New CG Toolkit Released! (some intresting info)

[alexsok]

Very intresting news:

http://developer.nvidia.com

Cg Toolkit Beta 2 Released
Delve into the next generation of real-time programmability! NVIDIA is pleased to publicly release the latest Cg Toolkit that includes Beta 2 of the NVIDIA Cg Compiler. This revision supports the recently ratified ARB_vertex_program and also the "CineFX" (NV3X class) architecture. With NVIDIA's Cg Compiler, complex vertex and pixel shaders can be easily written to fully leverage the "CineFX" architecture. Developers should peruse the updated Cg User's Manual and release notes, which detail minor changes in keeping with the latest DirectX 9 Beta.

http://developer.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=cg_toolkit

Welcome to Beta 2 of the NVIDIA Cg Toolkit. In this kit, you will find everything you need to help you take advantage of Cg, a new high-level language for graphics programming. Cg will allow you to incorporate the most stunning interactive effects the world has ever seen into your DirectX and OpenGL applications. Our mission is to help you get started with Cg as quickly as possible, so we’ve created one comprehensive install application that handles all the components of our Cg SDK. The components include:

NVIDIA Cg Browser 4.0
NVIDIA Cg Compiler Beta 2
Cg User's Manual Beta 2
Cg Language Specification Beta 2
We hope that you will enjoy the exciting new world of Cg programming.

Beta 2 of the NVIDIA Cg Toolkit includes the following bug fixes and improvements:

Support for new profiles
arbvp1 [ARB_vertex_program]
vp30 [NV30 vertex programs]
fp30 [NV30 fragment programs]
NV30 sample shaders
Cg Effects Explained document
Support for binding semantics
Improved runtime functionality
Documentation updated

A driver that enables NV30 emulation will be released shortly.

You'll find the CG Toolkit at the link provided above.

P.S
Although I did went through the updated User Manual, I still didn't see any NV30 specific effects included with the CG Browser 4.0, every effect there worked just fine on my gf4ti4600 without the new drivers that are supposed to emulate some of the features of the NV30.

 

[BoardBonobo]

I would think that you will have to wait for the NV30 emulator to run the sample shaders. Nice to see the software development is quite advanced at this stage.

 

[alexsok]

I would think that you will have to wait for the NV30 emulator to run the sample shaders. Nice to see the software development is quite advanced at this stage.

Hmm... that's weird...

I would expect the effects to be at least visible in the browser, even if they reported that my hardware doesn't support the required features...

Besides, I have the "disabled effects" function turned on in the browser, so it should have showed them anyway...

 

[BoardBonobo]

I meant that there won't be any sample NV30 shaders in the toolkit yet as the emulator is not ready. Even then they will be pretty slow to use and will suffer from a greatly reduced rendering precision.

The only additional stuff about the NV30 is the section on the new fragment paths in the manual.

 

[alexsok]

I meant that there won't be any sample NV30 shaders in the toolkit yet as the emulator is not ready. Even then they will be pretty slow to use and will suffer from a greatly reduced rendering precision.

The only additional stuff about the NV30 is the section on the new fragment paths in the manual.

Actually, if u look carefully at "opengl/src/effects3", u'll see that the samples are indeed there!

edit:
So anyway, with the new 40.41 drivers and that NV30 emulation thingie, I managed to check most of those NV30 effects (except one - it just didn't work) and I was pretty impressed, although they were running too slow to really appreciate them!