OpenGL Knowledge??

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I might be posting this in the wrong forum, but I am seeking someone who has knowledge or experience with OpenGL and the drivers & hardware accelerators that go along with such to run programs on an ATI RAGE

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Doesn’t all that stuff usually come along with the card? I’d go to their site to check for upgrades.

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Eileen/Mark/Dave ~

Thanks for ‘steppin’ up! I originally had some details (probably too many) up here for the last couple of weeks and there were no responses. I guessed that if I simplify it I would get some nibbles and got 3 replies in a matter of a couple of hours.

The first thing I did months ago was contact ATI via the web, e-mail, and the telephone. First I confirmed that infact my Rage Mobility chipset supports every major OS and environment, including WinNT and XP. The software does provide comprehensive API support, including DX5, DX6, OpenGL, and others, as well as extensive BIOS support. They further state that there is no compromise of performance in 3D, 2D and DVD acceleration for all notebooks.

They maintain, however, that the display drivers and multimedia applications for laptops/notebooks are NOT available for download from ATI. They claim that the display driver supplied with a given notebook has been customized for the built-in flat panel display or any other graphics or video options installed in a specific computer. Support for a specific driver feature such as hardware acceleration of OpenGL may be incorporated into a particular display driver at the discretion of the manufacturer. As a result of these ‘modifications’, ATI says they are unable to offer drivers for notebooks. They suggested I consult with Fujitsu to obtain a driver update, hardware accelerator or whatever OpenGL support was required for my computer.

This I did. After more than 10 days of escalating to someone who even knew what this was, they still really didn’t have any answers. After a ‘team’ of ‘specialists’ looked into it, this is the letter I received:[indent]

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Mr Krymow,

I have searched and searched for answers to your questions about OpenGL support on the ATI Rage Mobility. It appears that the chip is capable of support OpenGL, yet no manufacture ever implemented the code set. In effect, ATI sold the chip with some default capabilites, this did not include OpenGL, the company that bought it (in this case Fujitsu) would have then needed to work with ATI to implement OpenGL for the chip. This was not done by Fujitsu, and as far as I can tell, it was not done by other laptop manufacturers. I have installed their drivers on our machine and still have the same performance results.

OpenGL support has been implemented for that chip on Windows 95 and Windows 98, and also the Linux OS. However, it is not to be found for XP.

If you are interested in using types of programs utilizing OpenGL, I would suggest looking for ones written using DirectDraw or Direct3D. Those are Microsoft’s DirectX technologies that are meant to compete against OpenGL….

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[/indent] So in essence, Fujitsu contradicted everything ATI claims & publishes and the only option is to use MS’s DX written software.

I went to the OpenGL site and downloaded what they had there, but it is outdated.

So…the question is……how does one use OpenGL software?

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OK, I understand now. This is common industry practice.

ATI makes the chipset and owns the design. They may or may not sell their product to the end user. In this case, they did not sell to the end user, it’s a laptop chipset and they’re usually customized. They sold, to Fujitsu, the chipset “as-is.” Fujitsu has some leeway with how they use the ATI graphics chip in their own product; they can add features to their product that may not be available with some basement brand card (I own one such card and I like it ). There is a specification that Fujitsu must adhere to in order to be allowed to resell the product. Nvidia does this, and so do many other companies: they sell the technology and allow the purchasing company the ability to modify the product as long as it does what is listed by the patent holder (ATI) as a requirement.

Fujitsu is telling you that they’ve been told OpenGL will work but they have never created a driver for their packaged version of the ATI chip that supported OpenGL. Further, they say, we don’t know anyone who has done this so you’re on your own if you need it from us. In theory, ATI’s reference drivers should also work with your chipset, but you may lose some specific functions. What those may be I don’t know. If the ATI reference driver supports OpenGL and you’re feeling adventurous, try installing it and see what happens.

[indent]

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I went to the OpenGL site and downloaded what they had there, but it is outdated.

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[/indent]I believe that all Windows operating systems since the release of Windows 98 support OpenGL natively. It’s not Windows that is the problem, it’s the fact that ATI doesn’t require OEMs like Fujitsu to include OpenGL drivers when they resell their product. My experience with ATI is that OpenGL is a problem issue that has only recently gotten any better.

You can’t change out the chipset in your laptop easily, so your options may truly be limited. It’s something to remember when the time to upgrade comes – spend a lot of time in research. I say that as one who has been burned by this practice more than once.

Does that help?

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Yes, Mark, this helps me understand immensely. I don’t know why they both beat around the bush on this and just come out and say so . Are they going to hurt someone or some sales?

Now you mentioned ATI’s ‘reference’ drivers. What exactly is a ‘reference’ driver?

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The reference drivers would be the ones that you find at ATI’s website. OEMs/VARs like Fujitsu may also have drivers on their site and if they do, those are the ones you want (usually) because they will sometimes be customized. The reference drivers at the manufacturer’s site are the ones that they use to run their chips when they build, test and sell them under the ATI name.

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Attached is the file ‘Atiixpab.inf‘ (changed to .txt to attach). This is from the OEM install media. If you do an F3 of ‘OpenGL‘ down this file, you will notice some interesting bits of information.

Now, I really have nothing to back this up with, but skimming through this file gives me the impression that at some point the manufacturer ran OpenGL drivers through here (maybe testing?) then uninstalled them. I am picking up that ‘ATIO2KAB.DL_’ could be the OpenGL driver and that the OpenGL driver settings are disabled in the registry at HKR & HKLMSOFTWAREATI TechnologiesDriverOpenGLPrivate,disableBM. A cursory check of the reg seems to confirm at least these settings.

Tell me, please, if you think I am off base or perhaps on to something….

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You might be on to something, Bruce…..but I have bad news.

From ATI’s website regarding the Mobility chipset:

[indent]

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The RAGE MOBILITY drivers supplied with a given laptop or notebook have been specially modified to work in conjunction with the flat panel display and any other graphics or video options installed in that specific computer.

As a result of these modifications, ATI Technical Support is unable to make a “generic” RAGE MOBILITY driver available for download[/u].

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[/indent]Further…..[indent]

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Support for a specific driver feature (such as hardware acceleration of OpenGL) may be incorporated into a particular RAGE MOBILITY driver (or not) at the discretion of the laptop or notebook manufacturer[/u]. If you have any questions regarding the features or functionality of a particular RAGE MOBILITY driver, please consult with your laptop or notebook manufacturer.

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[/indent]I think you’re outta luck on this one if you require OpenGL support. I don’t mean to sound contentious but they’ve laid it out in black and white: if the manufacturer doesn’t do it, then no one will.

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Mark ~

This is actually all old hat and word for word of my post 170293. I presented all this from that page and from ATI Customer Service on the phone and from Fujitsu to make us aware of this. I think we were maybe making some headway in your post 170298 perhaps?

I am still feeling adventurous and if you believe I may be onto something with that attachment, then I really have nothing to lose by loading up one of that (or other) drivers (that are from the manufacturer). Whaddya think

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It ain’t old hat in this thread…..and I can’t remember all of the threads in the lounge.

If you can find a driver that has OpenGL support, shoot for the stars! You may be able to dig out something that will help from the tweaker community as well:

• http://www.rageunderground.com/r128tweaker.shtml%5B/url%5D
• http://www.savagenews.com/?show=2065%5B/url%5D
• http://www.nvplanet.com/article.php?sid=429%5B/url%5D%5B/list%5D

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Those sites have some educating info. and good links — thanks!

What I was suggesting, Mark, was using the ‘reference driver’ that is apparently buried on the media I already have. If you haven’t already, please look through the ‘Atiixpab’ file attached at post 170339 above. I have (maybe erroneously) deduced that an OpenGL driver is named and residing on the media was installed during initial laptop OEM configuration, then unistalled and/or disabled (via the reg key listed above). So, if you see what I see in that .inf file, then I may well have already what I was seeking, no? If not, then I will dump this little project here.

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OK Bruce….you got me curious. Shame on you. And I was about to go to bed, too, then things got interesting.

I dug around in the INF file. In the section marked [DestinationDirs] I see the following reference:

ati2mpab.OpenGL   = 11  ; system32

[/list]ati2mpab proves to be important further down in the file. A few lines down, and I see ; ati2mpab general installation section. ati2mpab.OpenGL, general installation….there is a section commented entirely out. The commented section is nearly a carbon copy of the other two sub-sections, ati2mpab_ENU and ati2mpab_JAP. In the CopyFiles section of all three is the text ati2mpab.OpenGL. We don’t need to make any changes here.

Further down I see

[ati2mpab.OpenGL]ATIO2KAB.DLL

[/list] and there is no commenting next to the filename. Looks like OpenGL’s DLL is being installed. In fact, everywhere else I looked, ATIO2KAB.DLL is being copied to the target computer. So it looks like OpenGL support is there.

Although I don’t recall you saying, did you presume that OpenGL support wasn’t there due to lack of control panel applets and other breadcrumbs? And then you noticed this OpenGL stuff in the INF. I hacked the IE.INF on my XP computer to allow me to download the full version of IE6 and reinstall it. So what’s missing? I saw this:

HKLM,"SOFTWAREATI TechnologiesDriverOpenGLPrivate",disableBM,%REG_DWORD%,0

[/list]and

;HKR,"Desktop",OpenGL,%REG_DWORD%,0

[/list] under the heading [ati2mpab_SoftwareDesktopSettings]. Logic leads me to believe that this is the control panel applet that exposes OpenGL settings, so I’ll remove the comment and roll the dice. Mayhaps I will see an OpenGL tab in my display properties after a reboot. Then again, mayhaps I won’t because I don’t have an ATI to play around with. I don’t know what

HKLM,"SOFTWAREATI TechnologiesDriverOpenGLPrivate",disableBM,%REG_DWORD%,0

[/list] is doing, but I can make note of this registry entry. It’s disabling something (a wild guess here is that it’s bump mapping) so if I don’t get what I want I can change that value to 1 and see what happens.

I shoulda prefaced this with “at your own risk” but I already know your position on this. I’ve uploaded the modified INF as a text file – rename it and roll the dice if you want. Since I know you’re going to take the plunge, I want to know how it makes out.

Edited to add: I’m going to bed now.

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Sorry….didn’t mean to make you stay up late fiddlin” I figured if you took a peek, though, that might happen. It seems I was partially on the right track. I will definitely make the plunge, but have to figure out just how to do this. From what you brought to the table here, it seems I must do more than just load the driver referenced and that I must do something with the INF file, and that is what I am not sure of. I will install it and see what happens……

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Hey, if my curiosity wasn’t so strong, I would have gone to bed anyway. No need to be sorry, after all I have a reputation to uphold (the one who never sleeps).

You do need to do something with the INF file – either edit it or download the attachment from my previous post. If you save the attachment I posted, and rename it blahblahblah.INF where “blahblahblah” is the original file’s name, you’re set. Copy that into the directory where you have the driver files extracted and run the installation program. What I did, simply, was to remove a few semicolons in the INF file so that when you run the driver setup (or update it elsewhere in Windows) it will read that section of the INF instead of ignoring it – with the hope that you will have an OpenGL tab in your display properties.

FYI, there is also a tab for Direct3D (D3D) in the same section that I did not remove the comment for. Take a look and see if it makes sense. And good luck with it!!

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Ohhhhh…..I was just going to install JUST the driver in lieu of what I have now thinking that would do the trick….but that is not the case? So I must run the installation program on the media?

I did d/l your attachment, but the files are on the media. Should I copy the the CD to the HD and then run installation, the entire folder or just the driver, from there?

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What you must do:

• Take the modified INF file that I posted, or make the same changes yourself.
• COPY the new, modified INF file to wherever the driver files have been extracted.
• Either run the setup program for the driver, or update it through your display properties. No matter which way you update the driver, Windows will read the INF file for installation information.[/list]The modified INF file is the linch pin. It contains the installation instructions that Windows will use to install and configure the device driver. The OpenGL driver is being installed – or at least, a DLL that is intended for OpenGL is – you just don’t have access to the properties for OpenGL.

  HTH,

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Okay, I understand most of all this, but the part I am confused about is this extraction. The files are simply sitting on the CD. When I run the installation, it runs from the CD and it is reading the INF on the CD and then it is done.

If it installs from the CD, then isn’t it reading the native INF on that media?

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Yes – it will read from the CD if you install from there. Copy it to a temporary folder on your hard drive, replace the INF, and when you are prompted for an install location, direct Windows to your new folder….and that should take care of it. FWIW I always copy drivers to the hard drive anyway, so I don’t have to hunt for the install media (which is usually outdated by the time you get it anyway).

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Okay….so here is what I am gonna do….. First, I will copy the folder with the driver, INF, and realted files to my HD. Then I will overwrite existing INF with modified INF. Then I will proceed to Device Mgr>Display>ATI>Properties>Drivers and install the new driver from the the location of the previously mentioned folder.

Sound good (or right, rather) ?

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You win the prize….for making the thread wrap.

Yup, that’s exactly what I would do, and what I have been trying to relate – go for broke!

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I am gonna put my hard hat on and give ‘er a whirl. Probably be in the next day or two as I am entertaining OOT guests this weekend. I will report back w/ results.

Thank You, Mark! I don’t care what the others say – you are still the King in my book!

BTW ~ I will accept a check in lieu of the prize.

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If you don’t provide details, who’s going to know if they’re qualified to ‘step up?’ I second Eileen’s motion – ATI will be your best source of information.

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Also you need to remember that on laptops and some desk tops with onboard grapgic controlers the OEM’s are using just the “Chip sets” on the mother boards. So when you go looking for drivers and other update information one needs to know is the chip sets were installed on the mother board or there is a add on graphic card.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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