glCapsViewer 1.0 beta release
Posted on February 5, 2015
| Sascha
I just released version 1.0 (beta) of the OpenGL hardware capability viewer (C++ port using Qt). Note that it’s a beta release and my first C++ (and Qt) application released to the public.
Release on gitHub: https://github.com/SaschaWillems/glCapsViewer/releases/tag/v1.0-beta
Binary downloads (win32) :
https://github.com/SaschaWillems/glCapsViewer/releases/download/v1.0-beta/glcapsviewer_v1_0-beta_win32.7z
or
http://opengl.delphigl.de/releases/glcapsviewer_v1_0-beta_win32.7z
If you find any bugs, please post them in the comment section or (better) open an issue at the github repository.
Right now windows only, other platforms (linux first) will follow as soon as I’ve moved the project to CMake.
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New features and url for the OpenGL hardware database
Posted on January 11, 2015
| Sascha
In preparation for the release of the next glCapsViewerversion (C++), the OpenGL hardware database has been completely overhauled and also got a new url for easier access.
After releasing the sources to the php front end of the database, I decided to clean up the sources for all pages, throw out old (bad) code and add in new features using external libraries like DataTables.
The OpenGL hardware database was my first php based web project, so much of the code wasn’t very pretty, and almost all search and filter functions were hard coded and not available everywhere and for all table columns.
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Going GitHub with gl(ES)CapsViewer
Posted on January 4, 2015
| Sascha
In my last posting for 2014, I wrote a little bit about going open source with my projects. So I took the C++ rewrite of the OpenGL hardware capability viewer as a first step in releaasing more of my sources to the public.
And while I found bitbucket to be fine, I decided to move over to GitHub. Most of the developers I use to interact with are there (and not on bitbucket), and I prefer their UI and functionality over bitbucket (plus they seem to be super active with adding new stuff).
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2014 - Final posting
Posted on December 21, 2014
| Sascha
As another year ends, it’s time for a small retrospect. Next year marks the 10th anniversary of my personal blog, so I’ve been posting about my programming adventures for over a decade now (the first version of www.delphigl.de went online 2003 afair) and I’m still having lots of fun hacking code into different IDEs with different languages, though focus is shifting from time to time. And that’s actually what makes coding so much fun, it’s a constant learning progress that forces you to constantly sharpen your coding skills, learn new languages, adopt to new technologies etc.
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Small update to the Delphi/Pascal OpenGL Header
Posted on December 6, 2014
| Sascha
Due to some user feedback, I’ve updated our delphi/pascal OpenGL header translation.
You can get it over at the bitbucket repository, and now finally with a proper markdown readme ;)
The changes include fixed type declarations for boolean types (so you can now finally write glDepthMask(GL_FALSE)), and some fixes for exception handling on 64-bit windows platforms.
Delphi/Pascal OpenGL Header now supports OpenGL 4.5
Posted on August 26, 2014
| Sascha
With OpenGL 4.5 being released (and NVidia already having drivers out in the wild) I’ve updated our Delphi/Pascal OpenGL Header translation to the latest OpenGL version.
You can always grab the most recent header translation from the bitbucket repository, where you’ll also find updates aside from the major OpenGL releases.
If you’re missing anything from the headers, like a vendor specific extension missing, or want to give feedback just drop me a line.
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Enhanced C++ compute shader particle system
Posted on June 19, 2014
| Sascha
I’ve just added an OpenGL C++ repository over at bitbucket, and the first C++ demo is an enhanced port of the attraction based compute shader system from my last post.
Sources : https://bitbucket.org/saschawillems/opengl-c
Compiled win32 binaries : https://bitbucket.org/saschawillems/opengl-c/downloads/computeShaderParticleSystem_win32_bin.zip
Compared to the Delphi version, the C++ version uses point sprites (instead of smoothed GL_POINTS), has a random color fade and allows for several user inputs :
Note : This demo requires at least OpenGL 4.
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Compute shaders for particle systems
Posted on June 7, 2014
| Sascha
Next on my list of new OpenGL functionality are compute shaders. They’ve been introduced into the GL core with 4.3, and pretty much allow you to do GPGPU directly in OpenGL without having to resolve to other APIs like OpenCL.
So my first compute shader demo implements a (simple) attraction based particle system. It generates two shader storage buffer objects (SSBOs). One for particle positions and one for particle velocities, and the compute shader then accesses these SSBOs to calculate particle velocities depending on an attraction point (in this demo it’s the mouse cursor) and accordingly updates the particle positions.
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GL_ARB_debug_output
Posted on June 2, 2014
| Sascha
I’ve just been playing around with GL_ARB_debug_output, a new extension introduced with OpenGL 4.3. This extension adds debugging capabilities to OpenGL, e.g. allowing you to have a callback fired by the OpenGL implementation that’ll inform you upon errors or even (heavily depending on the IHV) gives performance hints.
I wrote a small sample (in Delphi) that demonstrates this new functionality. It creates an OpenGL 4.3 forward compatible context (no more legacy stuff) with debugging capabilites and displays debug messages from your OpenGL driver.
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Delphi/Pascal OpenGL Header updated and on bitbucket
Posted on May 9, 2014
| Sascha
I just updated our Delphi / Pascal OpenGL Header to include the two missing extensions GL_ARB_sparse_texture and GL_ARB_bindless_texture introduced alongside OpenGL 4.4.
And from now on you can always get the latest release from the repository over at github.
Since the latest drivers for my GPU sadly won’t support OpenGL 4.4 (AMD dropped driver support for Vista, so maybe it’s finally time to upgrade) I haven’t been able to test the two new extensions.
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