The MiniGL thread

@Antique
Quote:

You probably forgot about, as it was discussed many times in the last 2-3 years and there and on aw.net: reasons is that we have no developers who will make full-blown OpenGL for Warp3DNova. OpenGL ES 2 route was chosen as it is easier to implement than full OpenGL and Daniel agree to works on it. But yeah, if there will be another developer porting MESA over Warp3D Nova, that will be interesting as well.

But we also have GL4ES wrapper matured enough which works over our OpenGL ES2 realization to give us full OpenGL 1,2 & partly 3.


@Samo79

The reason why it all wasn't released, because we find some DSI in the StarWars Jedi with newer versions of minigl which wasn't happens with previous ones, and so far no one except Daniel works on. But since it is obvious that he has no interest in, and mostly in ogles2 (as more interesting and more stuff), no one else fixes that issue.

From another side, it can be released IMHO even with such a bug, as in all other parts it much better than current public ones.

@kas1e

It would be nice to get an update on the different version plus availability.

I have completely lost track of what to use, what I need, what versions there are what and where I'm able to download for free and what I have to pay for.
What is succeeding what?

I'm completely baffled and dont know what to look for.

I have a radeon hd 9000 series, x1000 and need to be able to use opengl, opengles2, both user and developer files.

Thank you

@Raziel

MiniGL:

MiniGL works over old Warp3D, and so works everywhere where you have old Warp3D (that is Warp3D come from os4 back in days for all those radeon9250 and co, and Warp3D SI driver which you buy from AEON if you on RadeonHD).

And that is that MiniGL version we talk about there.

Things different for Radeon RX owners: there is no Warp3D RX driver, so no old Warp3D support on RX cards (aeon don't want to spend more time on old stuff, which sounds logical if take into account that its all just one developer do all this). That in turn means, that users with Radeon RX can't use MiniGL (as it works over old Warp3D which they didn't have). But lucky, there is GL4ES giving us OpenGL support of 1,2 and partially 3 versions and working over Warp3DNOVA this time, so, Daniel made a hack: he takes MiniGL source and wrap it around GL4ES, so it kind of works over new Warp3D Nova and Radeon RX owners may use MiniGL too. But that is a dirty hack, and buggy, not recommended for anyone except those with Radeon RX. It's done just by Daniels wish, for free, so not work, just some help.


Warp3DNova & ogles2.library & gl4es

Warp3DNova works only on RadeonHD and Radeon RX. That one you buy from AEON. New 3d API, support of shaders and stuff. Over it works ogles2.library, that is OpenGL ES 2 standard. This library you also got from AEON.

And GL4ES is just a wrapper, to give "full" OpenGL 1,2,3 working over ogles2/warp3dnova. That one free and opensource, the last ports I do in the last 2 years use this, and I made SDK on GitHub for and so on.

Result

Yeah, complicated, and better can be if
1). AEON made support of old Warp3D for Radeon RX, meaning that MiniGL will work there as well as should
2). Port MESA over Warp3DNova, so no need for GL4ES wrappers and co.

But that all mean somebody should do it, while Hans & Daniel busy with everything.

So things as they are.

@kas1e

Thank you

Who does the latest minigl port/build and where can I download it?
I think I still have a version with fixes from Daytona, but it was never made into an official release which means I couldn't release a project which relied on it.
(Doesn't matter anymore since the project merged with ScummVM recently, but the problem still persists...)

And opengles2 is not mature enough to use with scummvm anyway (missing boolean uniforms)

@kas1e

Quote:Only for the RadeonHD 7xxx series, not e.g. the 6xxx and lower HD series, right?

Best regards,

Niels

@kas1e

Ok, afaik StarWars Jedi was ported by BSzili right?
If so probably he maybe be interested .. atleast he seems the adeguate person to ask as in the past he already improved a lot minigl in order to make PrBoom Plus works

Whether or not I improved MiniGL is questionable, I might have been the one who introduced the compatibility issue with Jedi Outcast (or was it Jedi Academy?). Let's just say I added some things back in 2015.
I lost interest in MiniGL a long time ago, as there's no chance for an official release. We already have multiple versions floating around: the one in OS4.1FEu1, the OS4Depot version, various 3rd party builds, etc.
More importantly I have no access to any OS4 machines that have Warp3D acceleration. So there's that.

@BSzili

It was already broken, it can barely run heretic II before you made your changes, maybe the problem is that is poked, tried being updated so many times, its now incompatible older games, this kind makes Warp3d/MiniGL irrelevant, I remember Hyperion developers I think its was HJF who did say that some of games where butchered to make the games run on Amiga, so maybe the games has to be updated, or the changes to Warp3D/MiniGL has be reverted.

In any case Warp3D/MiniGL does not seem to have future, who on earth be interested in degrading there games to make the games run on abandoned technology.

@Raziel
Quote:
As I already told you: while ogles2.lib is mature enough, unfortunately Warp3D Nova doesn't support boolean uniforms as of now. I don't think that Hans is aware that you believe that this is a potential blocker for ScummVM, so maybe you should add a comment to that Mantis entry.

Or you could help yourself, because, as I said: ogles2.lib is mature enough and glUniformi (which is used to set bools and ints) works just fine with what Nova supports, namely ints, therefore you can easily work-around that problem by minor trivial modifications to the ScummVM's shaders to make Nova happy, no ogles2 or any other code changes required.

Just do the following in those shaders (scan #?.fragment and #?.vertex which contain "uniform bool", arent too many), e.g. replace

uniform bool textured;
...
if(textured) ...
if(!textured) ...

by this

uniform int textured;
...
if(textured!=0) ...
if(textured==0) ...

Or you can just take this zip which contains all of ScummVMs shaders already modified accordingly and the original ones, de nada, only took eight minutes, incl. being untested and eventual typos.

@nbache
Quote:
Yes. Those RadeonHD 4xxx - 6xxx have no real 3D support of any kind, with the exception of WaZp3D which implements Warp3D classic with a software- or compositing-backend (the latter gives you HW accelerated texturing). For some games this is good enough.

@samo79
@BSzili
Back then I tried to locate the modification which caused the Jedi problem (which may very well be a hidden sideeffect by my changes, although I was careful I cannot rule that out) but without luck, then I forgot about it. For now I have no interest to dig into it again.

@Raziel
Quote:
It's accessible for everyone, I don't see a problem here. Or did I forget to add one of those patches made for you to that trunk?

As a end user who have Sam 440ep Flex with Radeon 9250 I'm interested mini gl, as it is only 3D support my Amiga has. Possibly to get A1222 seems vague. :(

I'm really gratefull to you guys when you spend your time to fixing these issues.

I tried one from this thread some year ago but it broke shadows of game Shogo,

@BSzili

> I lost interest in MiniGL a long time ago,
> as there's no chance for an official
> release.

You mean OS4 or MiniGL?
MiniGL code are there and anyone can modify, pack it and officially release aswell

> We already have multiple versions floating
> around: the one in OS4.1FEu1, the OS4Depot
> version, various 3rd party builds, etc.

That's because certain developers choosed that way, spread interim releases for test in forum (that is good) but then never release anithing for years

About the different versions, that all pretty simple and logic, version bundled with OS4 should be the latest availible, while version on os4depot should not be there, however as developing a lib is for sure more easier and faster comparing to just prepare a whole os update and wait for it..

Aniway no moon asked, just those latest fix for the remaining 1/2 bugs left, so users with Radeon 9250 (still many) could atleast use such sofware decently

@samo79

I'm not sure I follow you. How are 3rd party developers are supposed to "officially" release a new version of MiniGL? So it was their choice not to have an OS4 update in the last 4 years? How are 3rd party developers supposed to bundle MiniGL with the OS4? I thought only Hyperion could do that.

@BSzili

I mean, as in general we need to wait years to have an official update of OS4, in meantime atleast newer versions of that third party things that could be freely updated (because their nature of opensource of whatelse) could be released.

So atleast users will be able to update their systems with something new while they wait for the next release of the OS.

Take for example MUI, like minigl it's a third party thing and in its case its often updated.. users can update it and, in general when a new version of the OS will be released, that updated components will be bundled into the OS's update in their latest release

@samo79

MiniGL was distributed with the OS4, which makes it first party. The situation is not the same as MUI, which is third party, has a core development team (Thore Boeckelmann, Jens Maus), and a central website (https://muidev.de) for new releases. Since MiniGL is open source, people can contribute to it and upload 3rd party builds, I didn't dispute this.

I also made a waZp3d with an hardware Nova renderer
So can help for machines without WaRp3d drivers
Sadly it is very slow with minigl apps (cause unknown...) son was never released
http://thellier.free.fr/Wazp3D57c.zip

@kas1e

As no one seems interested anymore, can you pack and finally release on os4depot that latest minigl 2.24 (Rev.550)?
Atleast we will overwrite the ancient 2.20 to avoid any confusioning versions around and everyone could download/use the very latest version

@samo
Sure i can.

@Daniel, Bszili
Doesnt mind ?:)

AFAIK Hans is the submitter of MiniGL to OS4Depot, I think he is the one who should be asked regarding this.

@BSzili
Hans has no problems with already (i asked him about back in the year)

@kas1e

Thanks!

Btw versioning should be updated aswell as currently it still reporting the old 2.23

https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com ... s-kc/minigl.library_rev.h
https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com ... s-kc/minigl.library_rev.s