[Bf-committers] OpenGL compliance test

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Maybe this is a bit too complex for us to hope for... and when such =20
'someone' steps forward we should be happy with anything he can do. :)

There's also the weird situation that Blender *itself* is an ultimate =20=

opengl test! Now if we could only be sure that errors encountered in =20
Blender are in opengl, and not in Ghost or Blender itself...

Some simple things I can do at least is:

- promote on blender.org we need (experienced) opengl coders helping =20
testing and providing patches for the various OS-hardware combos. The =20=

more developers are active, the better we get insight in the matter.

- find someone interested in upgrading the current gfx card FAQ with =20
information gathered at the sticky topic on gfx cards in the 'news & =20
chat' forum.

- use some contacts I have within Mesa, opengl.org, but also h/w =20
venders to find out what they can do.


-Ton-

On Wednesday, Nov 19, 2003, at 20:20 Europe/Amsterdam, Gregor M=FCckl =20=

wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Sounds like someone should step forward and solve this one for real. =20=

> Since
> other projects occationally stumble across OpenGL problems, too, it =20=

> seems to
> be worth the effort of putting together a test suite that gathers data =
=20
> on the
> various clients and sends the results back to a central database on =20=

> the web.
>
> Such a program should at least gather the following information about =20=

> the
> system:
>
> - Video hardware
> - Video driver version
> - OS kernel version
> - Video subsystem version (e.g. XFree version)
> - CPU model and speed (a different CPU model could trigger bugs in GL)
> - All queried IDs as unmodified plain text
>
> The actual compliance testing will be the real pain. Basically this =20=

> will
> consist of cycling OpenGL states and ask the user if things are =20
> displayed
> correctly, unless you can automate the tests in some way or another =20=

> (which is
> difficult because different graphics hardware may produce slightly =20
> different
> output while still conforming to the OpenGL specifications).
>
> The biggest problem I see with this approach is that the test results =20=

> that get
> sent back to the server might be tampered with.
>
> Regards,
> Gregor
>
> Am Mittwoch, 19. November 2003 14:08 schrieb Ton Roosendaal:
>> Hi,
>>
>> With more and more people using Blender, we get into troubles with
>> OpenGL again. It resembles the situation in NaN, where we had to =20
>> invest
>> in all types of gfx cards and build a testing farm. Daniel Dunbar did
>> some nice work then in testing several PC configurations (Linux,
>> Windows) and drivers settings.
>>
>> For an open source organization we have to do this differently... and =
=20
>> I
>> don't know yet how to exactly solve it. We could seek cooperation =
with
>> other OpenGL projects, but most likely the gamers side of OpenGL =
world
>> won't have the troubles we encounter. I could also ask opengl.org for
>> help with it...
>>
>> One idea I had was developing a simple Ghost based test program,
>> opening 2 windows and doing all kinds of checks, including asking the
>> user to close windows, hide them, switch desktop or focus, etc.
>> The most common errors are in 2d commands, like pixel reading and
>> drawing, frontbuffer drawing, and this using glViewport and glScissor
>> switching a lot.
>>
>> I'm curious to find out if there's a good cross platform other OpenGL
>> application existing we could use as verification test. People are =20=

>> less
>> likely to blame us when they find out similar programs all suffer =
from
>> the same errors. (And no, the famous OpenGL Gears is a plain dumb
>> example!).
>>
>> Then there's the problem of actively managing a database with reports
>> from users... like the thread Matt posted a long time ago on the =
'news
>> and chat' forum. We need someone to digest all this info, and build a
>> good spreadsheet out of it. Maybe this is something to write in
>> php/mysql, where people can easily submit their own system stats.
>>
>> So:
>> - other opengl projects we can cooperate with?
>> - other opengl progs we can use as verification?
>> - someone interested in building a database?
>>
>> -Ton-
>>
>>
>> =
----------------------------------------------------------------------=20=

>> --
>> --
>> Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org
>> http://www.blender.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Bf-committers@blender.org
>> http://www.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>
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--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org =20
http://www.blender.org