Oolite Bulletins

Update on 30/5/12 - My current status with this Hardware on Window 7 64Bit.

Using Oolite 1.76.1 self compiled maintenance build (basically 1.76 plus bugs fixed since release including those described in this thread)

Using Oolite 1.76.1 and trunk/nightly builds.

Using driver revision: 8.15.10.2656 (Feb 2012) OpenGL 3.1 - all good.
Updated to driver revision 8.15.10.2696 (March 2012) OpenGL 3.1 - all good.

Stable, no crashes, no graphical problems. All Good.

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Morning all,

Been away from the boards and Oolite for a week or two due to annoying hardware issues. Firstly my trusty old XP laptop started playing up big time - graphics card crashing to a black screen of death (bit like a blue screen except because its the display thats borked you can't see the error code) during normal use and whilst playing Oolite. After mucho tweaking and testing the eventual diagnosis was that the graphics card itself was failing. It remains reasonably stable at a reduced hardware acceleration setting and Oolite is still playable, but the possibility that it might pack up entirely at some point sent me in search of new hardware......

And what I ended up with was a brand new Win 7 64bit HP pavilion G6 laptop with a Intel i5-2430m CPU and integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics. It was someone else's unwanted Xmas present which they sold for a bargain price. All good so far - it's shiny, it's red, it cost me a song, windows boots in about 4 seconds, oolite in 2.......arghhh oolite's display is seriously messed up. It's supposedly OpenGL3.1 compliant...grr. Then follows trying various different driver packages, some from HP, some from intel. Things are a bit better, but lots of niggles - vsync doesn't work, with full shaders on BGS backgrounds not displayed and lots of other graphical niggles. Even ended up installing ubuntu so see if the linux drivers were any better, but couldn't get ubuntu to recognise the GPU (i'm brand new to linux so i was probably doing something wrong).

Eventually windows update (of all things) came to the rescue and offered a older driver than what was currently installed (which was the most recent from the Intel website). Ah well can't hurt I'll give it a go - and hey presto all seems to work. Full shaders, BGS backgrounds are showing. A few graphical artifacts still but not game destroying. Vsync still doesn't work but the artifacts are not tearing related. Frame rate is a solid 99.....

So if you are unfortunate enough to end up with with this integrated GPU and can't get Oolite working satisfactorily the driver revision that works for me is 8.15.10.2353 dated 04/04/2011. This one in openGL 3.0 (all the others were I think openGL 3.1) As I said this was offered initially via windows update and I couldn't locate a manual download/install on the intel site, but I did find an installer on the HP website. I've archived a copy of the installer so if you need this driver and can't find it give me a holler.

05:59:06.536 [rendering.opengl.version]: OpenGL renderer version: 3.0.0 ("3.0.0 - Build 8.15.10.2353"). Vendor: "Intel". Renderer: "Intel(R) HD Graphics Family".
05:59:06.537 [rendering.opengl.extensions]: OpenGL extensions (90):
GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_ARB_shadow, GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_EXT_separate_specular_color, GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_draw_buffers2, GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit, GL_EXT_transform_feedback, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3, GL_EXT_framebuffer_object, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_3DFX_texture_compression_FXT1, GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_EXT_texture_snorm, GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp, GL_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB, GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample, GL_EXT_texture_env_add, GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp, GL_INTEL_performance_queries, GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_SGIS_texture_lod, GL_ARB_occlusion_query, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_EXT_stencil_two_side, GL_ARB_shading_language_100, GL_ARB_texture_compression_rgtc, GL_EXT_texture_shared_exponent, GL_EXT_rescale_normal, GL_ARB_map_buffer_range, GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object, GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_ARB_half_float_pixel, GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias, GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_ARB_half_float_vertex, GL_EXT_texture_swizzle, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap, GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two, GL_ARB_point_sprite, GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil, GL_ARB_vertex_shader, GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_integer, GL_ARB_depth_buffer_float, GL_ARB_draw_instanced, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_WIN_swap_hint, GL_ARB_color_buffer_float, GL_ARB_shader_objects, GL_EXT_texture_array, GL_ATI_separate_stencil, GL_ARB_framebuffer_object, GL_EXT_packed_float, GL_EXT_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_texture_rg, GL_ARB_fragment_shader, GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_texture3D, GL_ARB_window_pos, GL_ARB_fragment_program, GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_ARB_point_parameters, GL_ARB_texture_cube_map, GL_EXT_bgra, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_vertex_array_object, GL_ARB_draw_buffers, GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays, GL_ARB_texture_float, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate, GL_EXT_texture_sRGB, GL_EXT_shadow_funcs, GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint, GL_EXT_blend_color, GL_NV_blend_square
05:59:06.546 [rendering.opengl.shader.support]: Shaders are supported.

It only seems to support 90 OpenGL extensions - I thought there was well over 200...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

It only seems to support 90 OpenGL extensions - I thought there was well over 200...

My nVidia card reports that it supports 236 under Oolite. I have no idea whether there are extensions where support is optional within the different OpeGL versions.

Gimi wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

It only seems to support 90 OpenGL extensions - I thought there was well over 200...

My nVidia card reports that it supports 236 under Oolite. I have no idea whether there are extensions where support is optional within the different OpeGL versions.

It just makes me smile somewhat ruefully that an Intel card (no surprise) that is "OpenGL 3.0" - actually only supports about 1/3rd of the OpenGL extensions available - not all of them will be used by Oolite of course - but if some of those in the 236 for an Nvidia card that aren't in the 90 for the Intel card are used that would explain the graphical quirks seen.

Ahruman's spinning cube OXP tests all the extensions used by Oolite doesn't it?

All extensions are optional. Generally speaking, features are introduced as extensions, then rolled into the core OpenGL specification if adopted by multiple vendors. Generally speaking, drivers for newer OpenGL versions will advertise the old extension versions of such features, but they aren’t required to.

A lot of features first come in vendor-specific versions, then “ARB” or “EXT” versions that are standardised, and these become part of the core spec. Some extensions stay vendor-specific. Intel doesn’t define many vendor-specific extensions, and doesn’t implement many by other vendors (there are some exceptions, like the GL_NV ones in the list), so they don’t have as many in total as Nvidia or AMD.

Ahruman wrote:

All extensions are optional. Generally speaking, features are introduced as extensions, then rolled into the core OpenGL specification if adopted by multiple vendors. Generally speaking, drivers for newer OpenGL versions will advertise the old extension versions of such features, but they aren’t required to.

A lot of features first come in vendor-specific versions, then “ARB” or “EXT” versions that are standardised, and these become part of the core spec. Some extensions stay vendor-specific. Intel doesn’t define many vendor-specific extensions, and doesn’t implement many by other vendors (there are some exceptions, like the GL_NV ones in the list), so they don’t have as many in total as Nvidia or AMD.

So basically, with regards to Oolite, the number of extensions supported is of no consequence, as long as the card/driver supports the relevant OpenGL version/standard. Extensions are just that, extensions beyond the supported standard.

Just needed to clarify this in my own head.

Gimi wrote:

So basically, with regards to Oolite, the number of extensions supported is of no consequence, as long as the card/driver supports the relevant OpenGL version/standard. Extensions are just that, extensions beyond the supported standard.

Well… no. Oolite won’t actually work with the non-extension version of shader support, for instance, because the functions involved have slightly different names. But it’s really a moot point, since those extensions are supported by this driver.

There aren't many features needed for compliance with any particular level of openGL - OpenGL Extensions Viewer v4 ( http://www.realtech-vr.com/glview/) is a useful little utility that will tell you exactly what your current hardware/driver is capable of, and includes some handy rendering tests.

A little update on my last post. I've now located and tried several older drivers from the HP site. Any that are openGL3.0 work just fine (generally released prior to June 2011), any that are advertised as openGL3.1 (generally released after June 2011) are borked (and fail the rendering tests mentioned above).

The remaining graphical niggles are proving more instrusive that I thought....

It's basically seems to be problems models with subents not displaying correctly. The main texture of the model 'bleeds' over and hides the subent texture at some angles and orientations.

These pics give an idea of the problem on the standard game coriolis where the arcdetail subent kind pops in and out of view as the station rotates.




On a more complex model like Griff's Coriolis the problem manifests as wierdness on some of the edges and lots of the 'sticky out bits' dissappear and reappear as the model rotates. From a distance Griff's coriolis appears sort of see through as edges on the other side of the model can be seen. This pic is zoomed and cropped.



Any ideas on anything I could tweak in Oolite's hidden settings, gpu-settings.plist or elsewhere that might help with this. Is this a lack of vertical sync issue? If so am I right in thinking that somewhere in the core game code is a hardcoded frame rate limit of 99/100? So could I compile a version limited to 60 frames/sec to make up for this particular drivers lack of a working vsync setting?

Edit to add - Oops - apologies for the adult themed (but not explicit) adverts the image host has put on the page when you click the thumbnails. I forgot to click 'Family-Safe' when I uploaded the images.....

It seems to be a problem with the depth buffer resolution. To my surprise, the Windows and Linux builds seem to be requesting a minimum of a 16-bit depth buffer and 15-bit colour – a configuration so old-fashioned it may not be tested much by driver developers – although I may be missing something.

I’ve temporarily raised the requirements to see if this fixes the problem. Try the next nightly build (r4738 or later).

Thank-you Ahruman. I just compiled r.4738 on my old machine and ported it over and that has done the trick. Graphics are perfect, GPU is on maximum quality, full shaders etc in Oolite and with the openGL 3.0 drivers everything looks just lovely at 99 fps.

I also tried one of the newer openGL 3.1 drivers and this has also fixed the dodgy texturing and one of the other problems I had with those drivers - namely that BGS backgrounds wouldn't display. However the camera positions still seem to be borked with the openGL 3.1 drivers - flying a griff cobra the front view is completely covered by the gun (which is normally just visible at the bottom of the screen with the 3.0 drivers), whilst the side views are obscured by the wing textures. Aft view is fine.

I'm happy to stick with the older drivers as I don't tend to play anything else, but if you want me to test any other tweaks with the newer drivers that's no problem.

Unless it turns up problems, I think we’ll use this as the new default and add a hidden setting to turn it back for low-end cards.

All good with the most up to date openGL 3.1 driver now - 8.15.10.2509 - I think I've messed around a bit with the griffs all in one I was using over time so I've downloaded a fresh copy and my bad camera positions are sorted. Time to eat humble pie over at the Intel and HP support forums.

Once again thanks....

Might just be me but r4738 crashes to desktop if I try and set it to no shaders in game, and won't launch if I edit .GNUstepDefaults to say "shader-mode" = 1;

Will try a debug build in the morning.

Whenever I see a discussion about OpenGL on an Intel HD integrated chip set, I always recommend installing this OpenGL viewer program: http://www.realtech-vr.com/glview/

Excellent program, free, and will show you in detail just how much of OpenGL your chip set will support, core features, extensions and shader language version to name but a few. I have the same driver on my laptop, and it supports OpenGL 2.1 at 100% of its features, and varying amounts of the newer OpenGL releases.

Cheers.