i guess it is the video card

[wooden shoe]

Hi OpenRA community,

When I start up OpenRA on my windows XP computer it gives me an error. I read about the compatibility of video cards. I have a ATI Radeon 9200 128MB video card. I think i am 300 short of ATI Radeon . Anyway, is this realy the problem? And if it is so, will older video cards work in the future? Pretty lame if you can't play a game that has 15 year old graphics because your video card isn't brand new .

Would you be so kind to explain this to me. I really like to play OpenRA and i think it is a great initiative. If you need more information just say so and I’ll make sure you will get it.

Thanks,
Wooden Shoe from the Netherlands

[Matma Rex]

According to this thread: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... 82&t=14976 OpenRA requires card with full support of Shader Model 2.0 (I have no idea what for).

Radeon 9200 is part of R200 series, which, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R20 ... 000.2F9200) supports only Shader Model 1.4.


I just posted similar thread, except that my card is even older (GeForce 4 MX 440) and supports no shaders at all.

[wooden shoe]

Still some of my question remains, will older video cards work in the future.

If not it will block out a lot of users. Imagine a LAN party, people will still use the original ra or minira because there crappy ass computer couldn’t handle openra.

Another question comes to mind, why are those shaders so important?

[Sleipnir]

Our ingame renderers are built as self contained modules which are largely separate from the gameplay code. If somebody wants to write a low-tech renderer module that supports old hardware, we will happily merge it into the project, but it is not something which any of the main developers have an interest in doing at this time.

Why do we use shaders? Because we can. OpenGL and its associated shader language allow us to efficiently render the paletted artwork used in ra/cnc, and the effects that rely on changing these palettes on the fly. Most graphics hardware released in the last 5 years should be able to run it without problems (with the exception of some intel cards, which are simply useless).

OpenRA is built as a fun project in our free time, designed to be insanely modifiable / extendable, using a high level garbage collected language. This means that it is never going to run as fast as the original games. We may be rebuilding a 15 year old game, but we are using modern technologies which are only feasible on modern hardware. Expecting it to run on a 15 year old machine is simply unreasonable.

[beedee]

OpenRA is built as a fun project in our free time, designed to be insanely modifiable / extendable, using a high level garbage collected language. This means that it is never going to run as fast as the original games. We may be rebuilding a 15 year old game, but we are using modern technologies which are only feasible on modern hardware. Expecting it to run on a 15 year old machine is simply unreasonable.

Just to expand on what Sleipnir has already said, we currently have 3 active developers working in their free time on OpenRA, maintaining what is effectively 2 full games when they should be out enjoying the New Zealand summer. According to the credits, Command and Conquer had 7 full time developers (RA had 10) working on it along with staff dedicated to areas that we have been having to do ourselves.

We know it's disappointing for you but we've had to take shortcuts to be able to get the engine anywhere near the state it is in now. The need for pixel shader 2.0 support is part of these shortcuts. To be completely honest with you, if one of us used a machine for development that didn't have PS2.0 support we'd probably already have this dependency worked around but our focus is on our ever growing bug list. Once we're at the stage that things are stable enough to call it a beta release, then we'll seek to increase our performance and hardware support.

Thank you for trying OpenRA in the first place though, it means a lot to us. Hopefully you'll be able to play the fruits of our hard work in the future.

[riderr3]

with the exception of some intel cards, which are simply useless.

yeah that's right today I try to launch Openra on second laptop with Intel N10 integrated VGA compatible controller(256mb video memory on the board ). on CG renderer it runs really slow(about 10-15 fps). GL renderer not works at all - it gives me that error(from graphics.log):

[code]Unsupported GPU: Missing extensions.
Available extensions:
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_ARB_copy_buffer GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_draw_elements_base_vertex GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_ARB_half_float_pixel GL_ARB_map_buffer_range GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_provoking_vertex GL_ARB_shader_objects GL_ARB_shading_language_100 GL_ARB_shading_language_120 GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_sync GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_array_object GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_vertex_shader GL_ARB_window_pos GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_logic_op GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_cull_vertex GL_EXT_copy_texture GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_polygon_offset GL_EXT_provoking_vertex GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_subtexture GL_EXT_texture GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_cube_map GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_texture_rectangle GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_3DFX_texture_compression_FXT1 GL_APPLE_client_storage GL_APPLE_packed_pixels GL_APPLE_vertex_array_object GL_ATI_blend_equation_separate GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 GL_ATI_separate_stencil GL_IBM_multimode_draw_arrays GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_INGR_blend_func_separate GL_MESA_pack_invert GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture GL_MESA_window_pos GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil GL_NV_texture_env_combine4 GL_NV_texture_rectangle GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_vertex_program GL_NV_vertex_program1_1 GL_OES_read_format GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_lod GL_SUN_multi_draw_arrays[/code]

probably Openra is not very optimized for now?