[Nizar Romdan]

Hi,

We'd like to know which tool or tools have you used so far from the Mali Developer Tools, what feedback do you have already and what would you like to see next?

Thanks,

Nizar
Mali Developer Tools Product Manager

This post has been edited by Nizar Romdan: 16 November 2009 - 04:44 PM

[DDd]

Just getting started using the tools.

On the Demo Engine, there are a few steps:

Quote

Copy the downloaded Khronos headers:
Copy the file egl.h to:
mde_library\3rdparty\include\khronos\EGL\
Copy the files gl2.h and gl2ext.h to:
mde_library\3rdparty\include\khronos\GLES2\
3. Copy the emulator libraries libGLESv2.lib and libEGL.lib to:
gles2_driver\

Why doesn't the engine come with the files in place? Are there distribution restrictions on Khronos header files?

TIA

[Nizar Romdan]

DDd, on Jan 29 2010, 02:13 AM, said:

Just getting started using the tools.

On the Demo Engine, there are a few steps:


Why doesn't the engine come with the files in place? Are there distribution restrictions on Khronos header files?

TIA

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, we didn't have the legal in place in the EULA when we released the Demo Engine so we had to keep the Khronos headers out. This is now fixed and the new release (Fri 5th Feb or Mon 8th Feb) will have the headers included and an updated EULA in that sense.
For the new release we're renaming the Mali Demo Engine to the Mali UI Engine and we're releasing a full UI example with it.

Cheers
Nizar

[DDd]

Hi Nizar,

Well that is great news, looking forward to downloading the new release. I really hate setup work so the least amount of steps necessary to setup a development environment the better to me, i already have 5 development targets, so this helps!

Also i have 2 other emulators running on the system, is there a better way to test than to constantly change the PATH on windows, to run the different emulators?

[DDd]

It'd DDd for some reason the forum will not let me login as DDd, it gives me a FastCGI error:

Quote

FastCGI Error

The FastCGI Handler was unable to process the request.
Error Details:

Error Number: 10054 (0x80072746).
Error Description: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
HTTP Error 500 - Server Error.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

...so i created a new account.

I see that the new UI engine is out, and i't s much nicer out of the box experience. Almost no configuration necessary

Are the new demos out also?

PS: The demos will not work with the PowerVR emulator so people will have to constantly change their path to the proper DLL files. (Haven't tested with the AMD emulator, or Tegra2 SDK.)

UPDATE: Looks like some of the demos need to have the folders inside the Debug folders, perhaps this was a path lapse?! Also some demos crash and don't work, i have no idea why but it looks mostly related to hdd access... did not have time to debug.

This post has been edited by DDd: 12 February 2010 - 01:54 AM

[Nizar Romdan]

DDd, on Feb 11 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

It'd DDd for some reason the forum will not let me login as DDd, it gives me a FastCGI error:



...so i created a new account.

I see that the new UI engine is out, and i't s much nicer out of the box experience. Almost no configuration necessary

Are the new demos out also?

PS: The demos will not work with the PowerVR emulator so people will have to constantly change their path to the proper DLL files. (Haven't tested with the AMD emulator, or Tegra2 SDK.)

UPDATE: Looks like some of the demos need to have the folders inside the Debug folders, perhaps this was a path lapse?! Also some demos crash and don't work, i have no idea why but it looks mostly related to hdd access... did not have time to debug.

Hi DDd,

We'll investigate the issue you faced with the forums login, sorry about any inconvenience.

Regarding the Mali UI Engine, you have tutorials under tutorial_examples and the Lotion UI example under example_applications. When you build them under Visual Studio you'll get the binaries under debug or release folders depending on your build options.

They have been validated with our OpenGL ES 2.0 Emulator. BTW, we'll release a new version of the emulator soon which passes the Khronos OpenGL ES 2.0 conformance testsuite.


Cheers,
Nizar

This post has been edited by Nizar Romdan: 13 February 2010 - 09:42 AM

[DDd]

Nizar Romdan, on Feb 13 2010, 09:37 AM, said:

Regarding the Mali UI Engine, you have tutorials under tutorial_examples and the Lotion UI example under example_applications. When you build them under Visual Studio you'll get the binaries under debug or release folders depending on your build options.

Hi Nizar,

Thanks, i really appreciate that because the forum are a bit unstable, i was posting and was logged out so this is the second time i am writing this.

Regarding the folders issue i was not clear. Some of the demos require access to the data folder, but the path is not correct so it produces an error, so we have two options: move the "data folder" into the Debug/Release folder or change the code to "../data".

Quote

C:\Users\Daniel\Documents\ARM Mali Developer Tools\Mali GPU UI Engine v2.3\tutor
ial_examples\03_using_the_filesystem_interface\Debug>03demo
Trying to load a non-existent file:
An expected exception was thrown:
I/O-Exception occured: File not found: ./data/non-existing-file.txt

Reading content from a file, writing it to another file and then comparing the o
utput of the two files:
An unexpected exception was thrown:
I/O-Exception occured: unable to write file: ./data/write.txt

The first exception is expected but the second is not. And this is consistent in almost all demos. You have to move the data and shader (if exist) folders into the same directory as the binary or change the code to "../" so i guess this is a path error in the code?!

if you change the demos to:

Managed<OutputStream> output = filesystem->createOutputStream("../data/write.txt");
Managed<InputStream> input = filesystem->createInputStream("../data/read.txt");

you get the correct output:

Quote

C:\Users\Daniel\Documents\ARM Mali Developer Tools\Mali GPU UI Engine v2.3\tutor
ial_examples\03_using_the_filesystem_interface\Debug>03filesystem
Trying to load a non-existent file:
An expected exception was thrown:
I/O-Exception occured: File not found: ./../data/non-existing-file.txt

Reading content from a file, writing it to another file and then comparing the o
utput of the two files:
The content of the two files matched.

Looking forward to having the new Emulator. You guys are moving fast. The only thing that is missing is a hardware development board or a retail product that features the Mali-200 core.

This post has been edited by DDd: 13 February 2010 - 05:40 PM

[Nizar Romdan]

DDd, on Feb 13 2010, 05:39 PM, said:

Hi Nizar,

Thanks, i really appreciate that because the forum are a bit unstable, i was posting and was logged out so this is the second time i am writing this.

Regarding the folders issue i was not clear. Some of the demos require access to the data folder, but the path is not correct so it produces an error, so we have two options: move the "data folder" into the Debug/Release folder or change the code to "../data".



The first exception is expected but the second is not. And this is consistent in almost all demos. You have to move the data and shader (if exist) folders into the same directory as the binary or change the code to "../" so i guess this is a path error in the code?!

if you change the demos to:

Managed<OutputStream> output = filesystem->createOutputStream("../data/write.txt");
Managed<InputStream> input = filesystem->createInputStream("../data/read.txt");

you get the correct output:



Looking forward to having the new Emulator. You guys are moving fast. The only thing that is missing is a hardware development board or a retail product that features the Mali-200 core.

Hi DDd,

We're looking at the data issue. We'll let you know shortly.

Cheers,
Nizar

[Anthony Berent]

DDd,

Thanks for pointing out the ./data issue. This is an error in the VisualStudio projects we released; they should copy the data into the destination directory, but we forgot to add this to some projects. We will fix this on the next release.

- Anthony

[DDd]

AnthonyBerent, on Feb 23 2010, 05:17 PM, said:

DDd,

Thanks for pointing out the ./data issue. This is an error in the VisualStudio projects we released; they should copy the data into the destination directory, but we forgot to add this to some projects. We will fix this on the next release.

- Anthony

Hi Anthony,

No problem! I don't know if there is an issue/bug tracker so i posted this here.

Hey do you guys have any idea when there will be an affordable development board (sub $500) from your partners?

PS: I think the previous post is an autobot/spammer.

[lkcl]

* Unencumbered, unrestricted, royalty-free Free-software-Licensed, full and complete source code for the entire build chain, to produce firmware for the MALI GPU Engines - all of them - without requiring an NDA.

* Unencumbered, unrestricted, royalty-free Free-software-Licensed, full and complete source code for the present OpenGL firmware which is available for the MALI GPU Engines - all of them - without requiring an NDA.

there is not a single good reason to continue the practice of treating free software developers like lepers, and there is every good reason to treat the GPU as "just another general-purpose processor".

objection to the above #1 : "we're afraid that someone will rip us off and make a copy of the GPU engine because they'll know, from the source code of the compiler, how to replicate the GPU! we'll lose money!!"

answer #1 to the above objection: don't be ridiculous. you know how long it takes to produce silicon, and you know what lifetime it will have. by quotes giving away quotes the GPU's inner workings, any competitors who quotes rip you off quotes will be approximately 18 to 24 months behind the times, which is an ENTIRE occam's razor generation too late.

answer #2 to the above objection: don't be ridiculous. imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

answer #3 to the above objection: don't be ridiculous. your competitor is going to ... what... sell silicon, where the toolchain has "Copyright © ARM, Copyright © MediaTek" on it??? and all of the (free software licensed) source code for the OpenGL 3D libraries has "Copyright © ARM, Copyright © MediaTek" on it? you should THANK your competition for advertising YOUR products, free of charge!

additional benefits, in the form of expanding the purposes to which the GPU can be put, beyond that which your present fascist policy dictates "Thou Shalt Have What Thou Art Given And Thou Shalt Not Run Any Firmware Other Than That Which We Deem You Worthy Of Running", should be blindingly obvious.

btw... _don't_ delete this message from the forum, like the other messages asking for the firmware source code and the build chain have been deleted: this issue won't go away. ARM are placing themselves in enough of an embarrassing situation situation by sponsoring the Debian 2010 Sprint, at ARM's own premises, and are going to discover that not one single one of the people attending will be in the slightest bit interested in helping you to get MALI 3D graphics up-and-running on the latest ARM CPUs, until the entire toolchain, firmware and libraries are no longer classified as "non-free".

l.

p.s. just in _case_ this is going to be censored (again), it's being made public elsewhere. i don't like having to repeat myself.

[Ravindran Antonysamy]

Hi,

PAT. Performance Analysis Tool.

Want to see a Integrated profiler along with PAT itself.

Ravindran

[Ravindran Antonysamy]

Hi Nizar,

One more for Performance Analysis Tool.

Is there a way to educate PAT, to 'Alert' the User, if any of the previously benchmarked value goes down ?

For example an alert if the fragment shader size is big ! or average frame rate goes too low ! or missing program cache or likewise ?

I feel it will be very useful when finding existing performance issues, along with finding out new bottlenecks !

Ravindran
ravi.antone@gmail.com

[tariq smaiors]

Thanks Just getting started using the tools.

[Wex]

I've been using the OpenGL ES emulator for about four months now under both Windows and Linux. Very happy, but now I've switched to OSX (Lion) for development and would really like to have a port of the emulator. What are the chances of adding OSX support?

OSX is important because it is the only platform that can be used for iOS development. Under OSX, I can develop apps for both iOS and Android, but I prefer to debug my apps on the local platform using native GPU calls, instead of relying on the iOS SW simulator. Given the reluctance of the OEMs to provide a platform that enables mobile development with a single shared source code base, doing all the work in C++ using OGL-ES is the best way to develop cross-platform apps for ARM-enabled devices. Your emulator allows me to write and debug that shared code base on a desktop platform, greatly simplifying debugging and speeding up development.

I would imagine the port would be relatively straightforward and would broaden the reach of your tools substantially. Do you know of any technical or legal hurdles that would get in the way?


Thanks,

Wex

[kiffa]

I just used the Mali_GPU_Shader_Development_Studio, i think it is good, but can be better. And i want the code-auto-complete.