October 17, 2007
Burton Radons wrote:
> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB) http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source,
> 1,360KB)

My suggestions:

1) Put up a web page about it! Put the text in your announcement here on the web page.

2) Use standard zip files, not 7z.
October 18, 2007
Walter Bright wrote:
> Burton Radons wrote:
>> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB) http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source,
>> 1,360KB)
> 
> My suggestions:
> 
> 1) Put up a web page about it! Put the text in your announcement here on the web page.
> 
> 2) Use standard zip files, not 7z.

winrar handles 7z, so if you can open rar you can open 7z
October 18, 2007
Kyle Furlong wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Burton Radons wrote:
>>> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB) http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source,
>>> 1,360KB)
>>
>> My suggestions:
>>
>> 1) Put up a web page about it! Put the text in your announcement here on the web page.
>>
>> 2) Use standard zip files, not 7z.
> 
> winrar handles 7z, so if you can open rar you can open 7z

Lots of programs handle 7z. But a lot don't. If someone has to search for, download, and install yet another zipper he isn't going to bother with GPUFractal. There's a nearly infinite amount of downloads one can get from the internet, and it's real easy to pass by anything that offers even minor roadblocks to downloading.

A friend of me told me long ago that he was successful because he was "easy to do business with". He tried to make it as painless and easy as possible for people to buy his products and services. Amazon does it with their "one click" thing. Apple does it with itunes. Just something to think about.
October 18, 2007

Walter Bright wrote:
> Kyle Furlong wrote:
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> Burton Radons wrote:
>>>> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB)
>>>> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source,
>>>> 1,360KB)
>>>
>>> My suggestions:
>>>
>>> 1) Put up a web page about it! Put the text in your announcement here on the web page.
>>>
>>> 2) Use standard zip files, not 7z.
>>
>> winrar handles 7z, so if you can open rar you can open 7z
> 
> Lots of programs handle 7z. But a lot don't. If someone has to search for, download, and install yet another zipper he isn't going to bother with GPUFractal. There's a nearly infinite amount of downloads one can get from the internet, and it's real easy to pass by anything that offers even minor roadblocks to downloading.
> 
> A friend of me told me long ago that he was successful because he was "easy to do business with". He tried to make it as painless and easy as possible for people to buy his products and services. Amazon does it with their "one click" thing. Apple does it with itunes. Just something to think about.

A flip side of this is that 7zs can be quite a bit smaller than Zips. Smaller means faster to download, and cheaper to get.

Incidentally, I've been working with a non-techie person (senior
lecturer for Risk Management) on my honours project, and I used to send
him Zip files until I noticed that all the archives he sent me were 7zs :P

	-- Daniel
October 18, 2007
On 10/17/07, Burton Radons <burton-radons@shaw.ca> wrote:
> Hey guys, I've been fooling around with GLSL recently and realised I could do a Mandelbrot fractal at full frame rate, so I implemented a kind of mini-Ultra Fractal.

Works here with my GeForce 7900 GT!

Anders
October 18, 2007
Daniel Keep wrote:
> 
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Kyle Furlong wrote:
>>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> Burton Radons wrote:
>>>>> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB)
>>>>> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source,
>>>>> 1,360KB)
>>>> My suggestions:
>>>>
>>>> 1) Put up a web page about it! Put the text in your announcement here
>>>> on the web page.
>>>>
>>>> 2) Use standard zip files, not 7z.
>>> winrar handles 7z, so if you can open rar you can open 7z
>> Lots of programs handle 7z. But a lot don't. If someone has to search
>> for, download, and install yet another zipper he isn't going to bother
>> with GPUFractal. There's a nearly infinite amount of downloads one can
>> get from the internet, and it's real easy to pass by anything that
>> offers even minor roadblocks to downloading.
>>
>> A friend of me told me long ago that he was successful because he was
>> "easy to do business with". He tried to make it as painless and easy as
>> possible for people to buy his products and services. Amazon does it
>> with their "one click" thing. Apple does it with itunes. Just something
>> to think about.
> 
> A flip side of this is that 7zs can be quite a bit smaller than Zips.
> Smaller means faster to download, and cheaper to get.\

I tried making a zip out of it.  It was a whopping 5K bigger (with compression=best).

> Incidentally, I've been working with a non-techie person (senior
> lecturer for Risk Management) on my honours project, and I used to send
> him Zip files until I noticed that all the archives he sent me were 7zs :P

GPUFractal is a Windows program.  Every copy of Windows which is recent enough to run GPUfractal has ZIP support built in.  It's not a big deal, but Walter's right.  For Windows programs, use zip unless you have a really good reason not too (like very targeted / motivated audience willing to jump through hoops for you, or a huge difference in file size).

Anyway cool program! (after I downloaded new drivers ;-).  I like the interactive dragging of Julia set seed points!

--bb
October 18, 2007
Walter Bright Wrote:

> Burton Radons wrote:
> > http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB)
> > http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source,
> > 1,360KB)
> 
> My suggestions:
> 
> 1) Put up a web page about it! Put the text in your announcement here on the web page.

(variations of this message might post multiple times, web-news was acting weird)

This is just a goofy little hack. After a few updates I'll send a link to the creator of Ultra Fractal (this is a kind of homage) and never touch it again.

With that in mind, I've updated the archive. This changes shader.h to schema.h which now also tells the program how to build the shader, so it could be used for non-fractal purposes. I only really did it because it made sense, not for any intended purpose.

Also, changing the starting point in Mandelbrot now does something. Something... very strange.

> 2) Use standard zip files, not 7z.

I don't care about that.
October 18, 2007
Burton Radons wrote:
> Hey guys, I've been fooling around with GLSL recently and realised I could do a Mandelbrot fractal at full frame rate, so I implemented a kind of mini-Ultra Fractal.
> 
> It works in single pass, so, uh, save your work before you try it because it just might cause your card to freeze if its GLSL support sucks or it isn't VERY good at branching shaders. If it works on your machine, I'd like to hear of it; if it doesn't, I'd also like to hear of it. For reference, my setup is an NVIDIA 8800 GTX (beta drivers) on Windows Vista with an Intel Dual Core 2.66GHz processor. I can confirm that it doesn't work on an ATI Radeon 9800 on Windows XP.
> 
> The interface is exclusively mouse based. Left mouse button to zoom in, right mouse button to zoom out, middle mouse button to scroll. Using the mouse wheel puts you in variable mode. The mouse wheel selects the current variable, dragging the left mouse button changes it (enumerations and floats are changed by dragging to the right or left), clicking the middle mouse button resets to the initial value, and right clicking returns to zoom/scroll mode.
> 
> You can modify or add to the formulas while it's running, look in the subdirectories.
> 
> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB)
> http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source, 1,360KB)
> 
> The source is pretty shit and will require slight modification of the makefile's paths to compile. I use D v1 and bud.

Vendor: 'ATI Technologies Inc.'
Renderer: 'ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE2'
Version: '2.0.6645 WinXP Release'

When I run it, the window comes up but doesn't display anything, well nothing besides what was underneath the window before.  It seems to be hung.  My computer heats up and the fan starts working really hard.
October 18, 2007
Chad J Wrote:

> Burton Radons wrote:
> > Hey guys, I've been fooling around with GLSL recently and realised I could do a Mandelbrot fractal at full frame rate, so I implemented a kind of mini-Ultra Fractal.
> > 
> > It works in single pass, so, uh, save your work before you try it because it just might cause your card to freeze if its GLSL support sucks or it isn't VERY good at branching shaders. If it works on your machine, I'd like to hear of it; if it doesn't, I'd also like to hear of it. For reference, my setup is an NVIDIA 8800 GTX (beta drivers) on Windows Vista with an Intel Dual Core 2.66GHz processor. I can confirm that it doesn't work on an ATI Radeon 9800 on Windows XP.
> > 
> > The interface is exclusively mouse based. Left mouse button to zoom in, right mouse button to zoom out, middle mouse button to scroll. Using the mouse wheel puts you in variable mode. The mouse wheel selects the current variable, dragging the left mouse button changes it (enumerations and floats are changed by dragging to the right or left), clicking the middle mouse button resets to the initial value, and right clicking returns to zoom/scroll mode.
> > 
> > You can modify or add to the formulas while it's running, look in the subdirectories.
> > 
> > http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1.7z (binary, 204KB)
> > http://members.shaw.ca/burton-radons/GPUFractal-1-source.7z (source, 1,360KB)
> > 
> > The source is pretty shit and will require slight modification of the makefile's paths to compile. I use D v1 and bud.
> 
> Vendor: 'ATI Technologies Inc.'
> Renderer: 'ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE2'
> Version: '2.0.6645 WinXP Release'
> 
> When I run it, the window comes up but doesn't display anything, well nothing besides what was underneath the window before.  It seems to be hung.  My computer heats up and the fan starts working really hard.

Thanks! It looks like the X700 and X850 are identical capabilities-wise, so you might be able to see something if you add "#define ATI_X850" to the top of "schema.h". However, older hardware's not my target so you'll have a paltry 40 maximum iterations if it works at all, good enough to play around with the variables but not good enough to zoom in.
October 18, 2007
Burton Radons wrote:
> Hey guys, I've been fooling around with GLSL recently

my experience: use CG...


Vendor: 'ATI Technologies Inc.'
Renderer: 'ATI Radeon X1250'
Version: '2.0.6645 Release'
Error: Could not successfully link program: Fragment shader(s) failed to link,  vertex shader(s) linked.


Vendor: 'NVIDIA Corporation'
Renderer: 'GeForce 7600 GS/PCI/SSE2'
Version: '2.0.3'
Error: Could not successfully link program: Fragment info
-------------
(69) : error C5051: profile does not support conditional returns


Vendor: 'ATI Technologies Inc.'
Renderer: 'RADEON 9550 x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE2'
Version: '2.0.6287 WinXP Release'

no errors, but window does not get painted and process eats 100% cpu