Vista, ATI and OpenGL

[Desktop Gaming]

Talk about The Three Stooges...

Been tearing my hair out today trying to get some OpenGL stuff to run under Vista. I have a Radeon 9600 which, up until today, I've had no problems with. Even The Aero glass effect works. However, that's with the drivers which Windows Update installs.

Nothing that goes anywhere near OpenGL, will work.

Upon installing the latest drivers from ATI's website, still nothing will work which requires OpenGL. Further, I can no longer use Aero.

After much digging on the interweb, I've read in several places that ATI cards coupled with Vista and OpenGL, simply don't 'go'. If Vista had just been released last week I could understand (or at least tolerate) basic functionality like this not working. Vista has been out nearly a year. Why don't ATI have any working drivers yet?

</rant>

Anybody recommend a decent but not stupidly expensive Nvidia/8x AGP card?

[Spore Man]

I thought I read at one point that Vista required a Direct X 10 compatible video card... ?

The specs now say Direct X 9. Does the 9600 meet these:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

[Desktop Gaming]

I thought I read at one point that Vista required a Direct X 10 compatible video card... ?

The specs now say Direct X 9. Does the 9600 meet these:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx
Well, as I said, everything works perfectly, apart from anything that needs OpenGL. I know my graphics card isn't exactly cutting edge but it does run Vista very nicely.

Its just the OpenGL thing that's bugging me. I'm not massively concerned with writing games which are OpenGL compliant anyway. It was just one of those "WTF?!" moments.

[oddvark]

Oh disregard this, I guess Microsoft changed their plan for OpenGL last I heard about the debate.

<edit: what I said before> I heard that OpenGL up to version 1.4 would be supported by Vista natively, and that it would work with the Aero effects as long as the default drivers were used. Could your apps be using 1.4+ or some unsupported openGL extensions?

[GolfHacker]

I was on the ATI site today, looking for clues about an XP problem a beta tester is having. Anyway, under the latest Catalyst drivers released Oct 11, I saw that OpenGL support on Vista was listed as "beta". Sounds like it isn't quite there yet.

[vjvj]

Aero runs definitely runs in DX9, not DX10.

I can't speak for ATI, but I know the NVIDIA Vista driver supports ALL OpenGL features, circumventing the "GL 1.4 natively, extensions are emulated through D3D, blah blah blah" screwiness. I can't see why ATI wouldn't be doing the same thing.

My guess: ATI's driver is just behind :( All the IHVs are still pretty far behind on their Vista drivers, but AFAIK NVIDIA is the only IHV with a large (arguably too large) OpenGL team.

As for GeForces, any of the 7000 series cards should do you well. 7600 is great bang for the buck. 79xx are at a good price/performance spot right now as well. No DX10 is the only drawback with those; not really an issue for most of us. You can also drop down to the 6000 series cards which are feature-identical, but about 1/2 the speed on average.

[Desktop Gaming]

Yeah I'm looking at switching to the 7600GT.

I originally moved to ATI about four years ago because the Nvidia drivers turned to crap. Back to Nvidia then! :D

[Nikster]

But you have to ask yourself if your end users have vista with said card.

The joys of vista and drivers, ahhhhhh :)

None of my creative sound units work properly with vista, some that do work have distorted sound so I had to resort back to the onboard sound, my graphics card worked ok, 6600gt, but I can't actually use the vivo feature because alas, there's no drivers.

[Sysiphus]

Yeah I'm looking at switching to the 7600GT.

Works like a charm, I tell you.

[princec]

My 6800GT is still bloody amazing and I bet it's a lot cheaper.

Cas :)

[vjvj]

My 6800GT is still bloody amazing and I bet it's a lot cheaper.

Cas :)

I'm still running a 6800GT as well on my desktop (and a 6600gt in my laptop). I doubt it's much cheaper though as you're basically talking about an older enthusiast chip vs. a newer mainstream chip, so it's kind of a wash. Either would work and the cost is probably very similar, though I'd expect the 7600 to be easier to find these days.

[Sysiphus]

er...my 7600gt was dirty cheap...

it had shaders 3, and as an artist, just wanted to have one with those, just in case...you know, one must keep with the new technology in the graphics-making part....and was told not to make much noise...and to me that does very little...before had a gf4 4200... Also, was the last I found decent with agp port in my area...

pd: indeed, I never buy the expensive model, only the cheap, just not the cheapest...I gues directx10 will force me to change again, but I'm poor to change fast...is like almost one year with this, I think, and runs very well.

[Bad Sector]

I saw that OpenGL support on Vista was listed as "beta". Sounds like it isn't quite there yet.

Actually it's Vista that should be listed as "beta"....

[Desktop Gaming]

I ordered my 7600GT yesterday. £70 from Overclockers which is a pretty good price for an AGP card these days. Its had good reviews across the board.
Actually it's Vista that should be listed as "beta"....Vista is fine. The problem is the hardware manufacturers who still haven't gotten their finger out and written decent drivers even though they've had over a year to do it.

[tagged]

There's new cards coming out from nVidia in a couple weeks, more refresh designs than new gen. 8800GT, faster (in most cases) and cheaper than the current 8800GTS. The 8800GTS gets a new refresh that gives it more stream processes for some gap between it and a GT. I believe even the 8600/8400 are getting a refresh as well, under the codename g98...

It's a very confusing strategy for me, to refresh year-old models? Especially when the codename originally suggested a new generation (g92 over g8x), and we were told last year nVidia were back to a 1 year schedule. I was one who believed the rumors that the g92 was the 1 teraflop card :o

But good news for people wanting powerful video cards on the cheap, the 8800GT comes in 256 and 512mb flavors (256bit memory) so I'm sure the 256mb ver will be crowned king of price/performance. So anyone with a small budget should best wait until late this month early next, you could be in for a much better deal ;)

[Desktop Gaming]

Thing is, I write games. I don't want to write them on cutting edge hardware and I do find that people who are always waiting for "the next big thing" actually achieve very little.

The 7600GT will be a fair step up as far as development goes, even moreso when/if I decide to move to C# or C++ with TV3D. Of course I'll still have my old Radeon 9600, Rage Pro, and on board graphics for testing purposes. ;)

[princec]

Hm, I think the real problem is that Vista's driver model is massively different to XP so they've had to more or less start from scratch.

Cas :)

[elias4444]

I'm gonna have to side with Cas on this one. I've got a Vista Home Premium laptop, and I've had all sorts of problems with it... and more than just driver issues (although those are annoying too). Why a manufacturer would be forced to write a wrapper around D3D for openGL calls is beyond me... unless of course Microsoft is just trying their old tricks of forcing manufacturers to go with their "standards" rather than those shared by everyone else? Of course, Microsoft would NEVER do that? Would they? :rolleyes:

[Xiotex]

I'm gonna have to side with Cas on this one. I've got a Vista Home Premium laptop, and I've had all sorts of problems with it... and more than just driver issues (although those are annoying too). Why a manufacturer would be forced to write a wrapper around D3D for openGL calls is beyond me... unless of course Microsoft is just trying their old tricks of forcing manufacturers to go with their "standards" rather than those shared by everyone else? Of course, Microsoft would NEVER do that? Would they? :rolleyes:

I was present at an early developer relations meeting with MS when they put down the roadmap for DX and OGL on Vista and in that meeting they revealed that all OGL calls get converted to DX because DX is no longer a seperate component bolted onto the top of the HAL but is now a part of it - replacing GDI.

[elias4444]

Just makes me glad that Mac users are so willing to buy my openGL games. :D

[GolfHacker]

Just makes me glad that Mac users are so willing to buy my openGL games. :D

Ditto. I get more sales on Mac anyway, so I have no issues with using OpenGL exclusively. If I miss a few sales because some Windows user has an ATI card that doesn't support OpenGL very well, so be it. My Mac sales more than make up for that.

[tagged]

I was present at an early developer relations meeting with MS when they put down the roadmap for DX and OGL on Vista and in that meeting they revealed that all OGL calls get converted to DX because DX is no longer a seperate component bolted onto the top of the HAL but is not a part of it - replacing GDI.
flashbacks to the whole "We can't separate Internet Explorer because it's now apart of windows".