Yasir Malik [Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 07:47:47PM -0500]:
> I'm having a few problems.  Some OpenGL programs that run fine on
> Windows 2000 run very slow on NetBSD.

You have to install drivers for XFree86 to make them support hardware
rendering. Your applications run slow, because they use software renderer.

NetBSD doesn't support hardware rendering (DRI infrastructure) at the
present moment -- but I have heard claims, that some people were able to run
and use it; I have also seen a lot of #ifdef __NetBSD__ conditionals in BSD
DRI source code, so I guess getting it to work is just a matter of time.

However, I am a very happy user of FreeBSD-STABLE + pkgsrc + ATI Radeon 9200
+ XFree86 4.3.0 -- I had to patch some packages (look for my PRs about
FreeBSD on GNATS), but the results are quite impressive. ATI and opensource
drivers for it also seem to be much more stable, than NVidia ones; FreeBSD
with pkgsrc seems a much better OS, than FreeBSD with FreeBSD Ports. I am no
way affiliated with ATI, but I strongly recommend their equipment for
anyone, that wants to do serious OpenGL on BSD systems.

If you have NVidia, I'd recommend Linux. Using NVidia binary drivers on
FreeBSD can make it unstable; NVidia on NetBSD will be no more or even less
stable. There is no point in loosing time for reboots. You can still try
those drivers -- http://cubidou.nerim.net/

> Also, some programs don't run on NetBSD but run on Windows 2000.  I
> get the following error:
> Glut: Fatal Error in dinoshade: visual with necessary capabilities not
> found.

Propably such programs request X11 visuals, which are not present in your
XFree86 setup. Try running them on different bpp (bits-per-pixel)
configurations. 

-- 
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