Improving ICD = the end of TurboGL?

[absalom]

I can't attest for the p3/ahtlon, but there is a slight gain over the ICD with a p2/celeron still, even though the ICD has less visual artifacts than the MCD (i.e. ghosting railgun in quake2). I would still like to see turbogl improvement continued just as much as the ICD. But then again, quake3 has proven you don't need an MCD... so it's still mixed emotions for me.

[paulcs]

Have you become emotionally attached to TurboGL?

When Matrox introduced TurboGL, I thought they would concentrate on the ICD's performance with applications, and leave gaming to TurboGL. I guess I was wrong.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[absalom]

Nah, I'm not emotionally attached as long as the performance difference is very marginal. MCD's are like tweaked out ICD's. You cut out some of the BS that a game doesn't use and gain some added speed. I guess I'm a tweak freak... I've always liked the idea behind an MCD. An ICD is like industrial strength stuff, contains all the bells and whistles that a CAD app can utilize in full extent. An MCD, however, is like your typical homebrewn moonshine... heh. Gives you that added kick, but not for everyone. I know, lame analogy.

[IceStorm]

I certaintly hope they don't fold the TGL back into the ICD. The TGL is a mini driver, and as such is free of the constraings of hardware OpenGL on the Winblows 9x platform (no hardware OGL when you've got more than one display adapter).

It would be a shame to have to disable my second head every time I want to play a game - I usually leave things up on that monitor while I game.

Oh well.

[PaulS]

The TurboGL isn't an MCD. You might be confused because the turbogl is sometimes called a mini-port. It is basically a subset of the ICD, usually around 5% - 10% of the code, so the developer calls it something different to explain why it will work only with particular applications (the ones he has written code for)

So a miniport (turbogl) is usually just a stepping stone to an ICD, a partially completed ICD if you like.

On the otherhand, an MCD is a full implementation of the OpenGL spec, like an ICD, it is just painfully slow because most of the code is generic enough to run on almost any card. So an MCD is an ICD with minimal hardware acceleration.

Anyway, it is good that Matrox are moving away from the turbogl and on to the full ICD. There is no reason why the ICD should be slower, it just takes longer to write because there is a lot more of it.

Paul

[This message has been edited by PaulS (edited 13 February 2000).]

[PaulS]

Matrox have an MCD for NT, that is what both the G200 and G400 originally shipped with. It will run screensavers, games and apps (though games are painfully slow). It has minimal hardware acceleration.

MS supplies a pre written MCD, that vendors take and fill in a couple of blanks. So normally anything that calls itself an MCD on Windows is pretty much a full, but very slow OpenGL driver.

Vendors then proceede to write an ICD, and normally wind up with a miniport along the way (I don't think any of them call it an MCD, because that is understood as MS's software version). The miniports are as optimised as they can be, very different to the MCD.

Paul

[absalom]

Makes a little more sense now. I'm used to fooling with Mesa's source. It's very close to SGI's way, and better in most cases. I sometimes forget that dealing with OGL in linux is different than a monopolistic MS environment.

[absalom]

Actually, a MCD isn't a full implementation of opengl's spec.

"A MCD is a stripped down OpenGL driver, allowing access to only a portion of the OpenGL pipeline, limiting the ability to increase performance and stabilize the driver."

This is why a MCD will never run even the most generic of opengl apps, screen savers, etc. It lacks ALOT of the features of a compliant opengl driver, but for a reason. Only the OGL parts needed are used, the rest are usually discarded or non-accelerated. Limited? yes. Slow? Not in the case where it was customized for. Don't confuse "slowness" with a mini-client driver. A MCD is just severely limited in cases where an ICD was meant to be used.

"A MCD is a simple, robust exporting of hardware rasterization capabilities. An ICD is basically a full replacement for the API that lets hardware accelerate or extend any piece of GL without any overhead." - John Carmack

According to Carmack, a MCD does indeed contain ALL the needed hardware acceleration... which makes sense. Why even use a MCD if some hardware accelerated parts are left out? Those that are left out are either totally ignored (GPF/segfault) or done in software... hopefully the later. Maybe I'm confused as to what "minimal hardware acceleration" you were thinking of.

I can't claim that turbogl is a MCD or an ICD "hack", because I just don't know exactly. I have always assumed it's a MCD through observation. Certain programs it does runs with, certain ones it doesn't. It acts like a MCD more than anything. The 3dfx mini-gl acted in a similar manner (it is a MCD). You can't judge something by it's byte size, you judge it by what opengl functions it accelerates and/or extends in hardware. I'm not a matrox engineer, so I have very little knowledge of the "guts" of the TGL or ICD. I can only observe through the apps that use them.

[This message has been edited by absalom (edited 13 February 2000).]

[Gurm]

Absalom,

No offense, but cut out the "monopolistic MS environment" garbage. It gets old, and I for one am sick of people bashing MS just for the sake of bashing MS.

Linux is a festering piece of crap. You can't do anything useful with it, and it's YEARS away from being a consumer OS. So don't go on and on about how a 30-year-old kernel designed to run on magnetic tape is sooooo wonderful.

Yes, I'm ranting. But perhaps you weren't around to see the mess the PC software industry was in BEFORE Win9x and WinNT.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[LAMFDTK]

Not to Pile on here with GURM but:

It isn't cool anymore to think your cool because you use Linux.

Fashionable O/S's go out of style too.

BeOs is cool

(Unix) Linux is old (red) hat

Get with it ...

[cjolley]

Suppose you bought a TV & when it was delivered it came as loose parts in a box with instructions on how to build it.
I don't think they would get very far with anyone but hobbyists.
chuck

[paulcs]

Of course, this is how many if not most people on this forum deal with their PC's: a couple of large and a bunch of small pieces individually wrapped. Once you upgraded a motherboard, the idea of buying an assembled computer becomes perverse.

If Michael Dell thinks people who upgrade their video and sound boards are the "lunatic fringe," what does that make us?

Completely mad hobbyists, I guess.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[paulcs]

And let's face it, the few instructions we get are, for the most part, garbage.

Maybe Michael Dell is right.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[absalom]

Ok, my turn to rant...

When I say "monopolistic", I'm talking about the demolished lack of competition MS has left us with in the last 10+ years (and I'm not just talking the OS area). I've been there since the first apple came out. I've lived through and experienced almost all of the personal computing era. My views on the state of PC technology today? Things are more "messy" today than ever. We don't deal with 1000's of lines of code anymore. We deal with millions and millions of lines of code per app. One person cannnot comprehend, much less deal with that much information by him/her-self. Why do you think MS admitts that it's shipping win2k with 1000's of known bugs? Isn't complication a side effect of any advancing civilization? Simplicity is just wool over any consumers eyes today.... and MS has done a nice job leading the majority of the flock using this. So the preacher preaches, "If it looks simple, it must be reliable?" Such a statement is no where near idealistic. And I'm not even going to go in the financial aspects of software today... no wonder warez has thrived so long.

No denying, linux is just a "hack" os, it isn't funded by a multibillion dollar corporation, it isn't user friendly, it has no single identity other than it's kernel, and the majority of people who use it are the "extreme left-wing elite college educated hax0rs". Its kernel is nothing like a corporate unix such as HP-Unix, Solaris, etc. Those OS'es were designed for clustering in the first place. Linux has borrowed "unix" ideas, but historically linux was written from scratch (by one guy). I have no idealistic dream of linux ever taking over MS. In fact, I wouldn't even be using linux at all if it wasn't for the consistantly well documented open source that is available to any average "joe" to access. Linux isn't a POWER os, it's lacking alot of features right now that even Win95 has. But it is, however, a CLEAN os. Everything there is laid out in front of you. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is preventing you from modifying it yourself. Have you ever heard of a linux box destroyed due to a virus? Didn't think so. (Outside the linux environment doesn't count. And you can get into the pandora's box argument too, but my point is clear.)

BeOS? I love BeOS. But comparing linux to BeOS is like comparing apples to oranges. But, when did nrrrds start wearing this stuff with Tommy Hilfiger britches anyway?

[DentyCracker]

ROFL
Linux is free (just use netzero)
That alone makes it appealing to many.
But really now I love Linux and BeOS.
However Windows98 [b}that[/b] festering piece of crap that loves to crash is a very necessary evil for the majority of us as it also happens to be the OS that you can do the most with. Bitch and whine at it but do so on a factual basis. Or else go watch your DVDs on a linux box LOL