I programmed shaders in GLSL up to now.
I just started programming shaders in ARB and I wonder if it is more compatible than GLSL or is there no difference.
Somewhere I read that ARB shaders even work on some GeForce 1 cards.
Is GLSL the same after it is compiled or is ARB really more compatible?
No question, GLSL is easier and much less code than ARB.
But I want/need cool AND compatible shaders
Tbh if you program you shaders with geforce one in mind then they wont be good bc geforce one i think doesnt even have registercombiner stages.
Even that just code in GLSL now, we are in 2007, old cards have many resitrictions beyond just the language the driver can take. You can compile glsl shaders to arb using cg.exe, but Then your GLSL shaders wont be very advanced because the compiler cant compile complex code to primitive hardware(sampler limits,filtering on diffrent texture types, texture indirections,MRT's). You cant have evrything in one shader you will just to make diffrent versions for diffrent systems.
Dont limit yourself because of old technology, cards back then had very poor fillrates that even if the shader ran it would just be able to process 2-3 pixels before it chokes your performance.
"Irrlicht is obese"
If you want modern rendering techniques learn how to make them or go to the engine next door =p
