Whatever happened to Nivida's "Cg" programing?

[kenneth9265_3]

Is any of the developers using it?

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=dev&aid=125

 

[991060]

AFAIK Crytek used Cg for NV3X path.

 

[kenneth9265_3]

Does Cg really cut down on development time and cut cost? Or it just another Nvidia hype?

 

[KimB]

Now that GLSL is available, the only reason to use Cg is for portability reasons.

Anyway, from what I've read, nVidia isn't going to continue to push Cg very much in the near future.

 

[AndrewM]

Cg is still being worked on and supported. Nvidia's GLSL can actually load Cg programs via the GLSL entry points (another extension).

 

[mboeller]

use Rendermonkey instead of Cg.

Rendermonkey supports now DX/HLSL and OpenGL/GLSL.

That was the biggest surprise for me when I read the new 3DLabs presentation a few days ago. 3DLabs promoted Rendermonkey in their OpenGL2.0 presentation and work shop.

 

[Doomtrooper]

A quick search here on CG performance on other hardware, hell even on Nvidia hardware tells you any developer choosing to use CG over HLSL or GLslang is not looking out for their customers best interest.

 

[KimB]

use Rendermonkey instead of Cg.

Rendermonkey is an IDE, not a language. They're mutually exclusive.

 

[VVukicevic]

use Rendermonkey instead of Cg.

Rendermonkey is an IDE, not a language. They're mutually exclusive.

I was going to say, "YM they're not mutually exclusive", but in this case I guess they are -- RenderMonkey has no support for Cg (and I doubt it will get any in the future). Nvidia's FX Composer also has no Cg support, beng HLSL-only. It's really too bad -- HLSL and GLSlang are close enough to eachother to make portability not too difficult, but far enough away to make it be a very manual process. Cg had significant promise, especially for those developers interested in doing cross-platform engins; it's unfortunate that it wasn't pushed more, and that ATI wasn't able to work with nvidia to create custom optimizer profiles for the radeon chips for the Cg compiler.

As far as Cg being developed in the future.. who knows, nvidia seems to be continuing work on it. I'm guessing it gives them an easy platform to play with hardware extensions/features in the shading language, much like the opengl extensions API.

 

[KimB]

I've heard statements from nVidia reps that they don't want to be in the compiler business, so I doubt it will see much emphasis. It may remain, however, as a tool for nVidia's demo developers to produce demos for not-yet-released products (i.e. so that they can actually use any new hardware capabilities). So, we may see nVidia continue working on it for the next few years, but I doubt we'll see them put enough effort into it to really make it perform well, or that we'll see them push developers to use it in games.

 

[KimB]

use Rendermonkey instead of Cg.

Rendermonkey is an IDE, not a language. They're mutually exclusive.

I was going to say, "YM they're not mutually exclusive", but in this case I guess they are

Well, I guess that came out wrong. I meant to say that they are different products targetted at different audiences. Rendermonkey is much closer to nVidia's FX Composer in terms of what it does.

 

[AndrewM]

Speaking of Cg updates, 1.2.1 has just been released http://developer.nvidia.com.

As I previously mentioned, nvidia's GLSL entry points are able to load (and compile) Cg code. So I'm pretty confident that Cg will continue for quite some time.

 

[Hellbinder]

I've heard statements from nVidia reps that they don't want to be in the compiler business, so I doubt it will see much emphasis. It may remain, however, as a tool for nVidia's demo developers to produce demos for not-yet-released products (i.e. so that they can actually use any new hardware capabilities). So, we may see nVidia continue working on it for the next few years, but I doubt we'll see them put enough effort into it to really make it perform well, or that we'll see them push developers to use it in games.

ROFLMAO!!!!!

"Nvidia does not want to be in the Compiler business" !!!!

I am Dying over here....

(Will the real Nvidia employees and viewpooints, and goals please step forward.. This is a john Carrey moment)

 

[Big Bertha EA]

Is any of the developers using it?

My wish is for cG and TWIMTBP to end up in the toilet where they belong. Give the developers coding for DX a SINGLE STANDARD API. From a developer's POV of course....

 

[anaqer]

"Nvidia does not want to be in the Compiler business" !!!!

Oh yeah, they are abandoning it entirely.
Haven't you heard?
They're gonna outsource it to ATi. 8)

 

[KimB]

I've heard statements from nVidia reps that they don't want to be in the compiler business, so I doubt it will see much emphasis. It may remain, however, as a tool for nVidia's demo developers to produce demos for not-yet-released products (i.e. so that they can actually use any new hardware capabilities). So, we may see nVidia continue working on it for the next few years, but I doubt we'll see them put enough effort into it to really make it perform well, or that we'll see them push developers to use it in games.

ROFLMAO!!!!!

"Nvidia does not want to be in the Compiler business" !!!!

Um, okay. Here's the exact quote:

As we started out with Cg it was a great boost to getting programmers used to working with programmable GPUs. Now Microsoft has made a major commitment and in the long term we don't really want to be in the programming language business and that's not where our expertise is but its something we had to do, there was no other choice available.

I misremembered the wording slightly, but anyway, here's the link:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/kirk_interview/

 

[KimB]

Is any of the developers using it?

My wish is for cG and TWIMTBP to end up in the toilet where they belong. Give the developers coding for DX a SINGLE STANDARD API. From a developer's POV of course....

I really don't see how Cg can be considered in the same category as nVidia's "TWIMTBP" PR campaign. Cg is a developer's tool. It was available before any other realtime HLSL's, and it was possible for any IHV to develop their own optimized compiler for their own hardware. Cg was definitely a good thing when it first came out, but it isn't as necessary as it used to be, and its benefits over HLSL are relatively minimal currently.

And, of course, if you want one single standard API, you should definitely want OpenGL, not Direct3D (since D3D only works on windows machines).

 

[Big Bertha EA]

And, of course, if you want one single standard API, you should definitely want OpenGL, not Direct3D (since D3D only works on windows machines).

It is most likely that I am not fully aware of what cG's purpose is and frankly do not care. My apologies for confusing cG with TWIMTBP. I have simply seen all of TWIMTBP I care to ever see as it does NOT help an industry struggling to attract users who play games.

I am also mostly interested in D3D as I play Windows games exclusively and the intent of my post was strictly from a D3D POV...

 

[KimB]

It is most likely that I am not fully aware of what cG's purpose is and frankly do not care.

Cg is little different from HLSL. It's a programming language. It has support for compiler targets to all DX8 and above hardware (except the R200).

I am also mostly interested in D3D as I play Windows games exclusively and the intent of my post was strictly from a D3D POV...

Why? OpenGL is also supported under Windows, and many of my favorite games operate under OpenGL. OpenGL also has a superior shader interface with the new GLSL, and is still more efficient than D3D in many instances.