From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_cmm.chem.upenn.edu)
Date: Mon Aug 28 2006 - 12:32:16 CDT

On 8/28/06, John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> I should also mention that on Linux at least, there are known problems
> for NVidia users that have their locale set for internationalization of their
> windowing system ('.' versus ',' in numeric expressions....):
> http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=64706&highlight=glsl
>
> I haven't heard of any fix for that problem yet other than setting the
> locale back to C or one of the english locales.

actually, people should set their locale to "C" for
_all_ scientific applications. i'm aware of scientific
codes producing more or less subtlely incorrect results
due to bugs in the locale support for some languages.
this is especially true on linux machines. the main problem
is, that even if you notice the bug, you won't find it
by debugging the code (as it is correct, at least in that
regard).

cheers,
    axel.

>
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>
> On Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 11:44:38AM -0500, John Stone wrote:
> >
> > Hi Mario,
> > I've been on NVidia's case about driver bugs.
> > On Linux, we've been using driver version 1.0-7676 (August 2005), and
> > on Windows I've been using version 84.12 (March 2006). The Linux driver
> > 7676 isn't entirely bug free either (depends on which card you have),
> > but it is the best choice that I've tested for some time. The Windows driver
> > version 84.12 actually seems to have no bugs as far as VMD goes.
> >
> > There are active discussion threads on these VMD issues on the NVidia support
> > bulletin board. NVidia says that the 9xxx series drivers don't have problems
> > compiling the VMD shaders, but they aren't released yet. Rumor has it that
> > the 9xxx drivers will appear in the next month or so.
> >
> > Here are some of my posts (and nVidia responses) regarding these
> > Linux driver bugs with GLSL:
> >
> > 1.0-8756 (long discussion, with nvidia commentary about 9xxx drivers being
> > the ones they expect to fix these problems)
> > http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=70393&highlight=glsl
> >
> > 1.0-8774 (Yesterday)
> > http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=75779&highlight=glsl
> >
> > John Stone
> > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 04:00:52PM +0200, Mario Valle wrote:
> > > The following warning appears under 1.8.5 and also 1.8.4b11 on Linux. But afterwards the
> > > GLSL rendermode seems to work properly.
> > > Anyone knows a version of Nvidia driver that works reliably?
> > > Thanks!
> > > mario
> > >
> > >
> > > Info) OpenGL renderer: GeForce 6800 GS/PCI/SSE2
> > > Info) Features: STENCIL MSAA(4) MDE CVA MTX NPOT PP PS GLSL(OVF)
> > > Info) OpenGL shader linkage log:
> > > Info) Fragment info
> > > Info) -------------
> > > Info) Internal error: assembly compile error for fragment shader at offset 3688:
> > > Info) -- error message --
> > > Info) line 84, column 9: error: invalid state property
> > > Info) -- internal assembly text --
> > > Info) !!ARBfp1.0
> > > Info) OPTION NV_fragment_program2;
> > > Info) # cgc version 1.5.0000, build date May 15 2006 13:37:55
> > >
> > > ...
> > >
> > > Info) # 105 instructions, 5 R-regs, 1 H-regs
> > > Warning) GPU driver failed to compile shader:
> > > Warning) /home/cs-vis/apps/vmdlibs/shaders/vmdsphere
> > > Warning) This GPU/driver is buggy, or doesn't fully implement GLSL.
> > > Warning) Set environment variable VMDGLSLVERBOSE for more info.
> > > Info) Basic GLSL rendering mode is available.
> > > Info) Textures: 2-D (4096x4096), 3-D (512x512x512), Multitexture (4)
> > >
> > > And from glxinfo:
> > > OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
> > > OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 6800 GS/PCI/SSE2
> > > OpenGL version string: 2.0.2 NVIDIA 87.62
> > >
> > > --
> > > Ing. Mario Valle
> > > Visualization Group | http://www.cscs.ch/~mvalle
> > > Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) | Tel: +41 (91) 610.82.60
> > > v. Cantonale Galleria 2, 6928 Manno, Switzerland | Fax: +41 (91) 610.82.82
> >
> > --
> > NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> > Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> > University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> > Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> > WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
>
> --
> NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
>
>

-- 
=======================================================================
Axel Kohlmeyer   akohlmey_at_cmm.chem.upenn.edu   http://www.cmm.upenn.edu
  Center for Molecular Modeling   --   University of Pennsylvania
Department of Chemistry, 231 S.34th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6323
tel: 1-215-898-1582,  fax: 1-215-573-6233,  office-tel: 1-215-898-5425
=======================================================================
If you make something idiot-proof, the universe creates a better idiot.