Contribute to my project : the Greatest Database about 3D cards Capabilities for D3D7
Author
Hello !
If you are a Direct3D 7 coder like me, you certainly wondered about compatibility of your game(s) with other 3D cards.
Will the last effect you add to your 3D engine be supported by all the 3D cards you target ? And in fact, which 3D cards are you targetting really ?
With DirectX, you can know nearly everything about YOUR card, but only worldwide release of your game(s) will reveal if it is as compatible as you espect...
An interesting thing would be to know D3D CAPABILITY STRUCTURES reported by each hardware, and which features are the most commonly supported by 3D cards.
For example at the moment I worked on lens-flares. The LUMINANCE pixels format for textures would be the best choice for rendering them. My voodoo3 can handle them, but... not GeForce SDR ! I can forget it...
How did I know ? I run a program I made that enumerate all drivers and all devices, test nearly all capabilities of the card(s) present on the system, pixel formats, and then WRITE PRECISELY THEM IN A HTML FILE : so I have a FULL list of this 3D card features under D3D.
So my idea is to give this program to all of you, first if it can help you, and after a test on YOUR 3D card you can send me the result : all I could receive will appear on my Web Site : creating a huge database about what you can expect for common 3D cards to support !
I hope you will help me, and find the project useful !
( Could gamedev.net make a link to my web site...? ).
To download the program and view the first reports ( voodoo 3 for the moment ) , go to my web site :
http://perso.club-internet.fr/lyritron
Tell me what you think about it !
( Warning : reports are highly related to DirectX 7. It writes FLAGS and values as they appear if the SDK help, for each members. Very useful for D3D coders, nonsense for OPENGL ones, sorry... )
This is a great idea. I congratulate you on coming up with it.
I will alert the GDNet staff to this thread so they can decide for themselves if they want to link to your page.
I will link to your page from my page as I have been searching for something like this (not very actively though) for a long time.
Once I get home I will try your program and send you my results. I have a GeForce 256 DDR.
- WitchLord
I will alert the GDNet staff to this thread so they can decide for themselves if they want to link to your page.
I will link to your page from my page as I have been searching for something like this (not very actively though) for a long time.
Once I get home I will try your program and send you my results. I have a GeForce 256 DDR.
- WitchLord
Author
Waouh ! An enthusiastic response from the moderator himself !
That''s true I feared getting answers like "good idea, but these informations already exists at www.everybodyknowexeceptme.com" !
This was an annoying work to copy/paste all directX flags from the DX SDK, even though I optimized my code to make this task more efficiently, minimizing errors due to this famous "copy/paste"...
I don''t think I made those errors in the report, but maybe in the way I initialize DirectX. Not really errors, but thinks I didn''t expect : as you can see on my site, I''m am not a professional... ( and at the university, at this time I have only learnt... Turbo Pascal ! It''s France... ).
If you find problems, I may make my program open-sourced... But if you want it to, just ask. In fact I wonder if it is not essencial in order to trust in the results...?
Then If you find something strange, tell me quickly ! Don''t let the database growing if there is something false into...
( Thanks for the link(s ?), Witchlord. Ahhhh good start ! :-)
That''s true I feared getting answers like "good idea, but these informations already exists at www.everybodyknowexeceptme.com" !
This was an annoying work to copy/paste all directX flags from the DX SDK, even though I optimized my code to make this task more efficiently, minimizing errors due to this famous "copy/paste"...
I don''t think I made those errors in the report, but maybe in the way I initialize DirectX. Not really errors, but thinks I didn''t expect : as you can see on my site, I''m am not a professional... ( and at the university, at this time I have only learnt... Turbo Pascal ! It''s France... ).
If you find problems, I may make my program open-sourced... But if you want it to, just ask. In fact I wonder if it is not essencial in order to trust in the results...?
Then If you find something strange, tell me quickly ! Don''t let the database growing if there is something false into...
( Thanks for the link(s ?), Witchlord. Ahhhh good start ! :-)
Your project is very very useful and interesting. I have never seen anything like this before.
Just some things, though:
> Your design is odd, and it''s kind of hard to get to the meat when displayed like this. I suggest that you change the design (check out what I just done on lunch time
)
> The infos on RGB software emulation are useless. You shouldn''t include them in it. I think they are all the same over the different cards, you should include only one of them.
> When you''ll get more and more cards in your database you''ll have a problem about the menu to access each card view... This could be a cooler java-script menu... Well, I just give you some ideas...
> Continue the good work!
This afternoon I just asked my boss if our project manager has been assassinated... Well I wanted to say assignated, but he did laugh a good time at me. That happens you know.
Just some things, though:
> Your design is odd, and it''s kind of hard to get to the meat when displayed like this. I suggest that you change the design (check out what I just done on lunch time
)> The infos on RGB software emulation are useless. You shouldn''t include them in it. I think they are all the same over the different cards, you should include only one of them.
> When you''ll get more and more cards in your database you''ll have a problem about the menu to access each card view... This could be a cooler java-script menu... Well, I just give you some ideas...
> Continue the good work!
This afternoon I just asked my boss if our project manager has been assassinated... Well I wanted to say assignated, but he did laugh a good time at me. That happens you know.
Author
OUF ! At the begining I thought you were speaking about the design of the site...because a friend said me it was pure bad taste...! ( certainly because my JPEGS are too much compressed...? ) Never mind.
But you are totally right, especially because the data is HUGE ! In fact 3 days ago I didn''t have any idea of HTML language, and imagine first I thought to report a TXT file ! Then I did the minimum... just colors ! This is because I also want to make the hard work for my game before next school year, that begin... in less than 2 weeks ! But now I''m sure this project interests people, I can do more.
But as I said, I will release soon the source code of my program, then if you want, Poltras, you can make a "plug-in" to it, everyone will be pleased ! I''m very impressed by your improvements, and I think they could be added easily to my code... I don''t have at the moment enough knowledge in Html ( I made my site with frontpage.... ).
About software devices, I was right with you before receiving the 2 firsts contributions ( thanks to them ) : G400 and G200, two cards from Matrox, and I was surprised to see for the first time devices that support 24-bits rendering modes ! 3DFX and NVIDIA cards ( at least those I tested ) don''t support this, even in software... Then, even if it is not useful, it can be interesting... But it is the goal of my project to find what is general and what is not, and personnally I don''t know if software devices are all the same for each cards. Wait and see.
Same thing for common Hardware devices and T&L devices : if only one flag make the difference, I could remove T&L one. And watch G400 MAX Dual Head : 2 more drivers with certainly the same features... ( at this time I didn''t really compare them ).
And what about another program that "subtract" 2 HTML reports ? By analizing the flags and removing those which are not handled by the 2 cards : then we can easily see what makes the difference between two particular cards !
For the menu, I would like to list cards by date, because features grow with time. If you have a good script, why not ? Or wait : Java script is in my school program this year !...
Continue to react, it''s now your project !
But you are totally right, especially because the data is HUGE ! In fact 3 days ago I didn''t have any idea of HTML language, and imagine first I thought to report a TXT file ! Then I did the minimum... just colors ! This is because I also want to make the hard work for my game before next school year, that begin... in less than 2 weeks ! But now I''m sure this project interests people, I can do more.
But as I said, I will release soon the source code of my program, then if you want, Poltras, you can make a "plug-in" to it, everyone will be pleased ! I''m very impressed by your improvements, and I think they could be added easily to my code... I don''t have at the moment enough knowledge in Html ( I made my site with frontpage.... ).
About software devices, I was right with you before receiving the 2 firsts contributions ( thanks to them ) : G400 and G200, two cards from Matrox, and I was surprised to see for the first time devices that support 24-bits rendering modes ! 3DFX and NVIDIA cards ( at least those I tested ) don''t support this, even in software... Then, even if it is not useful, it can be interesting... But it is the goal of my project to find what is general and what is not, and personnally I don''t know if software devices are all the same for each cards. Wait and see.
Same thing for common Hardware devices and T&L devices : if only one flag make the difference, I could remove T&L one. And watch G400 MAX Dual Head : 2 more drivers with certainly the same features... ( at this time I didn''t really compare them ).
And what about another program that "subtract" 2 HTML reports ? By analizing the flags and removing those which are not handled by the 2 cards : then we can easily see what makes the difference between two particular cards !
For the menu, I would like to list cards by date, because features grow with time. If you have a good script, why not ? Or wait : Java script is in my school program this year !...
Continue to react, it''s now your project !
I think there is a problem with the max number of lights supported in hardware. Check out the results yourself
Btw, i''ll try the program (i''m at work now) on my Vaudoo2 and send you the report tonight.
Y.
Btw, i''ll try the program (i''m at work now) on my Vaudoo2 and send you the report tonight.
Y.
Author
This time I won''t write many on the forum because everything is on my site !
I have made MANY improvements all this day ( it is version 1.0 now ! ).
1) My program now make backups in two times : first a backup of D3D structures from memory to a binary file, and then a second step where I translate data to HTML. Then if there is errors ( as someone say... ) or if improvements are done for the HTML report design, you don''t have to do again all the tests !
2) Now I released SOURCE CODE. Then if you think there are errors...check it, please....!
3) I have got only 4 contribitions... I wonder if there is not more openGL coders than D3D ones !....
I have made MANY improvements all this day ( it is version 1.0 now ! ).
1) My program now make backups in two times : first a backup of D3D structures from memory to a binary file, and then a second step where I translate data to HTML. Then if there is errors ( as someone say... ) or if improvements are done for the HTML report design, you don''t have to do again all the tests !
2) Now I released SOURCE CODE. Then if you think there are errors...check it, please....!
3) I have got only 4 contribitions... I wonder if there is not more openGL coders than D3D ones !....
While you are gathering info for this project of yours you should also record operative system and driver version, because there may be differences between them.
You should also put this info on the list of cards that you have driver caps for so that people can more easily see what OS and driver versions you have already tested.
And in a future version you may consider inserting the data into a SQL database instead of storing it in HTML files, that would enable features like querying what cards that support a certain feature etc. Inserting the data into a database could be done from the HTML or DAT files with a script (I think), so you don''t need to rewrite your program.
Just a few suggestions for improvements.
For the rest of you people that are developing with D3D: Why are you not contributing to this project? Don''t you realize how much good it does for you? It only takes a few minutes to perform the test and mail the result to Lyritron/Tetronics.
- WitchLord
You should also put this info on the list of cards that you have driver caps for so that people can more easily see what OS and driver versions you have already tested.
And in a future version you may consider inserting the data into a SQL database instead of storing it in HTML files, that would enable features like querying what cards that support a certain feature etc. Inserting the data into a database could be done from the HTML or DAT files with a script (I think), so you don''t need to rewrite your program.
Just a few suggestions for improvements.
For the rest of you people that are developing with D3D: Why are you not contributing to this project? Don''t you realize how much good it does for you? It only takes a few minutes to perform the test and mail the result to Lyritron/Tetronics.
- WitchLord
I program with OGl and still think it is very useful (even for us).
We would have to find a SQL server on the web, so that we add everything in the db. I could do the pages (PHP or Perl-CGI) that retrieve the infos in the SQL base... We could do a search engine and a feature that check up every cards that accept this or that...
Your project really is interesting.
We would have to find a SQL server on the web, so that we add everything in the db. I could do the pages (PHP or Perl-CGI) that retrieve the infos in the SQL base... We could do a search engine and a feature that check up every cards that accept this or that...
Your project really is interesting.
Hi for the website look at www.freedom2surf.com, they are based in london, have CGI / PHP and MySQL support along with about 20MB of webspace, the servers for this web site is very close to the main high speed link to the USA / rest of internet so they are very fast.
I''m going to send .dat file for the G400 card, and yes Witchlords GeForce DDR is a better card, only as it''s newer and has more features. The G400 was the first (and only?) card to have a Dual Head. It was also the first, to my knowledge anyway, to incorporate envionmental bump mapping in hardware.
I''m going to send .dat file for the G400 card, and yes Witchlords GeForce DDR is a better card, only as it''s newer and has more features. The G400 was the first (and only?) card to have a Dual Head. It was also the first, to my knowledge anyway, to incorporate envionmental bump mapping in hardware.
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