NVIDIA and OpenGL 2.0
Author
Hi, I'm looking for a bit of advice on video cards. My lab is porting all their software over from Java3D to OpenGL 2.0, and since I'm building a new computer anyway, I'd like it to be compatible. So my question is, what's the cheapest NVIDIA card I can get that'll work with the 2.0 specifications (specifically, shaders)? I've heard that NVIDIA updates the drivers for all their cards with each new version of OpenGL, is that right?
I'll mainly be using this under SUSE Linux if that makes any difference.
Thanks!
A GeForce FX5200 would cover the majority of the 2.0 specs, with the most notable exception being a few of the GLslang 1.10 features (branching, vertex shader texture lookups, and perhaps a couple of others).
nVidia are pretty good with updating their drivers, although AFAIK they haven't release a driver that supports the 2.0 specs yet. I doubt it'll be far away.
nVidia are pretty good with updating their drivers, although AFAIK they haven't release a driver that supports the 2.0 specs yet. I doubt it'll be far away.
Author
Coolness, thanks! I've been eyeing a Gainward FX 5200 board (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-128-177&depa=0), so I think I'll go with that one.
Please note that even though the FX5200 technically support the GL 2.0 features, it does so extremely slow. If that's an issue for you, go with another card.
Well, I wouldn't say *extremely* slowly, but being a budget card it certainly can't keep up with the other cards in the FX family.
Also, he did say cheapest.....
Also, he did say cheapest.....
Author
Thanks for the heads up. I just joined the lab though, so I'm only doing small demos and stuff like that right now. I'll probably start doing much more complicated stuff in the spring, but I figure the prices of the 6800 Ultra will drop some by then and so I'll upgrade.
the 6800GT is currently the most cost effective card for covering the most of the OGL2.0/GLSL1.10 spec, that is once NV update their GLSL compiler to support branching and looping in fragment shaders
Quote:Original post by _the_phantom_
the 6800GT is currently the most cost effective card for covering the most of the OGL2.0/GLSL1.10 spec, that is once NV update their GLSL compiler to support branching and looping in fragment shaders
I second that.
I went to one of the OGL HLSL seminars sponsored by 3dlabs. It was my impression that NO card currently meets the full 2.0 specs because the specs they mentioned included a noise function. I might have misheard that the noise function is further down the road though.
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
