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Do you think 3d video card drivers are still a problem on Linux?
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Some people think that you should use open GL for 2d retro-looking games because it "looks neat" but I think that lowers the number of potential users of a game simply because trying to install the 3d card drivers is still a problem. As I understand it, Nvidia has still not released their source code for the cards yet.
As I understand it, from talking to users and seeing a recent articule in a mainstream high tech magazine, about whether or not Ubuntu should include the evil drivers or not, it is obvious to me, that now is not the time to take up Open GL.
3D video has not been a problem for years on Linux. Intel has great open source drivers. Both Nvidia and ATI provide good quality closed source drivers. Most distros install these automatically or make it really easy for people to install them manually. To top it off, open source 3D drivers for Nvidia and ATI are on the way in the form of Nouveau and RadeonHD. The latter is already stable for older ATI cards.
Yeah, I haven't had any problems running OpenGL on Ubuntu for a number of years. Sure, the only decent drivers are closed source, but they do work.
If you've got some philosophical problem with running closed-source drivers, then you might have issues, but if you don't really care (and, let's face it, 99% of people don't) then it's really not an issue.
If you've got some philosophical problem with running closed-source drivers, then you might have issues, but if you don't really care (and, let's face it, 99% of people don't) then it's really not an issue.
If you're just doing simple 2d retro-looking stuff, then you can always just use the Mesa software driver.
The alternative to using OpenGL, even with software rendering, is what? An awful lot of Linux is not running on a Windows-compatible desktop. Those of us who target non-Windows machines curse those who assume everything is Wintel. OpenGL with software rendering will do retro 2D games better and more portably than any of the alternatives. Better yet, target the OpenGL 3 subset that is compatible with OpenGL ES 2 and you will feel our love.
Quote: Original post by SanderOf Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS and Fedora (all of which I have installed in the last few months), only Ubuntu managed to install the proprietary ATI driver automatically, and only Debian managed to install the open-source ATI driver from its package manager.
Most distros install these automatically or make it really easy for people to install them manually.
Installing the proprietary driver on the non-Ubuntu installations was a small nightmare, requiring custom patching of the build scripts and considerable custom configuration of X11.
Amusingly enough, Slackware, which doesn't have a package manager or auto-install, was a piece of cake to install the drivers, accepting the build script out of the box, and even accepting the default X11 configuration.
The long and short of it: use Ubuntu if you want ATI graphics drivers. I understand that NVidia and Intel drivers are far easier to obtain, but i don't have any direct experience of those.
Quote: Original post by swiftcoder
Installing the proprietary driver on the non-Ubuntu installations was a small nightmare, requiring custom patching of the build scripts and considerable custom configuration of X11.
Installing nVidia drivers on RedHat variations (CentOS 5.4, RedHat EL5, and Fedora 9-12) has been a breeze for me for the past 2-3 years. It doesn't come out of the box with the install, but it takes only a couple of extra lines at the command prompt to get it going.
-Kirk
ATI proprietary drivers are notorious for being unstable, though I believe they have gotten better. The Catalyst Linux driver is nearing feature parity with Catalyst Windows, missing only 4-way CrossFire X, Eyefinity, and a couple other minor features. Still, I think the open source driver will eclipse Catalyst in popularity pretty soon (if it hasn't already), since most distributions will more readily include it over Catalyst, and most Linux users don't have a need for Hybrid CrossFire, Eyefinity, etc. AMD has released a bunch of info and source code to help move the project along, so the open source driver's future is very promising.
Nvidia, however, has released no information, but their proprietary drivers are excellent. For video acceleration/decoding, Nvidia's VDPAU blows AMD's XvBA out of the water. Nouveau is much further behind on functionality than radeon because of this, with 3D still very much experimental. I think it will be some time before nouveau replaces Nvidia's proprietary driver, so people with Nvidia cards are more likely to have 2D-only hardware acceleration.
Intel releases their own driver as open source, so the only problem there is performance since they are all integrated video.
Here is a Phoronix Graphics survey from December that you might be interested in. Overall, I think it's pretty safe to use OpenGL, since virtually everybody who would plays games on Linux will be using a hardware-accelerated driver.
Nvidia, however, has released no information, but their proprietary drivers are excellent. For video acceleration/decoding, Nvidia's VDPAU blows AMD's XvBA out of the water. Nouveau is much further behind on functionality than radeon because of this, with 3D still very much experimental. I think it will be some time before nouveau replaces Nvidia's proprietary driver, so people with Nvidia cards are more likely to have 2D-only hardware acceleration.
Intel releases their own driver as open source, so the only problem there is performance since they are all integrated video.
Here is a Phoronix Graphics survey from December that you might be interested in. Overall, I think it's pretty safe to use OpenGL, since virtually everybody who would plays games on Linux will be using a hardware-accelerated driver.
I can't seem to grasp, what OP's point is...is he suggesting that it is better to use some kind of non-hardware accelerated 2D api instead for unix programming?
If so, thats a dumb argument...if you use OpenGL and don't have the drivers installed, then it falls back to software rendering anyway and you have no other penalty. If you use something that ISN"T OpenGL, then you are guaranteed to have software rendering. So, because you might or might not get hardware rendering under OpenGL, you should use a software renderer.... What?
If so, thats a dumb argument...if you use OpenGL and don't have the drivers installed, then it falls back to software rendering anyway and you have no other penalty. If you use something that ISN"T OpenGL, then you are guaranteed to have software rendering. So, because you might or might not get hardware rendering under OpenGL, you should use a software renderer.... What?
Quote: Original post by Steve132
I can't seem to grasp, what OP's point is...is he suggesting that it is better to use some kind of non-hardware accelerated 2D api instead for unix programming?
If so, thats a dumb argument...if you use OpenGL and don't have the drivers installed, then it falls back to software rendering anyway and you have no other penalty. If you use something that ISN"T OpenGL, then you are guaranteed to have software rendering. So, because you might or might not get hardware rendering under OpenGL, you should use a software renderer.... What?
OpenGL on software rendering is slow as frozen hell, even for simple sprite rendering. If he is developing 2D and want it to be portable he could use SDL instead. He could wrap the library in a way that adding OpenGL support latter doesn't become too difficult.
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