[erlang-questions] REF: Erlang and OpenGL broken (MOYEN URGENT)

[David KOCH]

OK guys, I got it ! I checked and checked again, and here's the result of  
my finding for so long. Take a good seat, it's gonna be long.

My home computer ain't a horsepower, just a Jetway J7F2 with a VIA C7 @ 2  
GHz (mono-core, IO) with an integrated S3 Unichrome video card (AGP 8x)  
plus an external PNY (nVidia) FX5200 Dual-VGA video card on the PCI bus.

For more than 6 months I had not access to my computer and the running OS  
(Windows XP SP3) was so outdated. When I switched it on again and  
connected it to the Internet some weeks ago, I left it perform a major  
upgrade, in which also I updated the forceware driver. And THAT'S where  
things are crispy...

I work using triple screen (once tasted, never came back) and my Windows  
desktop is organized in such a way than when I was browsing my C++  
projects, it was on my S3 Unichrome screen. When you open a program on a  
screen, it uses the screen's OpenGL driver, in which case was OpenGL 1.2  
(the Unichrome ain't a horsepower either)

On the other hand my Erlang projects were opened on the primary nVidia  
screen, which was faulty. The latest driver update for the FX 5200  
(175.16) is broken and hangs on the PIXELFORMAT request. No ways to fix  
this, I googled the Internet for quite a long time. All I got is "Here it  
works" ! Super answer, merci les gars, je vous allumerai un cierge !

Well, I then uninstalled the 175.16 nVidia driver and started with a very  
old one. OpenGL was functionnal again, Hurra ! Then I upgraded the driver  
step aftert step, taking mesures, probing the OpenGL capabilities, taking  
notes, up to the 175.16 driver which again, broke everything. So I just  
uninstalled it again and reinstalled the previous one, which is OK. Here's  
the summary of my discovering :

Release|File        |Driver |OpenGL
date   |version     |version|support
-------+------------+-------+-----
050224 |7.1.8.4     | 71.84 |1.5.3
051210 |8.1.9.8     | 81.98 |2.0.1
061022 |6.14.10.9371| 93.71 |2.0.3
071004 |6.14.11.6375|163.75 |2.1.1
071205 |6.14.11.6921|169.21 |2.1.2
080516 |6.14.11.7516|175.16 |-----

So using the nVidia 169.21 driver offers OpenGL support up to 2.1.2, which  
is currently far enough for me. Somedays I'll buy a new fancy mini-ITX  
board with AM3 socket and OpenGL 4.1 support in order to test stress my  
current erlang driver.

So sorry if I warned too early, but I NEVER THOUGHT that upgrading a  
driver would make things worse, especially breaking the OpenGL support.  
And I not made the connection with the fact that opening a program on one  
screen or the other would provide different result.

So again, nVidia ForceWare driver 175.16 breaks OPENGL which hang on  
PIXELFORMAT request on my FX 5200 video card, whatever I tried to make it  
work.

Also on Windows 2000, drivers beyond 93.71 doesn't show the nVidia  
advanced panel to select Dualview since they requires GDI+, doh...


Le Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:33:26 +0100, <dkoch@REDACTED> a écrit:

> Windows XP, yeah... Wings 1.3.1 standalone as well, esdl 1.0.1, wxErlang  
> + wxWidgets 2.9.1. All of them works on my office machine, so it's not  
> your fault. And I checked my current esdl revamp (which sports opengl  
> support up to 4.1 and also opencl, openal and opende) but no luck  
> either. Have you heard somethings crash ? Neither do I, and that's  
> leaving me a bit puzzled :/
> David