Anyone else here have a netbook with this graphics chip? Seems to run quite a few games well (eg. Plants vs Zombies GOTY runs silky smooth even with a full screen, unlike my iPod copy), but it really struggles with the Time Pilot clone I started work on ages ago and that just has a 100 dot starfield (the original version had closer to 1000 but that reduces the netbook to about 2-3 FPS). Just out of curiosity is anything/everything in 2D hardware accelerated in GLB? Plants vs Zombies for example runs very smooth in 3D mode which is hardware accelerated, but not as smooth in plain 2D mode. I did try making the starfield using sprites instead of dots, but not surprisingly there wasn't much in the way of difference. :)
PS This is _not_ an attack on GLB or Gernot. I suspect the problem is the underpowered GPU (although I can run some games pretty well), underpowered CPU, low RAM, and my really bad coding ability. :)
So any tricks, tips etc. would be handy.
Hmm, that's odd. The GMA 3150 isn't exactly the essence of speed personified in a chip but it should be ok with a starfield of that size.
I created a starfield (meant to be sun-lit dust) using SETPIXEL calculated in realtime a part of a larger more GPU intensive background to the game I am working on for the NES/SNES remake competition. The current number of stars is 380. That works fine on my netbook 901 with GMA 950. GMA 3150 is pretty much the same chipset only a little faster. To test I just upped the number of stars to 1000 and the framerate was still high enough to look smooth.
Could it be anything else? For instance, do you do any large screen resizing or grabbing on the fly? I found that a Shadow of the Beast demo by Ian Price ran very slow on my netbook and an old Pentium 4. It turned out to be the GPU/CPU didn't like resizing something to fullscreen dimensions.
Some graphics cards are not optimised for an OpenGL environment - instead they head towards DirectX (not that they are much good at that either). And, of course, they tend to use system memory instead of their own dedicated area.
Thanks guys for your response. Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, but I've been hammering my netbook trying out various games. :)
I'd say my graphics card (or its drivers) don't support Open GL that well. Direct X games run pretty well on it. I've tried quite a few commercial games so far. However having said that I've run GLB demos written by other people on it just fine. I suspect the real issue might be my code, so I'm going to go take another look at it.
BTW MrTAToad, like the Zombitar. You grab Plants vs Zombies GOTY as well?
I downloaded the demo yesterday - hopefully I'll get the full game soon... Very amusing game :)
I think I must like it too. I've bought it 3 times so far. First on Steam, then for my iPod, and now GOTY edition for my netbook (I don't want to install Steam on it).
Good pirate zombie!
Completed the main game earlier today (got the full version) - just the mini games to go now :)
Yeah but yours is funkier -- plus you have a neat background picture. :)
I actually have two netbooks(one's the wife) which are pretty much the same except for age.
I've noticed that your performance is notably improved when the netbook is plugged in. If you check your 3d/display settings you'll notice that when unplugged you lose a lot of enhancements.
This is probably to save power.
So how are you doing your stars? When started playing around with GLB I made a sample space shooter that uses polyvector a lot and it seems to work fine, that is if you're replicating the same sprite/animation.
You can check how it runs on your netbook, here's the link ->http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/rick-jason-glb-alpha/download/2198/
My stars have been drawn using SETPIXEL and (because I thought maybe it would speed things up due to some faulty logic on my part) DRAWSPRITE, which turned out to be slower. Oddly enough this runs fine on Ian's netbook which uses the Intel GMA 950.
With just 50 stars I get 58FPS, 150 stars and it drops to 55, and so on and so forth. Yet I know Ians netbook can handle much more than that. All I can think of is I've really done something drastically wrong somewhere, but every time I look at the code I can't see anything wrong at all.
I've been installing and trying out a whole bunch of games (although to be fair most hail from 2004 or so) such as Pirates! (the 3D version), Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam, Deus Ex and they all scream along. However these are all DirectX games as far as I can tell. I'm wondering if the Intel GMA 3150 has poor or no real OpenGL support as far as drivers go. Introversion tends to use OpenGL in all of its games and I own copies of all of them so I tried Darwinia which ran pretty slowly before crashing, and yet I know of other people with netbooks who can run it fine. Hardly irrefutable evidence I know as theres a number of reasons why this might be so (it wasn't patched and that version might have not been Windows 7 friendly), but it does make me wonder -- hence why I was asking on here.
Most people seem to have the 950 though, I haven't talked to anyone yet who has the 3150 chipset. Although that depends on whether or not "I actually have two netbooks(one's the wife) which are pretty much the same except for age." means you have two netbooks with the same chipset as mine, or that you have two netbooks that are pretty much the same as each other. I suspect the latter. :)
Ok tried your demo (which looks pretty cool BTW). FPS jumped about a little bit (mostly about 58, but claimed it hit 88 at one point), had some odd pauses almost like an irregular heartbeat (just like I do when I run my little demo) and some screen tearing. How smooth does your example run on yours? Oh btw, this is with the power plugged in. I wish the tool that came with the laptop for changing graphics chip settings did more than just allow you to alter the screen resolution. There doesn't appear to be any options in the BIOS either. I'd like to adjust how much RAM it uses for the GPU for example.
Well one laptop actually has a 945, I'm not sure what my newer has.
Both are running XP, however one is older, a 8.9" Acer Aspire netbook and the other is a 10.1" MSI Wind Netbook.
Spec wise they are the same, but I think the video chip in the MSI may be better/newer as some things do perform better.
I haven't had problems with OpenGL.
Using polyvector with a image (could be a white 8x8 image) for your stars runs faster. My demo jumps alot because its using 800x600, 3 layers of prerendered backgrounds. I thought this might be faster then a tile system, but you can see the draw-back with the staggering.
Using polyvector and newpolystrip with poly vector in strip mode is actually super fast for doing things like particles. That and you can do fancy things like coloring your stars different. I had mine different colors depending on the speed they traveled.
Windows 7 could be an issue to, maybe regarding OpenGL in general. But I don't have much to test that runs Opengl besides my GLBasic projects.
Thanks for the tip about Polyvector. I'll have to give that a go.
And yes, I had wondered whether Windows 7 was part of the problem. Most people I've had test my gear are using XP I think.
Ok, after much poking about I've found a newer driver for my chipset and OS on the Intel website. Interestingly enough, one of the listed fixed problems sounds suspiciously like the issue I've been getting with some of the games. Hopefully this doesn't trash my install or make things worse. At least I've got a full backup of my system on an external HDD. :)
Edit: So far seems to have worked. The driver upgrade. About to test it with a program. One change I like is that the 3D options are a bit more extensive than the previous version which treated you like a village idiot.
Darn, nope. OpenGL programs still run like a pig on it. That have more to do with Windows 7 and its support or lack of, of OpenGL? I thought all that sort of things was handled by the graphics card drivers? Most of my technical background is with UNIX, despite having used Windows for many years, I don't really know much about the technical side of things.
Edit: Well after more research it turns out the glitches I get while playing some games, especially OpenGL ones, is a known issue with the Intel GM 3150 but currently no fix exists for it. Guess I just have to hope they will update the drivers one day. *shrug*
My son's netbook is Windows7 HOAS...
Edit: Removed waffle. Added some bits. Attempting to try and make sense. :)
If I said differently earlier I was blathering and I'm wrong. In any case these days I'm a moron and my tech knowledge is highly suspect so despite having read all of this I might still be wrong. Heck for all I know it's all in my head.
However, according to all the information I've seen this afternoon there isn't any problems with GMA 950 chips and their drivers under Windows 7 (which is the chipset your sons netbook uses IIRC), at least not now (there was either when Windows 7 was released, or the card was, don't remember). However there is supposedly an issue with the drivers for the GMA 3150 under Windows 7 which is known according to some people but currently there is no fix for it. Now whether that's an issue with OpenGL with this chip or whether the issue is some other problem, I do not know for certain. All I know is some games are not working as well as they should.
Something isn't right if some 2D game with 2 sprites and 50 dots running under OpenGL struggles, and yet 3 commercial 3D games running on DirectX written in 2004 can run with all settings on high (obviously not the resolution one) and scream along -- the 3 Introversion games I have are all OpenGL and none of them runs properly but they are also newer so I don't know if the problem is lack of 3D acceleration, or just that they are written for more modern, faster computers. Either way, I'm not blaming GLB, but I do seriously doubt the drivers for this card support accelerated 3D for OpenGL at all despite what sites like Wikipedia claim.
Computers. Doncha just love 'em.
That's why I dev for consoles! :P
Sounds like the 3150 could be the issue, seems my netbooks are using the 950 models. But of course WinXP.
What brand is your netbook?
Don't feel bad, we all make technical misjudgement now and then.
QuoteThat's why I dev for consoles!
If only everyone could...
We need some good emulators for them, I know there's andriod and CE emulators, but Pandora, GP's Wiz and Caanoo, I'm not so sure.
I know they're based off of linux and I think I heard of one for the Wiz, but it was not exactly an emulator so much. Not sure what that exactly means, probably couldn't rely on it for speed tests and resource usage.
Quote from: MrTAToad on 2010-Sep-01
QuoteThat's why I dev for consoles!
If only everyone could...
At the risk of using net lingo: QFT.
Quote from: Scott_AW on 2010-Sep-01
Sounds like the 3150 could be the issue, seems my netbooks are using the 950 models. But of course WinXP.
What brand is your netbook?
Don't feel bad, we all make technical misjudgement now and then.
Samsung N150 Plus. For the most part I love it, it just has a weakness when it comes to OpenGL support. I had an ATI card like that once. I vaguely remember getting into a bit of an argument with Gernot over it and OpenGL waaaaaay way back when I first started frequenting Retro Remakes. Basically I was a right royal prat.
Yeah I don't like making mistakes, but I also don't like missing my brain. In any case they may release a driver eventually that corrects this so it may not turn out to be a permanent mistake. I live in hope, even if sometimes I don't feel it.
Actually I was wrong, my MSI wind is the same chip as yours, but everything runs pretty smooth. Have an example I can test out on my netbook?
You sure? Your game didn't run smooth on mine and I think you said it didn't run well on yours. Looking at it there's no real reason why it shouldn't. This isn't Game Maker, it's a binary compiled language so shouldn't have any issues unless it's graphics drivers, and the example isn't big enough for it to be memory related. The only real reason I could see is related to OpenGL issues with the chip or the driver.
Did you try it on your second netbook? Does it run differently on each? Has Ian tried your game on his? All I know is he tried my Star Pilot thing on his (GMA 950) and it ran smoothly with 100 or so stars, but mine struggles with just 50. 100 stars definitely did not run smoothly.
My program with 100 stars is attached. BTW I don't have COS and SIN pre-calculated as it was determined that it didn't add anything to the speed. I don't think this is a CPU issue anyway. Well... Not the usual CPU issue that is. If it's doing it all software, then yes it probably is CPU related.
Ugh, I hope I'm making sense.
[attachment deleted by admin]
there's QSIN in Samples/Common/qmath.gbas
If the graphics are slow, consider getting a new driver from intel. The Windows drivers usually suck big time.
I've got the 'new' driver from Intel. Same problem. According to forums relating to this topic, there is currently no fix in existence so it's a waiting game. I'll just have to wait until Intel release drivers that fix the issue.
Edit: Maybe we should just delete this thread. All I'm doing is whining and whinging about something that can't be fixed and is not the fault of anyone here. :)
The really stupid thing is if it wasn't for this one little issue, I'd be recommending the Samsung N150 Plus to anyone who would listen. I really like it a lot and there isn't anything else about it that bothers me.
Actually the performance issue I get is the skipping between sections of the level, because it is using a very large image. I'm thinking of switching to a tile system. But other wise it handles lots of objects on the screen pretty well.
I didn't think of it before, but now I realize I can use the polyvector/newstrip with a tilemap image for better performance and longer levels.
Your system could be loaded down with crapware or old software too, that was happening to my older netbook. My wife loves facebook games...
And I downloaded/installed a ton of dev software to test.
So I'm going to check out your demo on all three of my systems and get back to you.
On my desktop, amd athlon 64 2.21ghz w/ 2.5gb ram it ran smooth, a solid 60. On my msi with the 3150 and unplugged it also ran 58-60. Ny wife is on the acer so I couldn`t test that yet.
Quote from: Hatonastick on 2010-Sep-02Edit: Maybe we should just delete this thread. All I'm doing is whining and whinging about something that can't be fixed and is not the fault of anyone here. :)
But if someone else has similar issues we can link to this thread (and others) to help explain the situation.
Its a good thing to discuss, Netbooks are getting pretty popular, and are mostly the same spec wise.
Software/drivers could be another factor. Also some other hardware parts can be different. So far netbooks all have a variation of the Atom and a Intel GMA type graphics chip.
I haven't had problems with 950's or 3150's so it would be interesting to find out where the issue is. It would be interesting if someone had a gateway/hp/dell. So far this has involved an early model Acer, a MSI and a Samsung.
However both the Acer and MSI are XP, so it could be a combination of drivers and Win7. I haven't tested much on Win7, and no testing at all on netbook's with Win7.
After a number of different tests I'm pretty much convinced that the Intel GMA 3150 under Win7 is _not_ using hardware acceleration with OpenGL, although it obviously is with DirectX, and the few relevant posts I've been able to find make it sound as if it's the early days of Windows Vista all over again with regards to OpenGL and lack of support (how true this actually is I couldn't say, I'm just saying what others have written). Is this the fault of Samsung? I very much doubt it. The drivers I'm using which do exactly the same thing as the ones that my netbook came with, are direct from Intel themselves and looking at the architecture of this particular device, it appears to be a Phoenix Technologies motherboard which means it isn't that different internally to a number of other netbooks with similar chipsets. All Samsung have done is taken various technologies someone else has developed, slapped them together in a package with their name on it, thrown in a few easily removed 'utilities' and 'accessories' that they've written and hey presto, instant Samsung N150 Plus netbook, which is not too dissimilar to how most such technology (not all of course) gets 'developed' these days. There are no proprietary drivers from Samsung on this netbook and the packages they've added are borderline laughable. It's pretty much just a standard install of Windows 7 Starter.
Having said that and despite the annoyance regarding the issue I'm experiencing, I still think it's a nice little netbook and I'm glad I got it rather than the one I was originally going to get.
I think everyone just throw's in everyone else parts into their computers these days...
But I think you figured it out, Win7 and the drivers not properly supporting OpenGL. Since the problem between two chipsets didn't occur for me, but my systems where XP.
I like how you can downgrade to XP until 2025 if you have the pro edition.
Any kind of service update or will Microsoft just sit on its hands?
Well I'm going to take the wait and see approach. Not much else I can do other than like you suggest, 'downgrade' to windows XP. Never know, pigs might fly and someone might fix the problem. :)
I'll update here should a patch or something come out that does, but until then don't really have anything else to report. Only patches I've seen have been for some piece of hardware in the netbook I don't use and the usual security updates from Microsoft.
Chalk another one up to the aging chipsets used in Netbooks: I noticed that GETPIXEL isn't working on my GMA950 Eee Netbook but is fine on my other computers. When I say it isn't working I don't mean "differs by 13%" like the help file says can happen with GETPIXEL, I mean it isn't returning any value other than 0 regardless of the brightness & colour of the sprite(s) drawn on the screen before I call the command.
A wave of touchscreen Tablet PCs are set to take over from Netbooks as casual computers but the same Atom CPUs and typically supported chipsets are going to be used in a lot of these new devices. So, I imagine similar issues will crop up.
Edit: Changed wording now I'm in a nicer mood. :)
Ugh. I'm over the whole 'touch screen revolution' already. I like my iPod, but I could never use a pure touch screen notebook/laptop-like gizmo. I like my keyboards too much as my typing speed varies (depending on how tired I am) between 60-120 wpm and find myself gritting my teeth whenever I use the on-screen iPod keyboard. Plus the biggest pain in the rear with pure touch screen gizmos is that traditional game controls really don't work too well thanks to the zero touch feedback you get via your fingers ie. you have to keep looking at your fingers to see if they are in the right place because one piece of screen feels pretty much like another. Screen overlays (boy that brings back memories of a sort) anyone? Anyway I stopped buying software for my iPod ages ago.
Tablet PCs? I'll keep my Netbook thanks. :)
Thankfully for iDevice developers and Tablet PC manufacturers, I'm probably an anomaly.
Tablets could be nice for gaming and browsing, but I'd miss the clicky buttons on the keyboard.
Hatonastick is using the newer chip, 3150 series.
And in regard to getpixel, I've experienced issues on a variety of different systems, but I believe with V8 of GLB you can now put images into an array which could eliminate the need in some cases. I haven't tested this out yet.
I found an article that claimed benchmarks on all Intel GMA chips is lackluster when it comes to OpenGL. The more I read about things, the more I wish I'd bought a Netbook with Nvidias Ion chip in it.
On the other hand as I'm getting increasingly serious about developing for the Netbook since the iDevice is out of my reach, it probably pays to have a slower graphics chip. No point having a faster computer than your target market, eh.
Kind of wish they had nvidias too.
There's also the appup for the atoms which is c and c++ based so you may be able to link it with GLBasic but I haven't tried this. Gernot mentioned he applied for GLBasic but that's a different topic.
There are AMD netbooks starting to show up now, but I think those use ATI and I don't know how those perform in Opengl vs. Nvidia
I've only had a brief poke around the AppUp API/SDK but from that I'd say it should be reasonably trivial to write a GLB wrapper for it. My only concern is that I've gone right off OpenGL thanks to Intel as far as Netbooks are concerned. Converting my demo program to DX and going to see if it runs any faster. I really hope it doesn't as I happen to prefer GLB to pretty much everything these days, but I still need to check -- and if it does I want to stress that it's _not_ GLB's fault, but Intels.
-Fullscreen improves performance on Windows
-reduce texture (sprite) size if possible
Founds the latest drivers for the chipset. I've been having some issues with certain functions lately, going to see if this helps anything.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19037&ProdId=3235&lang=eng
Unfortunately there hasn't been an update of the GMA 3150 drivers for Windows 7 since April and I'm doubting there ever will be another update. So I've pretty much given up on my Netbook running OpenGL applications properly. Hope you have much more luck with whatever issues you seem to be facing with yours.
Didn't seem to work, I'll have to get that netbook online and check a few things.
Woo hoo! Sorry to resurrect an old thread like this but figured it might make more sense keeping it all in context. Anyway, Intel late last year (I haven't used my Netbook in a long time so didn't get the update until today) released a driver update for this particular graphics chipset and now my GLB game absolutely screams along on my Samsung Netbook. Big change going from 10 FPS or so to 200+ FPS. So whatever the problem was they finally fixed it.
Time to add that timer based movement code I guess. :)
Excellent stuffage :)
For sure! Problem is now I'm having trouble with the ATI drivers (specifically atikmdag.sys) causing random BSOD's on my desktop while my computer is idle for long periods of time. :blink:
google for the bsod details. It might bring up some setting you have to disable.