[Survey] How many of you CANNOT run GZDoom's OpenGL renderer

[Graf Zahl]

I only have one computer. Why should I buy a graphics card that delivers less performance for the same amount of money?

I also have found out that AMD is as likely to do stuff wrong. And if they do stuff wrong it's oftentimes a bigger problem because unlike NVidia they are not just a bit liberal but flat out wrong.

[RV-007]

I think the problem with these manufacturers is that they have their own code of things. They try to be the standard of whatevers. What we are left with is to determine what the hardware can do for our computing. A good example is PAL versus NTSC video standard, each to its own benefit and cost. I apologize to pipe up and be annoying/irrelevant, but maybe UT99's software render graphics would help balance out the process of hardware graphics/video rendering. I am not trying to call out a standard because I should know that computers are manufactured under many factors.

[GhostKillahZero]

I only have one computer. Why should I buy a graphics card that delivers less performance for the same amount of money?

So the question is, what is a better graphics card to choose from, and why?

[GooberMan]

Why should I buy a graphics card that delivers less performance for the same amount of money?

You can stop sounding ignorant any time you want now. Current range ATI cards are quite competitive and in many cases better than their NVidia counterparts. Pick your price bracket and go for a card. If you have been paying attention to graphics hardware, you'll know that this kind of back-and-forward happens every few years.

Also, with all your ranting about how easy it is to pick up a €20 to €40 card second hand (which would be more than enough to test and confirm GZDoom features run by yourself) I'm not even sure why you're bringing up money.

EDIT: Windows supports multiple graphics cards these days. I don't know how well NVidia and ATI drivers play together out of the box, but you could also VM a copy of your OS with the Nvidia card enabled in one and ATI in the other. One computer really isn't much of an excuse these days.

I also have found out that AMD is as likely to do stuff wrong

And yet, to spec. Which as a developer is something you really want to aim for so that you can support the widest range. Unless you like writing things twice, which your comments seem to indicate you just don't.

[Graf Zahl]

Why should I buy a graphics card that delivers less performance for the same amount of money?

You can stop sounding ignorant any time you want now. Current range ATI cards are quite competitive and in many cases better than their NVidia counterparts.

Not when running old OpenGL stuff and that's the stuff that counts most to me: Not only Doom but also other OpenGL games from the late 90's and early 2000's.
I only bought a budget card (Geforce 550Ti) two years ago, it's more than sufficient for the stuff I play.

On the other hand, the driver overhead in AMD's drivers for old immediate mode games is so much higher that this card still works better for this stuff than even the most high end AMD card avaiable.

I don't care about modern games. They offer nothing I like and I won't spend money on hardware that makes them run better.


And please stop preaching. I'm not doing this for money. So you just get what I feel like doing, nothing more.

[Nash]

EDIT: Windows supports multiple graphics cards these days. I don't know how well NVidia and ATI drivers play together out of the box, but you could also VM a copy of your OS with the Nvidia card enabled in one and ATI in the other. One computer really isn't much of an excuse these days.

This is really cool, I need to try this sometime soon! That extra PCIe slot has been begging to be used for a while now... :D

[JPL]

The problem is not immediate mode - at least not on NVidia - but the fact that in order to generate any data to be rendered the engine has to run a huge amount of code, most of which has nothing to do with rendering but only with traversing the BSP and checking visibility to determine which parts of the level need to be rendered.

With a large level like Frozen Time, ca. 2/3 of the entire time is spent in code that never ever touches the driver interface.

The big problem with the existing code is that it has to make it all work on ancient hardware that needs complex workarounds for all kinds of things which makes optimization of the rendering flow close to impossible. When I can assume to have high performance shading available, a lot of this stuff can be removed. It doesn't directly speed things up but it makes it a lot easier to store some of this stuff statically instead of recreating it each frame.

Of course this means that any optimization will inevitably require quite modern hardware. Having checked the available options I have come to the conclusion that it only makes sense on OpenGL 4.3. Anything less and I'd still be stuck in the same areas that currently stall the engine, immediate mode or not.

It's good to hear you're doing this kind of profiling and optimization, if and when it happens it'll be good to have GZDoom a bit more future-proofed. Thanks!

[Siberian Tiger]

I am not going to jump into 'who is right' or which 'manufacturer is the best', but instead I just have a middle ground suggestion. While Graf Zahl works on GZDoom with his current graphics card of choice (NVIDIA), why not have GooberMan test and assist with developments using GooberMan's choice of graphics card (ATI)? This idea is not intended to cause friction between the two individuals, but to help make GZDoom's renderer engine suitable for the major graphics card manufacturers. This is just my suggestion...

[Ghastly]

What a completely unreasonable suggestion! How dare you!

[GhostKillahZero]

How dare you!

[Gez]

Could you try posting things more useful than image macros and pony memes? TIA

[GhostKillahZero]

I only post images at certain times, The only time I post more images is at "WTF/funny videos,images" thread, but however more on topic.
I used to have AMD and NVIDIA at the same time when I purchased a PC game for Games for Windows LIVE (when it was in-service at the time) it was laggy time after time. However I recovered my computer from factory conditions (due to my computer shutting down from over-heating during system updating), I lost them both, but made some important backups on my files.

[GooberMan]

While Graf Zahl works on GZDoom with his current graphics card of choice (NVIDIA), why not have GooberMan test and assist with developments using GooberMan's choice of graphics card (ATI)?

"Choice" is an incorrect word. I've been a professional multi-platform and multi-hardware programmer for the last 11 and a half years. Staying hardware agnostic as much as possible is part of my modus operandi.

Still. I do plan on contributing code myself once Prime Directive is done and permissions are cleared with my current employer.

[Graf Zahl]

While Graf Zahl works on GZDoom with his current graphics card of choice (NVIDIA), why not have GooberMan test and assist with developments using GooberMan's choice of graphics card (ATI)?

"Choice" is an incorrect word. I've been a professional multi-platform and multi-hardware programmer for the last 11 and a half years. Staying hardware agnostic as much as possible is part of my modus operandi.

... and I have been a multi-platform developer for 20 years. This is still a hobby project for me, though, that doesn't justify otherwise unneeded expenses. Also, please point me to even one piece of GZDoom that depends on NVidia quirks. They should have been eliminated long ago. The engine has been out in the wild for long enough.

That it performs better with NVidia than AMD simply comes from NVidia providing a far more efficient implementation of immediate mode.

[GooberMan]

Last time I ran it on ATI hardware (must have been a year ago) complete transparency wasn't being handled correctly and was rendering black. Haven't tried it in a while, don't know if its still an issue.

You haven't been a professional multi-platform multi-hardware programmer for as long as you've been programming on multi-platform and multi-hardware. Neither have I.

And this is the point in difference between professional and hobby programming. You see buying some test hardware yourself as an unnecessary expense, yet expect your user base to buy hardware similar to what you develop on (thus pushing the €20 to €40 you've mentioned off yourself and on to your end user). This is something that just doesn't fly in a professional environment. If you advertise something as one thing and it doesn't work, you're expected to fix it. And either that leads to back and forward between users trying to find out what works without testing it yourself; buying some similar hardware and avoiding all that time wasted; or throwing a hissy fit and removing your product.

I don't expect you to change your ways, but that doesn't mean I won't discuss alternate viewpoints here.