FreeGameDev

Would someone be kind enough to explain in some detail what " Use Frame Buffer Objects (requires restart) " means?
Thank you

FBO is the OpenGL name for a feature of your GPU that allows direct rendering of a 3D scene into GPU memory. This is used in STK for the kart selection screen. The alternative technique is slower and works through a screen capture.
You should have the option checked if possible (in most cases it is).

Funto {l Wrote}:FBO is the OpenGL name for a feature of your GPU that allows direct rendering of a 3D scene into GPU memory. This is used in STK for the kart selection screen. The alternative technique is slower and works through a screen capture.
You should have the option checked if possible (in most cases it is).

not only there actually, I'm pretty sure irrlicht uses FBOs in other places. not sure of the details though

Thank's guys. Just trying to get an idea of what it is, and how I would explain this to someone else... Kinda hard when you don't get what it is... Ha ha

would there be an easier way to say the same thing, different wording?

It is a more efficient way to render to texture(reuse graphics card output) and pretty much a requirement for mirrors, shadow mapping, dynamic environment mapping, effects like bloom, motion blur, depth of field and other advanced techniques. Ideally it should be selected automatically if available(without user intervention).

Just as NaN said ^^
In my opinion, this is an advanced setting, for advanced users. Choosing a name that would try to make it easily understandable would likely fail to make it comprehensible both for advanced and for more casual users. Best example of such a failure is the Windows error messages

Right on. It will have to stay as "frame buffer objects" until somebody has a brainstorm!
Thank you...

NaN {l Wrote}:It is a more efficient way to render to texture(reuse graphics card output) and pretty much a requirement for mirrors, shadow mapping, dynamic environment mapping, effects like bloom, motion blur, depth of field and other advanced techniques. Ideally it should be selected automatically if available(without user intervention).

FBO are selected by default, we only added this option because some system had problems, and could run without this. Afaik the handling of FBO is done by irrlicht, so we can't easily detect if there was a problem or not, so we added this checkbox.

Cheers,
Joerg

If FBOs are the only OpenGL feature posing problem, maybe you could use glGetError() and assume any error to be related to FBOs?
I also think Irrlicht provides a way to check if the FBO OpenGL extension is available, but it probably already uses this check to determine if it should use it or not.

FBO are selected by default, we only added this option because some system had problems, and could run without this. Afaik the handling of FBO is done by irrlicht, so we can't easily detect if there was a problem or not, so we added this checkbox

Yeah, I figured it might be for compatibility reasons with buggy GPU drivers: "If you see garbage on the screen try with disabled FBOs."

Funto {l Wrote}:If FBOs are the only OpenGL feature posing problem, maybe you could use glGetError() and assume any error to be related to FBOs?
I also think Irrlicht provides a way to check if the FBO OpenGL extension is available, but it probably already uses this check to determine if it should use it or not.

oh no they're not the only problem we have met