[GRASSLIST:8637] Re: NVIZ not working properly in GRASS 6?

[Tom Russo]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 11:30:20AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <rbeyer at arc.nasa.gov> flavor, containing:
> Tom,
> 
> On Thursday 13 October 2005 04:06 pm, Tom Russo wrote:
> 
> > Hmmm.  Sounds like there's something fishy in the Mesa that comes with
> > x.org 6.8.2, then (and also with the old XFree86-4.3.0), or at least with
> > how NVIZ is using them.  The NVIDIA driver set replaces all the GL
> > libraries, and when I use those instead NVIZ works fine (I last built from
> > CVS about a week ago, and NVIZ has no problem on my
> > NVIDIA-card/NVIDIA-driver system.  When I say "NVIDIA driver" I mean the
> > one from NVIDIA that requires separate installation, not the "nv" driver
> > that comes with x.org.  These drivers are available for linux and FreeBSD
> > (on BSD they're /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-driver/).
> 
> Thanks for all of the info.
> 
> My FreeBSD 5.4 system with X.org 6.8.2 has an ATI video card, so
> the NVIDIA drivers aren't really a solution for me.

Nor is it a solution for me on my laptop with its ATI video.  I had been 
hoping that my problem there was the old BSD OS and older XFree86 install.  
Your experience is dashing that hope, since you're running what I'd be 
upgrading to.  

You might try installing DRI and enabling it.  I am not entirely certain that 
I ever did it correctly on the laptop (only tried once, probably two years ago, 
and now can't try it on the laptop because the current DRI port requires xorg, 
which I won't have until I update the machine).  See /usr/ports/graphics/dri, 
and check out the FreeBSD specific stuff on http://dri.sourceforge.net/

It may well be that using the direct rendering module will get around this
issue.  Or you could find that even if you do it right that it still 
doesn't help.  But that's the only thing I can think of suggesting since it's
quite obvious it's a GL issue, and adding DRI is about the only thing shy of
replacing Mesa with the combination of an NVIDIA card and the NVIDIA-provided
driver (which I'm not suggesting).

> Do you think that this is something the GRASS developers will address
> (do they visit this list)?  Or should I go and get myself an NVIDIA
> card?

The developers certainly visit this list.  Whether any of them have a system
that exhibits this problem is a much more relevant question --- and why I never
really piped up until now (assumed that it was my problem, and that if it was
widespread I'd have heard it here by now).

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY     SAR502  DM64ux         http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 
 "The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly
  worth the effort." -- Norton Juster