OpenGL support for 6970m?

AMD Radeon? HD 6900M Series Graphics

According to this page, the 6900 series has openGL 4.1 support as well as openCL support... what are the firepro versions for then? just certified components? Is it a question of support for more features on the firepro or something? I checked nvidias specs to see if i was maybe missing something, they haven't mentioned openGL at all.

I checked the latest firepro mobility page and it lists openGL support in the sameway... ATI FirePro? M7820 Product Features

If this means that the 6970 will run CAD apps as well as the firepros, this is going to make my life a lot easier!!

 

Well to tell you the truth, the FirePro M7820 is just a reflashed vBIOS version of the 5870M. They are on the hardware level identical. Hence why I can make my laptop run Catalyst 11.4, although it is a FirePro. The only advantage with the FirePro is that it can run more optimized with certain ISV-Approved applications that enhances its need of OpenGL, which the drivers ATI provide for the FirePro are optimized for it. However, it does not mean a 6970M with OpenGL support can't do a stellar job either. You just don't get driver-enhancements on top of the hardware support. Also frankly to be honest with you, the FirePro drivers kinda stuck on the HP side and they are often outdated. It is why I still tend to soft mod it to take in Radeon Catalyst and if it need some OpenGL grunt, it still does a stellar job, even without the FirePro driver enhancements.

Hope that helps. Now I do warn you that recent Quadros from nVidia has their hardware altered a bit so they can't run with GeForce drivers efficient and GeForce cards are vice-versa. It is nVidia's way to keeping a monopoly to segregating their Professional and Gaming lineups. ATI however has only kept it on drivers and vBIOS.

 

Yea I was aware that the ATis are easier to mod though I was not aware of the nvidia's differentiation at a hardware level.

So as things are -
Geforce doesn't do openGL but does CUDA,
Radeon does openGL but no CUDA,
Quadro does openGL and CUDA,
Firepro does openGL but no CUDA just like a radeon but has some enhancements over Radeon for professional apps.
Is that correct?

Why I was really really shocked is because I thought the gaming cards wouldn't have any openGL support to differentiate themselves from the more expensive professional cards!! Is this ATi's way of fighting the CUDA advantage?

 

Almost. GeForce has OpenGL support as well, but their OpenGL renderer is just enough to get by any OpenGL rendering that it detects (like in games for instance). However, if you force a GeForce card to start generating stuff in CAD, it will be slower vs. a Quadros which will render CAD stuff faster. Like the FirePro/Radeon situation, it is also down to the drivers and vBIOS focusing the GPU in doing what better.

However the caveat is that some recent Quadros and GeForces (starting with the GeForce 3xx/4xx Generation for sure), nVidia made some hardware tweaks in the cards so that doing any modding to swap a GeForce to a Quadros and vice versa very difficult. Also, some recent Quadros might have the same GPU architecture as their GeForce equivalents, but they might be crippled down a few clock speed or shader count to ensure they remain unique enough that doing any freak conversions will be nearly impossible.

Therefore, nVidia's concept remains the same as ATI's but they have taken the extra mile to ensure that countermeasures are there to prevent any cross-conversions. ATI has yet to do anything in that regard.

Apologies for any confusion in my earlier post.

So you will see this:

GeForce: CUDA/OpenGL/DirectX (Optimized) - Recent cards can't be modded to be a Quadros on the hardware circuitry level. vBIOS/Drivers controls DX Optimization.

Quadros: CUDA/OpenGL (Optimized)/Direct X - Recent cards can't be modded to be a GeForce on the hardware circuitry level. vBIOS/Drivers controls OGL Optimization.

Radeon: No CUDA/OpenGL/Direct X (Optimized) - Can be softmodded to a FirePro with GPU-equivalent vBIOS and/or Drivers. vBIOS/Drivers controls DX Optimization.

FirePro. No CUDA/OpenGL (Optimized)/Direct X - Can be softmodded to a Radeon with GPU-equivalent vBIOS and/or Drivers. vBIOS/Drivers controls OGL Optimization.

Also, ATI has their version of CUDA called Stream, but so far it is not popular. nVidia basically just steamrolled CUDA to the masses since they are still leading in GPU sales than ATI. In conclusion, nVidia is basically monopolizing the graphics sector. However, all GPU's need both Direct X and OpenGL as there are programs that use both kind of graphic libraries. Otherwise we will be seeing angry people if their GeForces can't run old school retro games that were programmed with OpenGL and also Macintosh applications and OS X will fail to run since OS X and company are OpenGL-based, NOT DirectX based. Why I mention that? Well Apple does use nVidia GeForces for some of their Intel-derived machines for a while!

 

Thanks a lot for the patient explanation Star Forge... Guess it was a stupid assumption on my part. yea i wonder what kind of nvidia chip apple was using... but now its all ati so i guess they just flash an openGL optimized bios...

 

Star Forge,

I am in process of purchasing an M6600 rig almost exactly to yours. My concern is that I use ESRI's ArcGIS 10 which uses OpenGL and has shader needs. ESRI states that ArcGIS 10 Desktop requirements for Video are:

64 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB RAM or higher recommended. NVIDIA, ATI and INTEL chipsets supported. 24 bit capable graphics accelerator.
OpenGL version 2.0 runtime or higher is required, and Shader Model 3.0 or higher is recommended. Be sure to use the latest available driver.

Do you see any issues with using the FirePro m8900 here?

Really concerned because the Quadro 3000 is $300 more and Quadro 4000 is $750 more.

Many people say look to the AutoCad certifications for a guide with your GIS, but the M8900 benchmarks for much less price.

Any experience or input on this?

 

The M8900 will be able to run GIS but it won't be as fast or efficient as an Quadros equipped with ISV-Certified Drivers with CUDA. ATI is just not as good in professional application drivers and efficiency as nVidia, but it can still do a decent job if you just wait longer on rendering times. What detracts some people from Quadros in exchange for less efficiency is its very high price tag as you have just acknowledged.

So it is really down to price vs. efficiency really in this case. Otherwise the M8900 is not really a bad card at all.

 

In other news OpenGL v4.2 has been finished up, so im guessing the HD6970m and its FireGL sibling will do it with a newer driver update.
Nvidia already been patching it into their latest beta.

Source

 

dX 11 will still dominate...
but,

windows will try to slow down OpenGL again to promote dX11 and there will be nearly no games using OpenGL because tesselation is a indispensable feature for most people who bought a dX11 GPU.

 

If your saying that tessellation is for Dx11 only your wrong, OpenGL does tessellation just fine.
Unigine does it with their Heaven Benchmark if you want to test it out yourself.

Im lokking forward to Oil Rush, a RTS and of course Rage, that uses ID Tech 5 that may be Open GL.
Il find out soon enought once it releases.

 

Star Forge

Thanks for the update. The laptop will be mainly for Office work and software development using VS 2010 and higher. For about 30% of the time it will create ESRI Based maps which take sometime to render. We do work with orthos and render many maps containing 15 to 20 layers, which can be polygons, points or lines at a time. I am hesitate on the M8900 because this laptop will serve about 10% to 20% of its life as a life safety laptop during the next 5 years and I just do not want to make a mistake. If it helps, I do not game at all.

ESRI is heavy into the OpenGL and the Shader model so when I receive this thread concerning firepro driver issues and it took me back and has made me reconsider my order. I had put in the request for the FirePro M8900, but over the weekend the link made me think I should purchase one the NVidia Quadro 3000 or 4000 cards.


osg-users: Re: [osg-users] ATI FirePro M8900 - msg#00272 - OSDir


I know of one ESRI Staffer with a M6400 and Quadro FX3800 that says his arcGIS 10 software runs excellent. If the FirePro M8900 similar to a Quadro FX3800 if so it is probably worth the gamble to save the money. Money is real tight in the Public sector.

For needs assessment, here are the ESRI Video requirements for ArcGIS 10:
<64 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB RAM or higher recommended. NVIDIA, ATI and INTEL chipsets supported; 24 bit capable graphics accelerator

OpenGL version 2.0 runtime or higher is required, and Shader Model 3.0 or higher is recommended. Be sure to use the latest available driver.>


There is really a knowledge hole on this one at Dell and ESRI so anyone please share your thoughts.

Much appreciated.

 

Any medium to high card will work okay with OpenGL even the new Fermi based Geforces that are castrated by Nvidia. These are know to have worse performance than GTX285 in several 3D applications but still work.
Only when things get heavy someone should consider investing in a good card.

Finally don't confuse viewport and rendering:

Viewport is OpenGL in most 3D apllications. But Autodesk Inventor and 3dsMax are DirectX
Rendering is CPU or in some cases CUDA and or OPENCL.

 

Based on the thread the FirePro can accept some drivers which can alter its behavior. Within the same FirePro class the FirePro V7900 and M8900 have similar performance marks. Has anyone tried the drivers for the new FirePro V7900 drivers with the FirePro M8900? I ask because the new V7900 drivers have something called "Geometry Boost" which is supposed to greatly assist CAD like applications. Here is the url for the article on Geometry Boost.

GPU Wars: Nvidia vs. ATI: AMD Launches Professional Graphics Cards with New "Cayman" Architecture

If the drivers would work with the similar power of the M8900 card, this could even and in some cases surpass many of M8900 scores with the Quadro 4000.

Could someone provide some feedback?

 

Here is a url link to a video with the V7900 vs the Quadro 4000m. imagine if the changes see here could be had by overloading the drivers of the V7900 onto the M8900. The Dell M6600 with a M8900 could better compete with the M6000 Quadro 4000 version. This would open new CAD related doors the for those with the M8900.

FireUser blog topics: Hardware

Would this be possible?

 

Continuing the V7900 driver theory, noted that the V7900's cayman history tracks back to the original cayman of the Radeon HD 6900 series as noted mid way down the page of the review listed below.

AMD FirePro V7900 and V5900 Professional Graphics Review | PC Perspective

This link posts the detailed architecture of the Radeon HD 6900 series cards of which both M8900 and V5900 and V7900 are supposed to be derived from.

AMD Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 Review - The Cayman Architecture Revealed | PC Perspective

This an old thread regarding the OpenGL abilities of the Radeon 6970 cards

AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950: Cayman GPUs are There! - 3D Tech News, Pixel Hacking, Data Visualization and 3D Programming - Geeks3D.com

If the FirePro series M8900, V7900 and V5900 are derived from the same cayman 6900 series stock architecture, could they not use the same drivers which could strengthen the M8900 OpenGL and Geometry Boost abilities allowing it to better compete with the Quadros as a professional card?

I need those more knowledgeable than I to assist on this. Could video experts review my theory and like me know if the V7900 or V5900 might boost the M8900 cards CAD and GIS abilities?

Many thanks.

 

Only trying will give you the answer.

 

M8900 =/= 6950 or 6970 Desktop. The M8900 is equivalent to a 6970M which is a downclocked variant of the Desktop 6 850. Hope that helps.

 

Star Forge,

So to confirm, the M8900 = 6970M = desktop 6850 means the drivers will not work because the card types do not match?

 

i have a 6970m ! now i wanted to try and flash it to m8900

if possible can any1 kindly upload the m8900 bios ? i can't find it anywhere on the net.

is it possible for me to soft-mod it into m8900 ?

I'm fine with 6970m but was very curious in the performance gain (in 3dmodelling/viewport frame rate in 3Ds MAX, CADs related apps)

any help appreciated! ^_^

 

I'll back up this too. Although, I have a 6990m.

 

Not with the desktop ATI FirePro drivers, no.

I uploaded a copy on the M6600 Owner's Lounge in the Dell Business Machine sub-forums. It appears only Dell is using the M8900 in their products.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-latitude-vostro-precision/580712-m6600-owners-thread-101.html#post7776884

 

@Starforge :
+Rep

THanks so much man, look here after some pushing at last Svl7 done it,

[Softmod] AMD 6970m -> FirePro M8900

here mine, still using 11.9 Catalyst tho' .. see the bios version and firepro settings
and yes Fn+F4/F5 still working

 

I just saw the thread and my gosh, he also made it reversible for M8900 -> 6970M! I am excited!

 

All that's left now is for someone to try and successfully flash a 6990m and then I'm game. Afraid of bricking my GPU.

 

Thank you all very much for the helpful post. I am using M17x R3 with 6970M and now I want to flash it to 8900m to be able to use OpenGL in catalyst pro for 10-bit color support and other photo editing work.

I've follow exactly all the steps in your guide. However, no matter what catalyst firepro package I use, it wont detect my card. I have tried at least 6 different ATI FirePro package

I also tried modding the driver, no luck.

Could someone please give me a link to download the EXACT Catalyst FirePro package that you used ? I checked the VBios after flashing and now subsytem ID shows 04A4, does that mean I dont have to mod the driver anymore ?

I even tried the driver mod step but change PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6720&SUBSYS_04BA1028 to PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6720&SUBSYS_04A41028 but still no luck.

I guess I do not have the proper Catalyst FirePro package

Is there any chance that my card is brick ? I dont know how to check that


Please help me !!

Thank you !!!