You can learn GLSL just fine on Tiger; the software implementation is very good, and surprisingly fast (though as a first release, perhaps not entirely bug-free). I'm sure we'll get hardware acceleration for it soon enough.

The big downer on GLSL is that for hardware acceleration of any kind, it'll require a GeForce FX 5200 or better, or a Radeon 9500 or better. That's still kinda limiting on which Macs support it.

I think that tiger as a whole is buggy; it was rushed to get it out a long time ahead of Longhorn. Which isn't coming out soon.

Nayr Wrote:I think that tiger as a whole is buggy; it was rushed to get it out a long time ahead of Longhorn.

That's not true. The reason it was rushed out is the same reason all good software companies "rush" a product out -> To get it out. They could spend the next eighteen months chasing down bugs in-house. What would be the point of that? Besides, it's about as stable for an initial release as I've ever seen.

ATI has a program called RenderMonkey that can be used for GLSL shader development on Windows -- http://www.ati.com/developer/rendermonkey/

OneSadCookie Wrote:You can learn GLSL just fine on Tiger; the software implementation is very good, and surprisingly fast (though as a first release, perhaps not entirely bug-free). I'm sure we'll get hardware acceleration for it soon enough.

The big downer on GLSL is that for hardware acceleration of any kind, it'll require a GeForce FX 5200 or better, or a Radeon 9500 or better. That's still kinda limiting on which Macs support it.

Then I guess I might start there anyway, but in the long run, nothing worse than a 6600GT will do IMHO. Right now, I have a Mac with a 9800, which is kind of OK, but not a very serious GPU programming card.

I think we will soon see more Macs with GPU programming support. AFAIK, the 6200 is quite modern and with a price tag that fits nicely in low-end.

Also, PCI-e only. Apple will have to completely re-vamp their lineup before we see anything like that on this side of the fence.

Sorry, I'm a bit in the dark on this. What's so great about PCI-e over AGP that they simply cannot offer it otherwise?

AGP 8x is "8x" to the card, and "1x" back. PCI-e is "16x" to the card, and "16x" back.

the 6200 is able to skimp on VRAM because of the extra bandwidth offered by PCI-e. It simply wouldn't perform well enough in an 8x machine (and note that Apple's low-end is still 4x).

The 6600 is PCI-e native, though there are 8x versions available. I doubt the next generation of NVidia cards will support 8x. Of ATI's current crop of cards, only the X800 supports AGP. I doubt the next generation of ATI cards will support 8x. Apple has to move on, and soon, or they'll be left behind (again).

OneSadCookie Wrote:ATI has a program called RenderMonkey that can be used for GLSL shader development on Windows -- http://www.ati.com/developer/rendermonkey/

I've used it and definitely prefer FX composer. Maybe I'm just partial to NVidia (I have a GeForce 6800 Ultra from them as well).

And as for Apple getting left behind... When my friend told them they still sold computers with a Radeon 9200, I was quite surprised considering that those were state of the art on PC's about 3 years ago...

Puzzler183 Wrote:And as for Apple getting left behind... When my friend told them they still sold computers with a Radeon 9200, I was quite surprised considering that those were state of the art on PC's about 3 years ago...

It is a completely normal condition for Macs to lag behind the PC industry in many areas, by years at times. It is also completely normal for Macs to *lead* the PC industry by years in certain areas. Video cards ain't one of them, and never really has been, except for maybe a fleeting moment or two. The graphics acceleration industry on the PC is driven heavily by the gaming industry. The gaming industry doesn't drive spit on the Mac because Stevo never liked the idea of people thinking that Macs are for games. That legacy lives on. Not here at iDG, but I digress.

Speaking of OpenGL Shader Builder. The !!ARBvp1.0 OPTION ARB_position_invariant is broken again.

At least, it doesn't crash like it was with MacOS 10.3.0-10.3.5, but now, it simply doesn't render anything in MacOS 10.4

Can someone verifying this ?

Here the simplest and valid shader code :

!!ARBvp1.0 OPTION ARB_position_invariant;
END

I hope it works in hardware acceleration, but in software rendering, it breaks (as well on my Geforce 4MX video card)

I have some big plans for shader support in dim3, but it all depends on GLSL. So, hopefully a point release will enable this on the cards.

I think it will be very interesting to have a folder full of GLSL code, and you just pick them an attach them to textures in dim3, in the GUI editors or with scripts. They will be just like the javascripts, where you can edit them as text files, add more or less of them, etc.

[>] Brian

What about Cg?

Rather, my question is, will shaders written in Cg work on ATI cards? Or is it an NVIDIA-only thing?

FYI Fx Composer will support GLSL soon enough... on PC. As for now I myself have put off buying a Mac again due to this speed bump, GLSL not hardware supported on Mac, and I really want FBO's... I plan on waiting till Apple get's me a dual 3+ghz with PCI-e, or a G5 PB. GLSL is so cool... I am almost 100% sure with VP/FP you can't do if/else conditional statements as you can with GLSL. Perlin noise built in functions are sweet for procedural texture creation ans such. So as a whole I choose GLSL over VP/FP and I have coded both. But that is my opinion...

got tiger today an after installing it opened shader builder and copied in a test shader (toon shader) and it worked like a charm (granted in software). very cool until it's implemented on the cards. until then, using my 6600 on my pc. very very cool though.