3D Nature and Partners Declare ATI drivers Unsuitable for Professional Visualization

[Ratchet]

May 4th, 2006, Morrison Colorado

3D Nature, a leader in photorealistic landscape visualization, together with a prominent group of 3D visualization developers and users, have taken the drastic step of publicly declaring ATI's Catalyst OpenGL display drivers as unsuitable for professional realtime visualization needs.

All past and current ATI Catalyst drivers for all ATI Radeon series display cards contain several critical bugs that render the hardware unusable in professional 3D visual simulation applications. ATI has been aware of the problems since 2005 but has not fixed the most critical issues, has not announced an ETA for fixing them, or even acknowledged them publicly in their Known Issues for current releases.

The two critical failures are referred to as "VSYNC spinlock" and "compressed SGIS_generate_mipmap failure". Both are documented extensively on the OpenSceneGraph web site complete with screengrabs and sample code to reproduce the problem.

VSYNC spinlock refers to the situation where the display driver continuously runs the CPU during a wglSwapBuffers() function call when vertical retrace synchronization (VSYNC) is on. This leaves the CPU unavailable to perform other work during this period when it should normally be idle, drastically impairing the performance of modern multi-threaded visualization applications. Other modern display card hardware drivers (3D Labs, NVidia) leave the CPU available during this operation.

Compressed SGIS_generate_mipmap failure described how the very-common mip-map generation extension, "GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap", is completely broken when using texture compression. Most modern applications generate mipmaps using SGIS_generate_mipmap to improve texture anti-aliasing in 3D scenes. Texture compression is also commonly used to reduce the memory consumption of textures in the scene in order that more or more detailed textures can be resident in the display card, improving scene detail and performance. It is very common to use both of these techniques together in professional visual simulation applications to extract the maximum visual quality and framerate from a given graphics subsystem. The failure of this combination of features on ATI cards means that texture compression is unusable, severely impairing scene performance. Again, other manufacturers do not suffer this problem.

ATI has been aware of these these issues for quite some time, and has internally filed them as "EPR #151824".

Joining 3D Nature in their protest of ATI's neglect are numerous luminaries of the realtime 3D visualization industry:

• Fredrik Ahl, Scalo AB, www.scalo.se
• Don Burns, Andes Computer Engineering, www.andesengineering.com
• Carlo Camporesi, Institute of Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage, Italy
• Jan Ciger, OpenGL developer
• Ben Discoe, project lead, "Virtual Terrain Project" www.vterrain.org
• Murray G. Gamble, Director of Modeling & Simulation, Aerospace and Cognitive Engineering (ACE) Laboratory, Carleton University
• Roger James - CTO - Virtual Outlooks Ltd.
• Gert van Maren, Head of Development, K2Vi Virtual Reality Software, www.k2vi.com
• Robert Osfield, Project Lead, OpenSceneGraph, www.openscenegraph.org
• Gordon Tomlinson, Consultant, www.3dscenegraph.com
• James A. Zack, President, Xtra-Spatial Productions, www.spatialexperts.com

Collectively, we call upon ATI to address these issues immediately, in order that their hardware may be made suitable for professional visual simulation uses.

Current information about this issue will be found at: http://www.3DNature.com/ati.html

About 3D Nature:
Since 1992, 3D Nature has developed and marketed professional photorealistic 3D landscape visualization software including World Construction Set, Visual Nature Studio, Scene Express and NatureView Express. http://www.3DNature.com

[caveman-jim]

Dayum, take that ATI!

Looks like this year might well be the year of Intel + nVidia for corporate users!

[3_Stooges_Nuke]

ABout damn time ATI took OpenGL seriously

[jec0s]

And again another WAKE UP CALLL!!! TAKE IT ATI AND FIX FREAKING OPENGL for Linux, for Windows, YOU JUST GOT XGI!! no excuse now.

[wures7]

Maybe ATI should release a hotfix.

[BBA]

Well...that explains why Quake and other Ogl game performance sucks when using Vsynch on ATi cards.

[CKS]

yeah take that ATI, shame on you!

[P1x44r]

I'd like to see OpenGL phase out completely in fact, so it's a non-factor to me.

[Auraka]

I'd like to see OpenGL phase out completely in fact, so it's a non-factor to me.

Not everyone lives in your world

[gamefoo21]

I'd like to see OpenGL phase out completely in fact, so it's a non-factor to me.

Careful... you better throw on your flame suit... To Linux goons OGL is god... besides the fact that d3d is more advanced more flexible and progresses faster and is for the most part faster hehe. Its just uber cross platform and thats what keeps OGL alive...

*jumps into Shaidars flame suit*

[5150 Joker]

I'd like to see OpenGL phase out completely in fact, so it's a non-factor to me.

If it wasn't for Quake Wars, I'd agree with you.

[caveman-jim]

1 standard would be nice, though I'd hate for it to be the MS one... but, it is better supported in the consumer world.

Corporate stuff will always be a different level, and right now Quadro r00lez

[jec0s]

I'd like to see OpenGL phase out completely in fact, so it's a non-factor to me.

I'd like to see Microsoft phase out, but who doesn't, they are just a big business bully "and thats the fact JACK!!.."

[VW_Factor]

I think it would be cool if OGL was the only standard. Its open, and if more interest was with OGL, it would be "nice"

[5150 Joker]

I'd like to see Microsoft phase out, but who doesn't, they are just a big business bully "and thats the fact JACK!!.."

Yeah so we can have 10 competing desktop operating systems with a myriad of headaches. Long live Microsoft!

[jec0s]

Yeah so we can have 10 competing desktop operating systems with a myriad of headaches. Long live Microsoft!

You obviously don't have a clue what you are talking about. I suggest you go rethink what OPEN STANDARDS means, and also what competition brings. Why put up with flawed security and even worse waiting for a SINGLE company to release patches. think about it.

[metroidfox]

Yeah so we can have 10 competing desktop operating systems with a myriad of headaches. Long live Microsoft!

quoted for the very, very f'ing truth

[probedb]

...and back on topic.

So does anyone think ATi will actually listen?

[Gizmo]

I'll think they'll listen ...one thing any manufacturer does'nt like is Bad press
I can see Nv running with this & over the next week or so im betting various sites will run a Professional Visualization head to head's and make ATI look even worse...lets face it its there own fault really they've had shitty open gl support in both games and apps for years now,we've even been told there totally rewritting the opengl driver from time to time but as far as i can see they either never did it or the results where still as bad as the current set so they never released it...

IMO ATI's whole Reactive driver development needs to become Proactive

How many time do we have to wait months for a reactive fix to an issuse that would'nt even be there when a game ships if they where a little more Proactive? sure i costs more money to be proactive but remember if you want to make money you've got to spend money.....

[ShiningArcanine]

I thought that ATI always had lousy drivers.

You obviously don't have a clue what you are talking about. I suggest you go rethink what OPEN STANDARDS means, and also what competition brings. Why put up with flawed security and even worse waiting for a SINGLE company to release patches. think about it.

So you would rather wait for a few dozen companies to release patches rather than a single one?

[Pr()ZaC]

Perhaps OPENGL/bugfixes (programs related) performance will get some attention from ATi.

[Monrad]

Nothing new here, it's the way ATI do things. If they have to fix something, they will wait until it's late. Look @ WDM drivers for example, they are completely unstable, they are "slow" when changing channels with the tuner filter. Now look @ open conexant bt drivers, they are way better and stable, you don't have any problems with any software.

The same happens here, OpenGL is something ATI doesn't care about, that's why they put it in a wait list.

One more thing... Shame on you M$ Lovers!!!

[Dengin]

ATI just got Pwned. With a capital 'Oops'.

[gybe]

Wow a press release for that.

Most modern applications generate mipmaps using SGIS_generate_mipmap to improve texture anti-aliasing in 3D scenes.

Im not sure "most modern applications" use this extension. If they want to have good quality mipmaps, they should generate the mipmaps by themselves instead of asking the driver to do it for them, especially if the mipmap are compressed. This way they can use a better filtering to generate the mipmap, and they are not dependent on the algorithm the driver use to compress the texture. So I dont understand why it's a severe problem.

[ShaidarHaran]

*jumps into Shaidars flame suit*

Hey! There's only room for one in this thing. Unless, of course, you're looking for manches

If it wasn't for Quake Wars, I'd agree with you.

Agreed. ET:QW is the only OGL title I'm looking forward to this year. OGL is all but dead for gaming, and it's really not such a bad thing. Of course the PS3 may help breathe some life back into OGL, but it's too early to know that for sure.


As for this press release - have any of you ever heard of *any* of the companies or individuals making these claims? If these are such huge issues why haven't we heard anything from companies and people in the industry that actually matter, like Autodesk (Autocad, 3dsmax, Maya) Newtek (lightwave 3d), Caligari (truespace), Maxon (Cinema 4D), XSI (SOFTIMAGE), Pixar (Renderman) or at least someone we've heard of before.

1 company no one's ever heard of + 11 individuals associated with 11 other companies no one's ever heard of all with links to their websites (and subsequently products they're selling) sounds more like free publicity in the hopes of selling their wares than providing a service to the community. Skepticism + 1

[stargeizer]

Wow a press release for that.

Most modern applications generate mipmaps using SGIS_generate_mipmap to improve texture anti-aliasing in 3D scenes.

Im not sure "most modern applications" use this extension. If they want to have good quality mipmaps, they should generate the mipmaps by themselves instead of asking the driver to do it for them, especially if the mipmap are compressed. This way they can use a better filtering to generate the mipmap, and they are not dependent on the algorithm the driver use to compress the texture. So I dont understand why it's a severe problem.

Usually most of the software that uses OpenGL as base, when it comes to program an ATI card, the programmer has to program many "workarounds" to bypass all the problems that the ati's drivers have. There's not a big surprise here, since ati has never been an fully OpenGL compilant card maker at all. In fact, some applications that uses OpenGL automatically switches to software rendering when an ati card is detected.

These problems are presents even in FireGL cards, which are supposed to be designed for proffesional environments. So there's no wonder why they are declaring ati cards as unsuitable for proffesional works. Ati cards ***Always*** have been unsuitable for proffesional works, so there's no real surprise here either. These cards are designed for gamers.

J.

[ShaidarHaran]

Usually most of the software that uses OpenGL as base, when it comes to program an ATI card, the programmer has to program many "workarounds" to bypass all the problems that the ati's drivers have. There's not a big surprise here, since ati has never been an fully OpenGL compilant card maker at all. In fact, some applications that uses OpenGL automatically switches to software rendering when an ati card is detected.

These problems are presents even in FireGL cards, which are supposed to be designed for proffesional environments. So there's no wonder why they are declaring ati cards as unsuitable for proffesional works. Ati cards ***Always*** have been unsuitable for proffesional works, so there's no real surprise here either. These cards are designed for gamers.

J.

My FUD alarm just exploded

[Akumajo]

At last we will reveal ourselves to ATI, at last we will have revenge for their poor support of the ATI Fire GL 8800 128MB AGP workstation card that was released a year after Nvidia's Quadro DCC 64MB aka a GeForce 3Ti that is still getting full support from either Nvidia's unified standard drivers or their workstation drivers with full documentation.

At last we will have revenge.

[ccbrianf]

besides the fact that d3d is more advanced more flexible and progresses faster and is for the most part faster

As a developer, I'd strongly dispute more advanced, more flexible, and faster,

There are several handicaps DX9 has with respect to OpenGL in the performance department. This may not be as true on ATI as it is on nVidia, but you can't use a circular argument to make your point.

As for the progresses faster... It's much easier to progress when your the dictator. That doesn't mean the progress is always good or down the right path.

[stargeizer]

My FUD alarm just exploded

Hehe... no FUD at all.. Just go to the ATI page and search a bit, you will find some documented problems with aplications. No FUD at all, since is a known fact that ati cards are for gamers, not for production... If they publish "this card is for production" and fails, maybe it would be ok to blame ATI about it...But truth is that they sell gamer cards.

Consider Autocad, for example (of course i can't asume you can get a US$4000+ software like this, but as an example is ok, and where i work have some seats of this.). There is a longstanding problem with ATI cards and this software that prevents the use of hardware acceleration, but there's no major complains about it... since Autocad comes by default in software rendering mode. Is slower, ok, is not precise, ok, but is what you have. And this problem is well documented in the ATI page.

I don't think that ATI makes FUD of their own products at all.

Regards

J.
HOME: Windows XP, AMD64 3000+, Radeon X1600 Pro AGP
LINUX Box: Archlinux, AMD Duron 1.3, Nvidia FX 5500

[Monrad]

Hehe... no FUD at all.. Just go to the ATI page and search a bit, you will find some documented problems with aplications. No FUD at all, since is a known fact that ati cards are for gamers, not for production... If they publish "this card is for production" and fails, maybe it would be ok to blame ATI about it...But truth is that they sell gamer cards.

Consider Autocad, for example (of course i can't asume you can get a US$4000+ software like this, but as an example is ok, and where i work have some seats of this.). There is a longstanding problem with ATI cards and this software that prevents the use of hardware acceleration, but there's no major complains about it... since Autocad comes by default in software rendering mode. Is slower, ok, is not precise, ok, but is what you have. And this problem is well documented in the ATI page.

I don't think that ATI makes FUD of their own products at all.

Regards

J.
HOME: Windows XP, AMD64 3000+, Radeon X1600 Pro AGP
LINUX Box: Archlinux, AMD Duron 1.3, Nvidia FX 5500

Mmhh, just make a search for ShaidarHaran messages and you'll see that it's useless to discuss with him. He's just too close minded about ATI.

If you wish, you could find more information about ATI prodcuts that doesn't work like they should. All In Wonder series is a great example. Even an unstable installation of Debian is more stable than MMC itself.

And, as I said before, I'm not surprised about ATI taking its time to fix something because I've been there. It's a pitty that their hardware (which is perfect in every aspect and way better than the competition with their tiny gpus) can't shine because of drivers.

[jec0s]

Most the big vendors that do real rendering don't even touch ATI cards. Thats why the list has people we don't recognize. Sad ATI even released a FireGL with a 1G of ram, whos gonna buy it if it doesn't work properly?

[Dwarden]

well let's hope latest additions to ATI team can change something in way how they deal with bugs (who cares if driver is non whql with "beta" tag IF it fixes problem i need to be fixed NOW) or with OpenGL and whole *nix* debacle ...

[ShaidarHaran]

Why are they talking about Catalyst drivers for professional applications anyway? The FireGL cards have their own drivers. If they're complaining about the lack of support for CONSUMER cards in PROFESSIONAL applications they have NO COMPLAINT.

[radE8]

Why are they talking about Catalyst drivers for professional applications anyway? The FireGL cards have their own drivers. If they're complaining about the lack of support for CONSUMER cards in PROFESSIONAL applications they have NO COMPLAINT.

You may have a point...

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30467

[wures7]

Check out this quote from the Beyond3D forum linked. It explains why a press release is neccessary. It makes sense.

Most of us don't own ATI hardware anymore. We got smart. I'm stuck with one because when I bought my laptop, ATI was smacking NVidia around in the laptop market and everything you could buy was Radeon Mobility based. But it's not us we're concerned about. It's our users who get burned by this. They get sold a system with an ATI graphics card in it (probably a great value) and then they find out it doesn't work as it ought. Frequently, they're upset with us, the developer, because they think it's our fault -- because ATI couldn't possibly be neglecting serious bugs for so long, could they? So, we're sick of it. We tried asking, and then pressuring ATI into getting these issues resolved, and 6 months later, they're still broken. So, we decided we needed to publicly state our position and let ATI start taking the flack for it instead of us. We've told them for months we were going to go public with it if they didn't get it fixed, and here we are.

[zatein]

Check out this quote from the Beyond3D forum linked. It explains why a press release is neccessary. It makes sense.

Possibly not... as the laptop is still on CONSUMER LEVEL GPU (mobility 9600/9700) not a PROFESSIONAL LEVEL as the FireGL series, thus they used Omega driver to upgrade the driver. There must be some work around on doing this and as they stated they used only NV card on their desktop, so their app would lean to perfer NV hardware than ATi. Ok, they can get press on marketting their software as preferable NV card but not by trying to trash ALL ATi card like this. However, if you follow the thread on B3D given above you will see the comment that Yysez gave on this pressing on using a gaming card on professional app! And also Demirug asking them on trying work around. ATM, Humus try to response to this press but the link to that issue is now broken . To this point, if they are software developer, it is sometimes their hard work in order to make their software widely compatible with any cards.

[Hidavi]

ouchies!

[VW_Factor]

I still do think its silly that people with professional needs, try and get by with consumer products. This goes for any industry. Sometimes it works, or gets ya by. Most of the time, you just get hosed.

I can see where these guys feel snubbed, however as ShaidarHaran has pointed out, there is a line of ATI products built specifically for their purposes.

[Hidavi]

Were they using the FireGL cards?