Just for giggles I nop'ed out the "if (!vbo_refs[0]) { // We don't need these in VBO mode" to avoid the crash. For the adventurous Win users with hex editors the ofset in the .exe is 1399a7, values of 75 65 change to 90 90.
VBO resulted in no display but was responsive. FPS indeterminate.
It works for the first time ever!
Well, at least it doesn't crash anymore.
Now I have a black screen instead (with music).
Regardless of your opinion toward a company, it's best to work on ways to make a game perform on both types of graphics cards available.
But if that's your opinion I guess I won't be donating any time soon.
You donate to Toady, for the game itself, so to say, not for the programmers of the 40d#-versions.
And believe me, ATI should do it's best to follow the standards, not the other way around.
Don't get me started on their handling of non-quadratic textures in OpenGL...
Baughn and co are doing their very best to make DF perform equally well on all types of graphic cards, but don't think a new renderer especially for ATI would get you 50 fps with 150 dwarves, because this:
Wait, is this why I read about people having 150-dorf forts and getting 50FPS or more, while I hit rock bottom at around 80 dorfs and can't crawl my way above 20 FPS? Because I run ATI?
is a matter of processing power, not the renderer (IMHO).
The pathfinding, the number of stones in a fort, SO MANY things have a big impact on the pathfinder (and thus on the performance) that I don't think a ATI-optimized renderer would help you at all.
What processor do you have? How many stones are in your fort? Maybe there is a way it can run a lot faster on your system.