News: OGL on Win in 1.5.0b2

[javazoid]

Snipping from the public Java2D list. Message from Chis Campbell:

"Hi Mik,

We were thinking about sending out this piece of news on April 1 [April Fool's Day in the US], but we figured no one would believe us.  Anyway, yes, the OGL-based pipeline will be available on Windows in 1.5-beta2.
Keep in mind that it should be considered a "technology preview" for developers interested in trying their applications on the new pipeline. There are still quite a few driver issues out there (and a few issues that need to be fixed in our code) before it can be considered stable enough as a deployment option for developers.  The release notes will have more information."

Also take a look here:

OGL: add OpenGL-based pipeline for Windows
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/5008045.html

Have fun,

Mik of ClassX

[pepe]

yay!!!!
good news..

[nonnus29]

Yay!  Now maybe this java2d/javascript gamedevelopement environment I've been working on won't have been a complete waste of time!

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Abuse]

As Jar Jar might say.... yahoooooooooooooo!

[kevglass]

Excellent news!

When is b2 likely to be available? (or is it already?)

Kev

[javazoid]

I also asked Chris to anticipate something about the following topics:

- hw accelerated transforms (bitmap, vectors, with translucence support)
- hw accelerated transforms (bitmap, vectors, with translucence support) with bilinear, bicubic filtering.
- hw accelerated stroke/fill/paint
- hw accelerated clipping
- hw accelerated shapes, glyphs, text
- hw accelerated antialiased shapes, glyphs, text

I also asked how current applications can take advantage from the new pipeline and if we should take a particular coding approach for pushing apps performace to the top.

Maybe some officials here can give us a clearer vision.

I'm just waiting with excitement for the relase of 1.5.0b2..

Mik of ClassX

[GKW]

I think Beta 2 has been Real Soon Now for a couple weeks so presumably it will appear Real Soon Now.

[karatemarkel]

Sweet baby jebus.

[oNyx]

Now that's a surprise

@karatemarc

I disagree. "karatemarc" is a pretty nice nickname. It's really recognizeable and kinda funny (and I like it more then your other nick... "kel" it was, right?). Just imagine you would be one of those faceless "Neo"s

[karatemarkel]

Now that's a surprise

@karatemarc

I disagree. "karatemarc" is a pretty nice nickname. It's really recognizeable and kinda funny (and I like it more then your other nick... "kel" it was, right?). Just imagine you would be one of those faceless "Neo"s

No I'm gona stick to my guns here, it is a stupid name, but I'm not gona change it  

kel was my highscore table name when I was a nipper, strictly for the Lleague    

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[javazoid]

Some futher details:


(The following notes are pretty general and apply to the OGL pipeline on all platforms.  Some drivers may be less optimized than others, so your mileage may vary.)

> - hw accelerated transforms (bitmap, vectors, with translucence support)

images: yes
shapes: yes/no (some simple primitives can be accelerated)
translucency: yes

> - hw accelerated transforms (bitmap, vectors, with translucence support)
> with bilinear, bicubic filtering.

bilinear: yes
bicubic: no

> - hw accelerated stroke/fill/paint

strokes: not yet (more work will be done in this area)
solid fills: yes
texture/gradient paints: yes

> - hw accelerated clipping

rectangular clips: yes
shape clips: yes

> - hw accelerated shapes, glyphs, text

shapes: yes
text: yes

> - hw accelerated antialiased shapes, glyphs, text
>

aa shapes: sort of (at least they're faster than the existing pipelines)
aa text: yes

> The question is how current applications can take advantage from the new
> pipeline ? Should we take a particular coding approach for pushing apps
> performace to the top ?
>

You shouldn't have to change your app to benefit from the OGL pipeline. There are some things (not OGL-specific) that you can do to help speed up your app that are documented in our "2D Performance White Paper":
http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/2D/perf_graphics.html

If there are any tweaks that would help your code perform better on the OGL pipeline, we'll include them in an updated version of that white paper.

Chris


Looks like most Java2D stuff is hw accelerated. I can only imagine how all this new stuff can impact the future development of java gaming and desktop apps.

Enjoy,

Mik of ClassX

[Seekely]

great, another thing to anticipate from 1.5......hurry up!

[javazoid]

An update from Chris Campbell


Q: Is there any "suggested" board or config in order to use OGL acceleration ?

A: So far, we've only found that the latest Nvidia and ATI drivers meet the minimum requirements (OpenGL 1.2, ARB_pbuffer, ARB_render_texture) for running the OpenGL-based pipeline on Windows.  Of those two, the
Nvidia drivers seem a bit more robust at this point, but as I've mentioned, we're submitting driver issues to these companies when we run across them.  So hopefully by the time Tiger ships, many of those driver issues will be resolved.

Q: Which OpenGL version is required ?

A: As stated above.

Q: Can you tell me which Java2D features are not accelerated, apart from bicubic interpolation ?

A: Just to keep things simple, I'll say that if it wasn't on my earlier list, then it's safe to say that the operation is going through software loops.  So it shouldn't be any slower than the existing pipelines, but it probably won't be any faster with OGL pipeline either.

We're continuing to look at more ways to take advantage of hardware acceleration.  For example, we can use pixel shaders to implement things like ConvolveOp and RescaleOp at hardware speeds.  (And on a side note, we're always increasing the performance of our software
loops, by advanced tuning, using MMX/SSE, etc...)

Q: Ah, yes, the last "very original" question: when ?


A: In 1.5-beta2, which will be out Real Soon Now.




Some interesting improvement in the software loops also. Not bad isn't it ?

Have fun!

Mik of ClassX

[trembovetski]

A note to clear up some confusion: the software loops improvements (like using SSE/MMX) Chris mentioned are currently targeted for the next release, actually.

[javazoid]

That's not exactly what I wanted to hear, but having a new Java2D OpenGL pipeline is definitely a good way to start with 1.5.

Do you know if OGL acceleration will be on by default in the final 1.5 release ?

Looking forward to putting my hands on the b2 ASAP.

Cheers,

Mik of ClassX

[swpalmer]

A note to clear up some confusion: the software loops improvements (like using SSE/MMX) Chris mentioned are currently targeted for the next release, actually.

Yay!

By next release you mean beta 3, right?  not 1.5.1?

[trembovetski]

Um.. No, the next release, not 1.5. Again - this is regarding the (even more) optimized through SSE/MMX  software loops, not WGL pipeline

[javazoid]

Repetita Juvant

Do you know if OGL/WGL acceleration will be on by default in the final 1.5 release ?

[campbell]

Repetita Juvant

Do you know if OGL/WGL acceleration will be on by default in the final 1.5 release ?

No, it will not be enabled by default in 1.5.

Chris

[princec]

...but if you're using Webstart to deploy it's trivial to set these flags anyway. So no problems there.

Cas

[javazoid]

Yes princec, but there could be some "political" reasons for not enabling it by default.

[princec]

Nothing political at all.. openGL doesn't work on about 35% of the Windows machines out there.

Cas

[javazoid]

Maybe using a fallback mode at runtime: no good opengl ? goto software implementation.

Maybe we're simplifying a complex problem...

[swpalmer]

Um.. No, the next release, not 1.5. Again - this is regarding the (even more) optimized through SSE/MMX  software loops, not WGL pipeline

Ok.. just to be clear is that, "not 1.5" but 1.5.x where x>0, or 1.x where x>5  ??

[trembovetski]

It will be in the next 'rand(MarketingStuff)' version.

[swpalmer]

It will be in the next 'rand(MarketingStuff)' version.

Crap.
Well feel free to whine at someone resposible for defining the magnitude of 'MarketingStuff' on my behalf about this .  It is so long over due.

[princec]

No matter what argument you give rand it always seems to return a number between 0 and 1...

Cas

[javazoid]

It will be in the next 'rand(MarketingStuff)' version.

Thak makes me think that the loops are up and running but someone in the marketing is holding them for better times.

I already saw a sad story about technology and marketing some time ago. Do you remember the Amiga 3000+ ?
The managers were conviced it was too advanced for the market at that time. So they pushed the Amiga 600..

[nonnus29]

So to summarize,

the ogl pipeline will not be available in beta 2 at all?  

Or it will be availabel in beta 2 but not turned on by default?  

Or the ogl pipeline in windows won't be available until 1.5.1 beta 1?  

You guys have me confused.....

[javazoid]

Do not worry nonnus, OpenGL Java2D acceleration WILL be available in b2/Win (it's already there in b1/Linux).

Enhanced software loops (MMX/SSE blitting, alphacompositing, etc) WILL NOT be there and we don't know when they'll be available to the rest of us.

Mik of ClassX