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The GMA 3600 OpenGL Issues Thread

KHans13
New Contributor I
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I am aware that Intel has ceased support for the GMA 3600. I don't care. I know that Intel will not release any "regular" (read: any) driver updates. I don't care. I only start this thread because I still hold on to the hope that detailed, in depth information will lead to some sort of change.

Ok, not really, it's for fellow users to know what works and what doesn't, but a guy can dream, can't he?

The following tests were run under Windows 8.1 32-bit (the graphics are slightly better and significantly more stable than in Win7; who knew?) using OpenGL Extension Viewer's built-in tests on the 1096.

General: PixelBuffer enabled leads to nothing being rendered. FrameBufferObject makes OGLEV crash with nothing rendered in older OpenGL versions and simply renders nothing in newer ones (2.0+). Quincunx multisampling doesn't seem to work. Anisotropic filtering is not available, and yet the option is available in Intel Control Panel. 4x multisampling actually works.

OpenGL 1.1: Works OK.

OpenGL 1.2: Doesn't render anything in fullscreen, suffers from flickering. Test gets 5 fps compared to 70 for OGL 1.1.

OpenGL 1.3: Same

OpenGL 1.4: Works only in windowed but with flickering and at 5 fps.

OpenGL 1.5: Same

OpenGL 2.0: Same

OpenGL 2.1: Same

OpenGL 3.0: OGLEV crashes

OpenGL 3.1 (hardware but no software support): Crash

OpenGL 3.2: same as above

On each of the tests that doesn't crash, the new effects in each version (like lighting) seem to render correctly, but the flickering and very low framerate make it difficult to compare to OpenGL 1.1. Minecraft 1.8, which IIRC started mandating OpenGL 2.0, flickers as well. Minecraft 1.7, which uses OGL 1.2 or 1.3 didn't have this problem.

I don't know how useful this will be to anyone. I do know that these drivers are terrible, AMD will be getting my business in the future, and multisampling works. That last one was surprising, I was unaware these drivers allowed any kind of antialiasing.

EDIT: For the record, the new communities site is torture to use on a netbook. Having to constantly scroll to see buttons I need or even trying to navigate using the page up and down keys isn't fun. I don't remember it being such a pain in the past.

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Kevin_M_Intel
Employee
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Thank you for sharing this information. I am sure it will be helpful for other users.

Kevin M

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KHans13
New Contributor I
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It might, but I realized that testing of actual OpenGL games and apps will yield a much more useful set of data. You might want to put these on the GMA 3600 FAQ if they aren't already there.

AssaultCube: Still crashes on startup, nothing new here. Add this as Compatibility in the FAQ table?

Cube 2: Sauerbraten: This one's an oddity. The performance is terrible, even in the menu. The weird thing is, the 3D map itself doesn't seem to flicker, but the gun model, HUD, and 2D menus all flicker incessantly. It's especially annoying when you face the outside edge of the map so the framerate is high. Enabling V-sync has no effect; flickering still happens and framerate is unaffected. This should go under Performance AND Compatibility. Note: according to the system requirements at http://cube.wikispaces.com/Beginners+Guide cube - Beginners Guide, the GMA 3600 is too slow at texture processing to play Cube 2 even on minimum settings, but the GMA 3650 should do fairly well if the drivers are up to snuff. These conjectures are based off of pure theoretical throughput of the GPU's in question, so accuracy is not guaranteed. Still, this flickering shouldn't be there.

GLTron: Works perfectly. It doesn't matter is shadow mode is set to normal or stencil, everything is rendered perfectly and at an acceptable framerate. This should go under the list of playable game titles, for sure.

MegaGlest: I have observed invisible text in the main menu, making it a pure guess as to what options are there. Sometimes a character or two will show itself, but mostly I can't see any text. Megaglest requires OpenGL 1.3 with extensions (or 1.4 on its own), this could reflect what I saw in my OGLEV tests. I managed to blindly find my way into the tutorial. With the default 4:3 resolution and settings, everything looks great. There are no rendering issues and framerate is high. The only problem is the missing text, which renders the game unplayable.

I haven't had a chance to test 0 A.D. (my netbook's screen resolution is too low and I haven't had time to find an external monitor), but I don't expect playable performance. More on that later.

The website for the Cube engine was having issues, but it has worked in the past so it's not very high on my priority list.

Next to test are OpenArena, Speed Dreams, Teeworlds, and TORCS. Kevin, would you or someone else add some of this to the GMA 3600 FAQ and maybe pass it on to the driver devs?

Thanks,

Kory

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