New Supertuxkart Beta Lands New Graphics Engine, Uses OpenGL 3.1+

[phoronix]

Phoronix: New Supertuxkart Beta Lands New Graphics Engine, Uses OpenGL 3.1+

Supertuxkart 0.8.2 is now in beta. While v0.8.2 might not sound like a huge milestone from the numbers, it actually is. This Supertuxkart beta lands their new graphics engine that relies upon OpenGL 3.1+ for rendering...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTg2NTU

[Awesomeness]

But is it fun?
I tried an older release. The game was just no fun. It felt undynamic, "stiff".

[schmidtbag]

wow that is actually a pretty significant graphical update. Makes me question if using OGL3.1 was the right move though - that limits this game from being ported to some ARM devices, and, older PCs. Older PCs are relevant because very often kids (who would be playing this game) are given hand-down computers from their parents. Sandy Bridge, in a technological perspective, is old, but is still relatively new. On the other hand, there are plenty of old ATI and Nvidia GPUs that could play this game, and probably with better performance than SB too. Intel was pretty late to implement OGL 3.x support in their hardware.

I myself haven't played the game in several years. Any comment on sound effects, or how the game handles? I remember the sounds being kind of bad and handling was awkward.

[jakubo]

wow that is actually a pretty significant graphical update. Makes me question if using OGL3.1 was the right move though - that limits this game from being ported to some ARM devices, and, older PCs. Older PCs are relevant because very often kids (who would be playing this game) are given hand-down computers from their parents. Sandy Bridge, in a technological perspective, is old, but is still relatively new. On the other hand, there are plenty of old ATI and Nvidia GPUs that could play this game, and probably with better performance than SB too. Intel was pretty late to implement OGL 3.x support in their hardware.

I myself haven't played the game in several years. Any comment on sound effects, or how the game handles? I remember the sounds being kind of bad and handling was awkward.

dont ask for comments, just play the game!

[d2kx]

But is it fun?
I tried an older release. The game was just no fun. It felt undynamic, "stiff".

Yes, it is. It has great physics and even a story mode now.

[vljn]

Please note that STK uses some OpenGL features when available to increase perf like Compute shader or buffer storage + indirect addressing. There is even an azdo implementation that can be enabled via config file only for Kepler/gcn based cards. That's why we recommend proprietary drivers ; otherwise STK should run fine with mesa too (at least it does here with radeonsi).

[dungeon]

wow that is actually a pretty significant graphical update. Makes me question if using OGL3.1 was the right move though - that limits this game from being ported to some ARM devices, and, older PCs. Older PCs are relevant because very often kids (who would be playing this game) are given hand-down computers from their parents. Sandy Bridge, in a technological perspective, is old, but is still relatively new. On the other hand, there are plenty of old ATI and Nvidia GPUs that could play this game, and probably with better performance than SB too. Intel was pretty late to implement OGL 3.x support in their hardware.

I myself haven't played the game in several years. Any comment on sound effects, or how the game handles? I remember the sounds being kind of bad and handling was awkward.

It does not require 3.1 it can still work even on OpenGL 1.3 hardware but without shaders of course, it require 3.1 level shaders and there are even more advanced options but all are disabled by default, some extensions are from OpenGL 4.3 that is max what Irrlicht they use supports, etc.

I tried it month ago and this is alpha software if you ask me, called beta just for christmass and probably because beta sounds better

Just tried it now on Windows, Bloom effect lockup AMD GPU with Catalyst Omega driver

[CrystalGamma]

Please note that STK uses some OpenGL features when available to increase perf like Compute shader or buffer storage + indirect addressing. There is even an azdo implementation that can be enabled via config file only for Kepler/gcn based cards. That's why we recommend proprietary drivers ; otherwise STK should run fine with mesa too (at least it does here with radeonsi).

Ah, that explains a lot. I was wondering why specifically this game recommends proprietary drivers ...

[schmidtbag]

It does not require 3.1 it can still work even on OpenGL 1.3 hardware but without shaders of course, it require 3.1 level shaders and there are even more advanced options but all are disabled by default, some extensions are from OpenGL 4.3 that is max what Irrlicht they use supports, etc.

Ah ok that's not so bad then.

I tried it month ago and this is alpha software if you ask me, called beta just for christmass and probably because beta sounds better

Just tried it now on Windows, Bloom effect lockup AMD GPU with Catalyst Omega driver

I wonder if maybe it performs better on linux. Considering Tux is the "main character" in the game, it gets me to think that Windows is probably a pretty minor focus.

[My8th]

Would it be much work to play this with AOSP?