AW: GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS_ARB on a Geforce 7900

 


>> Can anyone explain why an nVidia 7900GS (driver version 91.45)
reports
>> only 4 texture units from GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS_ARB?

>Because the fixed pipeline is too limitating and most people won't use
>that many textures. If you need that, you might do a better job using
>shaders.

>So in short: the FF is deprecated and there is no point in extending it
>more than what is the usual maximum TU use in games ;)

sorry if I'm wrong, but the texture units are not linked or only related
to the FF pipeline.
Even if I'm using shaders, I have to bind my textures to the texture
units.

And, 4 texture stages are precious little.
There are color textures, depth textures (shadowmap), noise textures,
normal maps etc.
and now imagine some object batching where you group 2 or more (small)
objects with different textures together letting a shader find the right
one (based on a vertex attrib or something).

Or some post effect like deffered shading combined with shadow
techniques.
you'll need the color-buffer, the depth-buffer, the normal buffer and
the shadow maps (one per lightsource) bound...


I think the 7900 should report 8 or more TU's. Tried a different driver?
95/97 series or >100 series?

greetings
Sebastian

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