Radeon X800 - OpenGL 2.0 should work!

[zeigerpuppy]

I have a Radeon X800 XT card in my G5 Dual 2.0GHz powermac with OS X 10.4.2 and Celestia 1.4.1 (0).

However, it says my system doesn't support OpenGL 2.0 when I try to enable this rendering type in Celestia,

am I missing something?

[Cham]

I have a dual 2.0 GHz G5 too, with the radeon x850 XT video card. OGL2.0 works on my system. I think you should upgrade your OSX version (10.4.2 isn't very good). I'm running Tiger 10.4.9 (I'm skipping 10.4.10, and waiting for 10.4.11).

Sadly, the new sprite code (from CVS Celestia 1.5.0) isn't working and hard crashes the Mac.

[t00fri]

I have a Radeon X800 XT card in my G5 Dual 2.0GHz powermac with OS X 10.4.2 and Celestia 1.4.1 (0).

However, it says my system doesn't support OpenGL 2.0 when I try to enable this rendering type in Celestia,

am I missing something?

How about updating your driver?

[Cham]

Fridger,

on OSX, the drivers are parts of the OS. The only way to update them is to update the whole OS itself (which is a good thing anyway).

[dirkpitt]

The OpenGL 2.0 render path is only supported on OS X 10.4.3 and above.
If you are in a lab where you cannot upgrade the machine yourself, please lobby the admins to upgrade the OS. Older versions of OS X contain not only buggy, outdated graphics drivers but also security bugs and since all updates up to 10.4.10 have been tested for months now by many thousands of users I recommend upgrading as soon as you get the chance.

[zeigerpuppy]

Thanks for the tips
I have been a bit afraid of upgrades since 10.3.9 broke my firewire boot drivers, but this seems like a good enough reason to do the backup and upgrade,

Thanks again

[t00fri]

Fridger,

on OSX, the drivers are parts of the OS. The only way to update them is to update the whole OS itself (which is a good thing anyway).

Martin,

that's of course not correct . See also DM's following mail. If you like, for all "non-daring" notebook users the same holds true: You cannot install the standard NVIDIA/ATI drivers without first modifying a little *.inf file appropriately.

Bye Fridger

[dirkpitt]

I'd make sure that at the very least you you Disk Utility to check your disk and fix permissions before every OS upgrade - this procedure is recommended by macfixit.com. I always used to disconnect my firewire ipod before an upgrade just in case since I too heard horror stories about firewire drives breaking, but that was many years ago - haven't heard of many firewire troubles recently.

[dirkpitt]

Fridger, unfortunately for OS X users Cham is in fact correct - upgrading the video drivers in OS X requires upgrading the OS in nearly all cases.

[t00fri]

Fridger, unfortunately for OS X users Cham is in fact correct - upgrading the video drivers in OS X requires upgrading the OS in nearly all cases.

What a horror. Given how buggy drivers are these days....

Sorry Cham, I promise, I never buy a Mac

Bye Fridger

[dirkpitt]

The lack of prompt graphics driver updates is also one of my pet Mac peeves..
But you can always get an Intel Mac and run Linux or (gasp) Windows on it alongside or instead of OS X.

[zeigerpuppy]

Windows drivers also tend to be very hard to roll back if something goes wrong, something that is much easier with the system imaging and disk image software of OS X.
I guess the real strength to balance against is the inherent stability of the system too (although I think I might be inviting several differences of opinion here!)

[t00fri]

Windows drivers also tend to be very hard to roll back if something goes wrong, something that is much easier with the system imaging and disk image software of OS X.
I guess the real strength to balance against is the inherent stability of the system too (although I think I might be inviting several differences of opinion here!)

I cannot confirm generic rollback problems in case of Win XP. I don't tell you how many drivers I have rolled back without problems. But in general, you are right in so far as one has to do the installation AND deinstallation of new drivers /correctly/. Otherwise lots of unexpected things can happen.

Bye Fridger