I saw this new type of Graphics card that is trying to support Open Source standards. Linux, etc.
Maybe they might be interested in supporting voxals too. It’s open for discussion still.
Open Graphics Project http://kerneltrap.org/node/5073
Also, Ken, you were right about .NET but I respected that at the time since I was a newb anyway.
Funny how I was looking at the design aesthetic and easily falling into the MS rhetoric like a babe in arms.
About objects, News flash for MS. Everything is an object not just Classes and Structs. It's how objects are organized that counts not how you define them.
I am using Linux strict now so I will be running Ken's Labyrinth from that perspective.
Frobozz at
An open source graphics card? :lol:
Actually I wouldn't mind seeing a card that is free from the standards, but don't count on it getting far. After all, the biggest thing that pushes graphics development is the game industry. If games are not using it I doubt many will buy it. :wink:
One thing I would like to see is Voxlap converted to compile on gcc. Limiting it to Visual C++ is just plain annoying.
Mark at
It would probably use OprnGL still as it has Open Standards with that with OpenML. But I dont think DirectX.
I haven't started using Voxlap yet. Isn't it written in C? Can't gcc compile in c?
Also does Voxlap replace HLSL like cg as I was thinking of sing that instead of shaders.
Dune at
Ok I 'm registered now. I meant OpenGL.
Also, UnrealED now supports OpenGL and Linux fully and is the prime tool for Playstation 3. Playstation has 6 times more market share then XBOX. although I hate gaming consoles it's definitely a plus.
Awesoken at
I haven't started using Voxlap yet. Isn't it written in C? Can't gcc compile in c?
Actually, Voxlap is a combination of C and Assembler. In order to compile the code with GCC, you'll need to convert all the assembly routines (any blocks of code that start with _asm) to GCC's AT&T style syntax.
Also does Voxlap replace HLSL like cg as I was thinking of sing that instead of shaders.
Voxlap uses a callback function to determine the color of newly generated voxels. You can either use the built-in color functions, or define your own. Search for "colfunc" in my documentation.
I've implemented a similar engine live voxlap in opengl.
Sebastian
Frobozz at
Awesoken said
Actually, Voxlap is a combination of C and Assembler. In order to compile the code with GCC, you'll need to convert all the assembly routines (any blocks of code that start with _asm) to GCC's AT&T style syntax.
Couldn't you compile the assembly parts using NASM or similar? :wink:
No.NET said
Also, UnrealED now supports OpenGL and Linux fully and is the prime tool for Playstation 3. Playstation has 6 times more market share then XBOX. although I hate gaming consoles it's definitely a plus.
If the price is cheap enough I wouldn't mind having a PS3 just to run Linux off of it. :D
Awesoken at
Couldn't you compile the assembly parts using NASM or similar?
NASM would work fine for compiling V5.ASM (with few changes I believe), but it would do nothing for all of the in-line assembly blocks I have in VOXLAP5.C and WINMAIN.CPP.
I've implemented a similar engine live voxlap in opengl.
Sebastian
I was mainly concerned about loadtime increases. Hence the 'accelerator' card. But is the card really needed with todays chips? I am moving towards a Micro ATX myself as they are a more comfortable size for me and just look less clunkier.
The cave demos take like 5 mins to load. I know Doom 3’s levels take about 3 with shaders on. The shaders causing the long load times.
The main thing I want is a paging like map where increments are loaded in a little at a time for seamlessness. Similar to pagingLandscape. it would be interesting if complex objects like Cities and towns could be created on the fly as well. A growth with complex shapes thrown in categorized.
Frobozz at
No.NET said
The main thing I want is a paging like map where increments are loaded in a little at a time for seamlessness. Similar to pagingLandscape. it would be interesting if complex objects like Cities and towns could be created on the fly as well. A growth with complex shapes thrown in categorized.
You'd probably have to modify the engine to load partial sections of files before you could do that. I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard.
Of course a faster method would be to keep the map you are in and the surrounding maps in memory. Only one little problem. One map is a lot of memory - ~256MB uncompressed! :D
Awesoken at
The cave demos take like 5 mins to load.
This is generating time, not loading time. Tom included his generator with the Voxlap Cave Demo mainly to reduce the size of the distribution. The alternative would have been to include the VXL files instead of the generator. If we did this, the archive would have been 75MB instead of 0.5MB. BTW, if you run the same map again, the loading time should be just a few seconds.
I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard.
Nothing is easy with Voxlap.
One map is a lot of memory - ~256MB uncompressed!
Actually, the maximum allowed uncompressed map size in Voxlap is currently 64MB. Most Voxlap maps use around 20-30MB.
Frobozz at
Awesoken said
Actually, the maximum allowed uncompressed map size in Voxlap is currently 64MB. Most Voxlap maps use around 20-30MB.
Oh well. At least we know it's less now and therefore less demanding to load adjacent "cells". At nine cells altogether, that's a maximum of about 576MB! A little over half of my memory. :twisted:
Andy at
Awesoken said
NASM would work fine for compiling V5.ASM (with few changes I believe), but it would do nothing for all of the in-line assembly blocks I have in VOXLAP5.C and WINMAIN.CPP.
A few changes indeed. At the moment I'm getting ~150 errors. If my knowledge of ASM was better, or I had time/motivation to pick it up again, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to fix.
Most of the errors messages are the same, or similar, I suppose it's just a small (style?) issue.
Maximus at
Frobozz said
No.NET said
The main thing I want is a paging like map where increments are loaded in a little at a time for seamlessness. Similar to pagingLandscape. it would be interesting if complex objects like Cities and towns could be created on the fly as well. A growth with complex shapes thrown in categorized.
You'd probably have to modify the engine to load partial sections of files before you could do that. I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard.
Of course a faster method would be to keep the map you are in and the surrounding maps in memory. Only one little problem. One map is a lot of memory - ~256MB uncompressed! :D
I was thinking about the map size... One idea is to use KV6 sprites as landscape.
Do you remember the game Outcast?www.outcast-thegame.com This game used a LARGE voxel landscape. However instead of just having a massive 2D array for the whole thing it used predefined tiles for the bulk of the map. Like I said, using the KV6 sprites it MIGHT be possible to have some kind of system where VXL maps are seperated by a load of KV6 sprites... As you said before a playtime loading of the VXL would be required... Cool idea... lots of potential.
Dune at
Mindboggling and thanks for the debunking.
I have set up a tile system like that that loads instantly. I was able to create real solid labyrinths. Very fun. So either way, Voxals or Polys, it's best to have them predefined to only load in about 900 graph points at the most to achieve seamlessness. But it works pretty cool that way and things don't get created that fast in reality anyway.
I have recommended this engine to http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/ and can't wait to see some more games using it as it should help Linux allot and hopefully push the graphics card away from the computer. Linux seems anti-graphics card to me but it's good because the GC industry is a scam. Hardware would be free without the GC. I only started using a graphics card in 2002 only out of force because of UT2004 but then quit UT so. I liked it, with Unreal Tournament 1, when you could use 'software mode.'
Also, has anyone noticed the software industry is a joke today? Everything is free or too propitiatory. Whatever happens to good ole Mpeg format? That's why I have orientated my resources toward stuff like Vega Strike and even http://www.eternal-lands.com/ offers a business model that is free 'upfront' or 'out of the box' and then charges if you want to cheat with items. Google uses this similar model and they made billions with ads rivaling MS. Only thing is if everyone did this no more money but would that be bad? It would be like a free market economy.
JonoF at
Linux seems anti-graphics card to me but it's good because the GC industry is a scam.
It's not that Linux is anti-graphics card, it's the card vendors that don't seem to understand the value in supporting Linux drivers because it will mean opening up some of their apparently infinitely valuable proprietary code. For instance, nvidia cards work very well, but ATi cards are sketchy. Matrox cards I believe are well supported. It depends on the manufacturer how far they're willing to go to support niche OSes.
As for the scam part, I believe that's just a consequence of a technology that advances very rapidly.
Jonathon
Dune at
Hi, JonoF. Nice teets. Thanks for all the great games and can't wait to start playing. I can probably check the FAQ but planning to use any voxlap stuff?
That might be a more 'pro voxel' statement from me because voxels can be done strictly in software and for some reason devs opted for shaders etc. Probably because of the propitiatory tools offered by the bus. But I see EVAL really kicking VS booty right now. Also, it would have helped if Linux competed more directly with Win in the 90s I think maybe..
Dune at
It's allot about codecs and standards too. OSI products arn't willing to pay money plus they have to put things like copyprotection devices on their software like Kaffeine wihch KDE would never do. This also carries over into the Hardware realm. So it's either all OSI or bust as it seems with this 'open' card. This could probably eventually lead to free hardware as well if it spreads.
Also I do think geomatry and Mesa is needed now, come to think of it, to strike a balance.
GothOtaku at
JonoF said
It's not that Linux is anti-graphics card, it's the card vendors that don't seem to understand the value in supporting Linux drivers because it will mean opening up some of their apparently infinitely valuable proprietary code. For instance, nvidia cards work very well, but ATi cards are sketchy. Matrox cards I believe are well supported. It depends on the manufacturer how far they're willing to go to support niche OSes.
nVidia is the best usually but Diamond (http://www.diamondmm.com/) is also really good (they're guaranteed to run X at least). I've had problems with Radeon on Linux and BSD.
Dune at
I haven't tried any games made for Linux but stuff like Tux Racer runs perect for me all the time. So I assume that maybe if a game is built for linux it would probably run fine as I haven't tried yet. I will try Vega Strike and tell how it goes. Also are Jono's games supporting linux? I have to check.
Yup. The ports have worked in Linux for a long time, but they've lacked sound, but that can be added with a patch created from code from the RancidMeat port. However, I haven't officially supported installation on Linux because, up until the release that's coming, the ports haven't been able to be run in a shared manner, storing the user-specific stuff like config and savegame files in the home directory. They do now however.
The main problem with hardware 3D acceleration on Linux has been getting either manufacturer support, or specifications on the hardware interfaces. Historically, 3dfx cards have been the most Linux friendly cards because 3dfx were devoting engineer time and resources to getting their cards (ie. Glide) widely supported. Nvidia then stepped up with decent support, and we now have the partly-open, mostly-closed binary drivers updated in rough step with the Windows releases. ATi cards are fairly well supported with open drivers now supporting a lot of the Radeon feature set, though ATi's own proprietary driver needs some coaxing most of the time if you want to use the full abilities of the chipsets.
Personally, I have a Radeon 9000 in my laptop and I run Gentoo Linux on it. Using the radeon driver that comes with Xorg (a free and open implementation of the graphical windowing system most Unices use) I get hardware acceleration and commercial games (like RtCW:ET) run quite respectably. Other people with unfortunate 3D cards that cater to the Windows DirectX market are less likely to have much luck with 3D on Linux, but frankly, those cards are already doomed by their market share.
So, basically, 3D on Linux now isn't quite the mess it once was which is especially important because the latest technologies under development for the Linux desktop, like Cairo (an OpenGL accelerated vector graphics rendering engine we'll be seeing in the near future), and Xorg's composite extension (which renders windows as separate frame buffers on the 3D card and layers them, similar to how Mac OS X's Quartz Extreme system now works) rely on hardware acceleration to achieve good performance.