Just wondering, Intel GPU

[Acrobat]

Despite the problems with Intel graphics cards, was wondering if writing project without  using render to texture, will the program work on integrated video cards ?
I created a render texture, render all the graphics there, and than simply display RT texture in other sprite in window, and noticed some texture flicker (inside render texture). Is there any way to fix this, or just try to avoid using them until this problem being solved ?
Greetings from Ukraine 

[Laurent]

Hopefully I'll be able to make things better for RenderTexture and Intel graphics, in a future minor version of SFML 2.

Until then, try to do without RenderTexture and everything should be fine.

[slotdev]

Laurent

I've traced various issues in my games down to Intel GPUs. What is the best course of action to fix the problems with these GPUs?

I notice things like, when the game runs in a half-size window, it's fine, anything else makes CPU go up to 100% and crazy stuff. I also see the bug with artifacts left on screen. I believe there is a bug related to RenderTexture ?

Any help appreciated

Ed

[Laurent]

I'm not sure to understand what you want me to tell you.

RenderTexture are known to be broken with Intel graphics, and I've already said that I'd work on this problem soon after SFML 2.0 is released. So what else do you expect me to say or do?

[slotdev]

I'm not sure to understand what you want me to tell you.

RenderTexture are known to be broken with Intel graphics, and I've already said that I'd work on this problem soon after SFML 2.0 is released. So what else do you expect me to say or do?

Sorry..I wrote that in a hurry. What I meant to say was, are the problems I am experiencing (especially the CPU usage problem) part of this RenderTexture bug, and if so are there any work-arounds, until you've fixed it for good?

[Laurent]

are the problems I am experiencing (especially the CPU usage problem) part of this RenderTexture bug

I don't know, probably.

and if so are there any work-arounds, until you've fixed it for good?

I have no idea, sorry.

[slotdev]

After some more analysis, it turns out the problem I am experience is (as expected) down to the Intel graphics.

It seems there is a problem with scaling - if your graphics are not the native resolution of the monitor, then when the graphics are scaled up/down, it really doesn't like it (high CPU, etc). If they run at the native res, then it's fine (but a bit sluggish - even though CPU is at 1%)

So my guess is, there is no hardware acceleration on this system for OpenGL

It's an Intel 4500MHD for reference

[Laurent]

Do you have the latest drivers? According to what I've read, Intel 4500MHD is quite recent and supports many OpenGL features natively (like shaders for example), so it shouldn't be that bad.

[slotdev]

Problem I have, with every system we use, is that we are stuck with whatever drivers they have on the system - this hardware (in use on around 8000 systems). has drivers from 19 October 2009 (so quite old) but I found this page which lists OpenGL support for this driver (very first column, Intel(R) G41 Express Chipset (Windows):
6.14.10.5160)

http://feedback.wildfiregames.com/report/opengl/device/Intel%28R%29%20G41%20Express%20Chipset

...if the OpenGL support isn't great....is there a way to maybe include an updated version of the Intel driver in my project..? Can I replace the DLLs that it uses?

[Laurent]

if the OpenGL support isn't great

According to the web page, it is more than enough. But the problem in SFML is not the lack of support for OpenGL features (it would be properly detected), but a crappy support with lots of bugs.

is there a way to maybe include an updated version of the Intel driver in my project..?

No, don't try to do that

[slotdev]

So I'm stuck then 

It's so frustrating as there is nothing I can do to improve performance. Oh well. Thanks for your time

[Laurent]

You could try to hack inside SFML

By the way, we're still talking about render-textures and nothing else, right?

[slotdev]

Hah, tell me where to hack and I'll get started

...and yes render textures look to be the bottleneck.

[Laurent]

The first thing you can try is to use the other implementation of RenderTexture (I don't know which one is chosen for you, probably the FBO one) in src/SFML/Graphics/RenderTexture.cpp lines 66-75. You can force one and then the other and compare the results.

[slotdev]

OK so forcing to use either render texture implementation gives no perceptible performance improvement
Any other things I can try?

Thanks