swaaye wrote on 2022-07-28, 03:24:

spiroyster wrote on 2022-07-27, 23:46:

miniGL exists because 3dfx hardware was incapable of implementing full GL spec, and they didn't have an ICD. Luckily the GL requirement was minimal (and could be translated to GLide) so wrapping made sense.

That's not quite right. 3dfx did eventually have a full ICD even for Voodoo1. Just go look at the files in the later Voodoo1 driver releases.

The miniGL was originally created for GLQuake. id was not interested in using Direct3D 3 or going proprietary again after Vquake. But they didn't need all of OpenGL to run a game.

Yes but not at the time Quake was written. It's my understanding that it was 3dfx that wanted a piece of the id pie, and approached them (not the other way around). Like you said, Carmack got burned by Rendition and refused to use a proprietry API (GLide), however was happy to work with 3dfx to develop the miniGL for Voodoo.

My point was, that at the time, 3dfx did not have a valid OpenGL ICD, and wrapping was possible due to limited use of GL in GLQuake engine (be it his requirment or 3dfx's requirement). AMD in 2022, do have a valid full spec ICD (just doesn't perform well) so wrapping to another API is not going to improve anything. Quite the opposite.

Wrt to 3dfx and id, I think the more interesting question is whether Carmack change anything in the engine to better facilicate the use of miniGL with 3dfx in mind (i.e did the 3dfx miniGL requirement dictate the Quake engine), or did he just help them develop it and it just so happended that the engine wasn't using any GL that couldn't be wrapped? Either way Carmack pioneering the use of a professional graphics API for restricted consumer gaming hardware, proved GL could be used in a limited capacity yet perform well on consumer gaming hardware and paved the way for other developers to consider GL and other Vendors to implement miniGL's.

3dfx had valid OpenGL ICD (with a twist). I see no point in obsessing over specific period of Voodoo 1/2 time when it was not available.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-07-28, 09:48:

You mean that new legacy driver? Most likely. Plus they've made it specifically for old generations of cards and stripped anything related to Polaris, Vega or RDNA.

Yeah I was referring to the surprising 2022 GCN driver update.

Well, not really a surprise. They did exactly same thing for HD 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx and HD 5xxx/6xxx.

spiroyster wrote on 2022-07-28, 12:29:

Wrt to 3dfx and id, I think the more interesting question is whether Carmack change anything in the engine to better facilicate the use of miniGL with 3dfx in mind (i.e did the 3dfx miniGL requirement dictate the Quake engine), or did he just help them develop it and it just so happended that the engine wasn't using any GL that couldn't be wrapped? Either way Carmack pioneering the use of a professional graphics API for restricted consumer gaming hardware, proved GL could be used in a limited capacity yet perform well on consumer gaming hardware and paved the way for other developers to consider GL and other Vendors to implement miniGL's.

Quake was pretty much feature frozen for the renderer since Feb-June 96. If you've read Carmack's plans around late 1996, he explored doing a Direct3D port (D3DIM on DirectX3) before settling onto OpenGL. The cards in mind around this time were more like Intergraph parts on NT.

if GLQuake were designed with 3dfx in mind, then that brightness slider wouldn't do nothing.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-07-28, 19:56:

Well, not really a surprise. They did exactly same thing for HD 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx and HD 5xxx/6xxx.

Both of those appeared to have all support end about 6 months after going to legacy status.

Just thinking if they've got a cockroach level card that's still in all the business desktops like nVidia's 610s, 730s... that might cause more support to happen due to OEM and end user pressure.... maybe the caicos? That's not even GCN though.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-07-27, 00:47:

Too bad it's not relevant much for modern cards, which can do Vulkan just fine.

Not everything OpenGL can also work in Vulkan, this is a welcome uplift for me. I am still waiting for RSR to trickle down to Polaris cards though.. 🙁

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-28, 01:28:

IIRC AMD didn't say that there would be no further fixes for GCN but rather no new features, game optimizations or major up[dates, in other words there will still be small maintenance releases for security fixes and such along with updates to retain windows functionality.

No idea how long they will do this but I suspect for the newer cards sent to EOL it may be a while.

What's odd is that they pulled the new Windows 7 Adrenalin release from their site (22.6.1), but if you look around, you can find it. And you do need the Win7 specific version, as the Win10 version will refuse to install on Win7.

Very nice though, this new support for GCN all these years later.