
I've not once had a problem yet that things didn't work at all on the R8500... Usually it works fine on both cards right away.
I did run into 1 problem with D3DRS_SPECULARENABLE set to FALSE, where the GF2 gave different results than refrast and R8500.
So in my experience, nVidia drivers aren't closest to spec, the ATi ones are.
But the workaround to make it look the same everywhere was easy, so hey.

And D3D does not crash or bug on other configurations than the one it's written on.
At least, these were my experiences with D3D programming.

True, there's some D3D demos out there that DO have bugs, and require certain driver versions or certain hardware to work properly, but I guess most of the time they're counting on undefined hardware-behavior and haven't tested properly in debug mode, on refrast, or on other hardware. So: bad code.

As for OGL demos, well I've had quite a few that required nVidia-extensions, some nicely popped up a messagebox and refused, others just crashed silently... How nice. Again: bad code. Not everyone has an nVidia. Don't make your stuff useless on ATi... My prediction for the near future is a big increase in ATi sales :)

In conclusion: Neither API is perfect, but some coders make it worse than it is :)
added on the 2002-08-26 01:01:46 by Scali Scali
D3D in yer pantz...

none demo using d3d & render 2 texture do it the correct way on my old tnt2 (jaja, auch kein fr-demo)
d3d is pink, so d3d-coders r 2 & their pantz also !!!
added on the 2002-08-26 01:58:28 by Igoronimo Igoronimo
tnt2 drivers for d3d is a joke

ahh, love my g400 si do!
added on the 2002-08-26 02:01:18 by Hatikvah Hatikvah
stefan, i heard u wear pink underpantz...
added on the 2002-08-26 02:03:23 by Igoronimo Igoronimo
my render2texture stuff works pretty much okay on a tnt2. slow, but it works :)

oh and dear shiva, i really can't take remarks like:
"a) d3d is much less stabel a 3d api than ogl?
b) it is much harder to write stabel code for d3d?
c) people coding for d3d are worse coders :) ?"
.. any more serious than random picking on someone's spelling. if you could come up with some constructive arguments on why openGL would be superior i would be more than pleased to give some decent feedback.

so, have a go :)
added on the 2002-08-26 11:03:36 by superplek superplek
Let's address these points of Shiva then ;)

Well, I know that D3D can be unstable yes ;)
I bluescreened my box a few times when I forgot to set the drivers to debug mode, and overran a vertexbuffer :)
But hey, that should NEVER happen in released code, or else the programmer should get shot.
It wouldn't happen to OGL ofcourse, you don't have vertexbuffers anyway :)
Well, you do, with extensions (yay, main reason why I don't use OGL), but I guess the effect would be quite similar :)

Anyway, if you just use the debug runtimes, you'll quickly find such mistakes in D3D, and you can fix it, and get perfectly stable code. Not exactly hard if you ask me. I never had a problem with it anyway.

On the other hand... I've had perfectly good OGL code hang a PC completely (eg Lapsus on R8500 with some earlier drivers, new drivers work fine though. G450 also had some problems with it), simply because driver support for OGL is generally way worse than D3D, except for nVidia, they like to do it the other way around, I think :)

As for "people coding for d3d are worse coders"... well... I think the worst coders are those people that rip off the Nehe tuts :)
And hey, guess what, that's OGL! :)
Seriously though, the choice of API doesn't have much to do with one's skills in most cases, I think.
I think that if you know 1 API well (not Nehe-rip level ofcourse :) we all know that OGL is more accessible to beginners. However, glvertex() code is a joke in terms of performance ofcourse, so well, start using those arrays :), you can learn the other one in a few days.
added on the 2002-08-26 11:34:59 by Scali Scali
this driverbabble was not exactly what i was searching for (it's been going on for a while now, and it's starting to feel like listening to "let's all chant!" (by the michael zager band)), which is a bad thing.

some indepth arguments was what i was searching for, regarding design issues for example.

okay, i'll be waiting again =)
added on the 2002-08-26 13:15:27 by superplek superplek

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