Merry Christmas!

Christmas went well. The kids got gifts that they really like, Dan got a nerf dart gun game (most darts are already lost in the house somewhere), Emma got "Littlest Pet Shop" toys and Anna Marie got an I-Pod Nano which she loves. The biggest family gift we got was Sammy, a Budgie, which they all have a really good time with. The bird is still really shy but is getting used to its cage and the family.

So I also got a chance to work on one of the graphics cards. I re-soldered a few joints and was able to get better results out of it. It passed the initial tests but failed miserably when DirectX shaders were in use. The strange thing is that the OpenGL shaders worked flawlessly. I would think that the shaders for both API (OpenGL and DirectX) should use the same logic on the GPU so this is really puzzling. Basically I am using a simple pixel shader for bump/normal mapping and that same exact code is used (CG code) whether I am in OpenGL or DirectX. Maybe there is still a component outside the GPU that is having problems; something that is only active when DirectX shaders are being used. Unfortunately that is a big deal as all modern games use CG so the card is still pretty much useless. I'll have to start looking at the other card soon, maybe I will have better results with it.