Questions about X1950XT (R580) opengl extensions

[barbarbaron]

Hi there! it's my first thread in this forum, so here it goes

It is known that OSS radeon driver devs are working on GLSL and opengl 2.0 support for this hardware (R300-R500). Recently I found THIS page on the net, listing the opengl extensions available with the catalyst 8.6 drivers (windows) for R580. It is surprising to see that the hardware (X1950XTX in this case) supports many opengl 3.0 extensions too excluding the GL 2.1 extension GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two. But many important 3.0 extensions like: GL_EXT_framebuffer_object.

The question is: Will those extensions be added when the opengl 2.0 support in mesa drivers be implemented? Also the hardware seems to be supporting GLSL rev. 1.20. Will it be implemented too? Thanks!

[barbarbaron]

I got my own report from OpenGL Extensions Viewer in windows using the latest (9.3) catalyst drivers:

Renderer: Radeon X1950 Series
Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Memory: 256 MB
Version: 2.1.8543 Release
Shading language version: 1.20


Max texture size: 4096 x 4096
Max texture coordinates: 8
Max vertex texture image units: 0
Max texture image units: 16
Max geometry texture units: 0
Max anisotropic filtering value: 16
Max number of light sources: 8
Max viewport size: 4096 x 4096
Max uniform vertex components: 512
Max uniform fragment components: 512
Max geometry uniform components: 0
Max varying floats: 44
Max samples: 6
Max draw buffers: 4


Extensions: 112

GL_AMD_performance_monitor
GL_ARB_depth_texture
GL_ARB_draw_buffers
GL_ARB_fragment_program
GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow
GL_ARB_fragment_shader
GL_ARB_framebuffer_object
GL_ARB_half_float_pixel
GL_ARB_half_float_vertex
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_shader_objects
GL_ARB_shader_texture_lod
GL_ARB_shading_language_100
GL_ARB_shadow
GL_ARB_shadow_ambient
GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
GL_ARB_texture_compression
GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
GL_ARB_texture_env_add
GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
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_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_envmap_bumpmap
GL_ATI_fragment_shader
GL_ATI_meminfo
GL_ATI_separate_stencil
GL_ATI_texture_compression_3dc
GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3
GL_ATI_texture_float
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_copy_texture
GL_EXT_draw_range_elements
GL_EXT_fog_coord
GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit
GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample
GL_EXT_framebuffer_object
GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters
GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil
GL_EXT_packed_pixels
GL_EXT_point_parameters
GL_EXT_rescale_normal
GL_EXT_secondary_color
GL_EXT_separate_specular_color
GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
GL_EXT_subtexture
GL_EXT_texgen_reflection
GL_EXT_texture3D
GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
GL_EXT_texture_cube_map
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp
GL_EXT_texture_env_add
GL_EXT_texture_env_combine
GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3
GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp
GL_EXT_texture_object
GL_EXT_texture_rectangle
GL_EXT_texture_sRGB
GL_EXT_texture_swizzle
GL_EXT_vertex_array
GL_KTX_buffer_region
GL_NV_blend_square
GL_NV_texgen_reflection
GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp
GL_SGIS_texture_lod
GL_WIN_swap_hint
WGL_AMDX_gpu_association
WGL_ARB_buffer_region
WGL_ARB_create_context
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_ATI_render_texture_rectangle
WGL_EXT_extensions_string
WGL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB
WGL_EXT_pixel_format_packed_float
WGL_EXT_swap_control
WGL_I3D_genlock
WGL_NV_swap_group

Core features
v1.1 (100 % - 7/7)
v1.2 (100 % - 8/8)
v1.3 (100 % - 9/9)
v1.4 (100 % - 15/15)
v1.5 (100 % - 3/3)
v2.0 (100 % - 10/10)
v2.1 (100 % - 3/3)
v3.0 (39 % - 9/23)
v3.1 (12 % - 1/8)
v3.2 (0 % - 0/9)

Here in the report I can see NPOT textures, I know that the hardware doesn't support them all but will it be implemented in the mesa stack too?

[bridgman]

Our current understanding is that the hardware doesn't support NPOT under certain conditions (mipmapping etc.) but does support NPOT for the more common use cases.

Unfortunately OpenGL extensions tend to get defined *after* the corresponding hardware is developed so they don't always align with hardware capabilities. DX standards tend to get defined earlier so that hardware vendors can design new hardware to match the standards.

[barbarbaron]

Thanks bridgman. I have tested the framebuffer object with OpenGL Extensions Viewer and it seems not to fall to software renderer. Which makes me think it is indeed supported by hardware. Can you please answer the questions in the first post too?

[agd5f]

framebuffer objects do not require any special hardware, only a decent memory manager.

[bridgman]

The question in your first post is essentially "what is the community, which you don't manage, going to do in the future ?", so understand that this is more of a guess than a hard answer

Some OpenGL features are tied directly to implementation details of the graphics hardware, and that's where you see a tight relationship between GPU vendor/model and the degree of support. Other features are more general, in the sense that they are capabilities of the driver framework more than the hardware itself. A lot of these features were optional in GL 2.0 and simply became core requirements in 3.x.

I expect that most of the second class of features will get implemented in the open source drivers. Many of those features are/were blocked on the availability of a good common memory manager shared between X, kernel and 3D drivers, which was recently implemented and is in the process of becoming mainstream.