VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Mon May 14 2007 - 12:42:08 CDT

Hi guys,
  It seems that GLSL works on some combinations of 64-bit drivers and
video cards and not on others. Which video card are you using? I've
had 1.0-9755 on other 64-bit machines and not gotten GLSL, so I'm curious
which card you're using. It may be that only the Quadro cards are enabling
GLSL when run in 64-bit mode. The 32-bit VMD builds will get GLSL on 64-bit
machines for all of the recent cards, but the 64-bit VMD builds
(and this can be seen with glxinfo as well by the way) don't see the GLSL
extensions on all cards. Since I haven't found any vendor documents describing
the hardware and driver combinations in which GLSL is supported via the
64-bit OpenGL libraries, it seems we're left to anecdotal reports from
people that have seen it work. None of my current Linux test machines
are yielding 64-bit GLSL here in our lab, even with recent drivers,
so needless to say I'd love to know which cards and drivers people
are using that are indeed getting GLSL when running the 64-bit VMD builds...

Cheers,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 12:04:34PM -0400, Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> On Mon, 14 May 2007, Dow Hurst DPHURST wrote:
>
> DH> Mario,
> DH> The opteron can run 32bit and 64 bit code so you may be running a 32bit
> DH> nvidia driver. The itanium is not enabled the same way, IIRC. There
> DH> really isn't 64bit GLSL support from Nvidia or ATI yet.
>
> i beg to differ. see:
> http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_1.0-9755.html
>
> i'm running this on an EM64t machine (dual woodcrest) in 64-bit
> mode and GLSL works nicely when running locally.
>
> the situation is very different on IA64, but for remote display
> this is not so much an issue. the question is more whether
> the local nvidia driver exposes the GLSL infrastructure to a
> remote application via GLX, which is a cat of a different color.
>
> cheers,
> axel.
>
> DH> Dow
> DH>
> DH>
> DH>
> DH> -----owner-vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu wrote: -----
> DH>
> DH> To: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>, vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> DH> From: Mario Valle <mvalle_at_cscs.ch>
> DH> Sent by: owner-vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> DH> Date: 04/24/2007 11:44PM
> DH> Subject: Re: vmd-l: GLSL rendering problems (??)
> DH>
> DH>
> DH> > So, at the present time the only option is to get a 64-bit OpenGL
> DH> > driver that supports GLSL. So far as I know, none of the 64-bit
> DH> > drivers from any of the vendors do GLSL yet.
> DH> >
> DH> I disagree, the new HP SVA line (Opteron 64 bits) has GLSL support and
> DH> in fact I'm running VMD with GLSL rendering without trouble. Well, as
> DH> usual, it says my driver is buggy, but it works.
> DH> Ciao!
> DH> mario
> DH> > John Stone
> DH> > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> DH> >
> DH> > On Tue, Apr 24, 2007 at 05:00:20PM -0400, Nichols A. Romero wrote:
> DH> >
> DH> >> Yes, the machine that I ssh (kerborized) into is an SGI Altix. My local
> DH> >> machine is a laptop, but they appear to have
> DH> >> the same graphics card. In order to get GLSL rendering working on my
> DH> laptop,
> DH> >> I had to update the NVIDIA drivers.
> DH> >>
> DH> >> So, is the problem the SSH or the NVIDIA driver on the Altix?
> DH> >>
> DH> >> On 4/24/07, John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> DH> >>
> DH> >>> Hi,
> DH> >>> The output of glxinfo indicates that your driver isn't exporting
> DH> >>> the GLSL extensions. In fact, the only extra features you're getting
> DH> are
> DH> >>> the multitexture extension and a stencil buffer. It appears that
> DH> you're
> DH> >>> attaching through 'ssh', guessing by your DISPLAY variable being set
> DH> >>> to "localhost:10.0". That combined with the fact that you appear to be
> DH> >>> remote displaying onto a remote laptop may be the reason for problems.
> DH> >>> What happens when you run VMD locally on the laptop? (the machine with
> DH> >>> the Quadro FX Go1400 in it, which I'm assuming is NOT the Altix...)
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>> Cheers,
> DH> >>> John Stone
> DH> >>> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>> On Tue, Apr 24, 2007 at 04:40:57PM -0400, Nichols A. Romero wrote:
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>>> Hi,
> DH> >>>>
> DH> >>>> This is on SGI Altix. 16-processors box, using VMD 1.8.5 (I know that
> DH> I
> DH> >>>>
> DH> >>> need
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>>> to upgrade).
> DH> >>>>
> DH> >>>> Receiving following message on start up.
> DH> >>>> Info) Multithreading available, 16 CPUs detected.
> DH> >>>> Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display "localhost:10.0".
> DH> >>>> Info) OpenGL renderer: Quadro FX Go1400/PCI/SSE2
> DH> >>>> Info) Features: STENCIL MTX
> DH> >>>> Info) GLSL rendering mode is NOT available.
> DH> >>>> Info) Textures: 2-D (4096x4096), 3-D (512x512x512), Multitexture (4)
> DH> >>>> Found 1 plugins or data handlers in directory
> DH> >>>> '/usr/people/naromero/vmd-1.8.5/lib/plugins/LINUXIA64/molfile'.
> DH> >>>>
> DH> >>>> Is the lack of GLSL rendering a XFree86 problem or an NVIDIA driver
> DH> >>>>
> DH> >>> problem?
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>>> I attach the glxinfo output.
> DH> >>>>
> DH> >>>> --
> DH> >>>> Nichols A. Romero, Ph.D.
> DH> >>>> 1613 Denise Dr. Apt. D
> DH> >>>> Forest Hill, MD 21050
> DH> >>>> 443-567-8328 (C)
> DH> >>>> 410-306-0709 (O)
> DH> >>>>
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>> --
> DH> >>> NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> DH> >>> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> DH> >>> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> DH> >>> Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> DH> >>> WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>>
> DH> >>
> DH> >> --
> DH> >> Nichols A. Romero, Ph.D.
> DH> >> 1613 Denise Dr. Apt. D
> DH> >> Forest Hill, MD 21050
> DH> >> 443-567-8328 (C)
> DH> >> 410-306-0709 (O)
> DH> >>
> DH> >
> DH> >
> DH>
> DH>
> DH> --
> DH> Ing. Mario Valle
> DH> Visualization Group |
> DH> http://www.cscs.ch/~mvalle
> DH> Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) | Tel: +41 (91) 610.82.60
> DH> v. Cantonale Galleria 2, 6928 Manno, Switzerland | Fax: +41 (91) 610.82.82
> DH>
> DH>
> DH>
> DH>
>
> --
> =======================================================================
> 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. 

-- 
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