User Guide

NVIDIA Corporation
3
Detonator XP User’s Guide
• NV_light_max_exponent
• NV_multisample_filter_hint
• NV_packed_depth_stencil
• NV_register_combiners2
• NV_texgen_emboss
• NV_texgen_reflection
• NV_texture_compression_vtc
• NV_texture_env_combine4
• NV_texture_rectangle
• NV_texture_shader
• NV_texture_shader2
• NV_vertex_array_range
• NV_vertex_array_range2
• NV_vertex_program
With these advanced NVIDIA Extensions and OpenGL 1.3, developers can
create real-time cinematic effects that were previously only possible on very
high-end workstation computers.
OpenGL Performance Optimizations
Detonator XP software delivers the highest performing OpenGL driver because
it is more efficient at helping the NVIDIA GPU (graphics processing unit)
and CPU handle memory in parallel. This allows each processor to cache data
before it is transferred between system and graphics memory, increasing
performance in high-resolution antialiasing modes.
In addition, optimizations for Vertex Programs were added to the OpenGL 1.3
ICD, which yields gains in performance across multiple applications and in
heavily vertex-processing-bound applications. Examples of applications that
utilize these features are SPECViewperf, Pro/E and the NVIDIA Chameleon
demo.
Detonator XP Software also optimizes the setup time needed to prepare vertex
arrays for processing by NVIDIA hardware. A variety of applications benefit
from the GPU’s ability to process vertices more efficiently. Other optimizations
in Detonator XP software reduce bus transfers effectively decreasing the peak
saturation of the bus, which gives the GPU a larger pipeline to transfer texture
and geometry information to and from the GPU. The result of these
performance optimizations is higher performance for high-resolution antialiased
DetXP_Features.book Page 3 Thursday, October 11, 2001 3:53 PM