OpenGL apps over network / X11 forwarding

[vincoof]

Hi,

I’ve got two systems (both equipped with GeForce FX cards, with nvidia drivers up and running) and I’m playing with X11 forwarding over ssh.
The goal is to execute an OpenGL application remotely, for instance the application executes on system 1 (using CPU and hard disk of system1) and is controlled and displayed on system 2 (using keyboard and mouse inputs of system2, rendered on the graphics card system 2, thus displayed on the screen of system2).
Actually I can run without any problem apps like mozilla and xmms (except for the sound, but that’s another problem I know of and don’t care about for now) but can’t fully use OpenGL apps.
Apps like glxgears run fine. Things a bit advanced like tuxracer work too, but anything really advanced like ut2004 does not.
It seems like direct rendering is disabled, still hardware acceleration happens !
When called remotely, glxinfo show that direct rendering is DISABLED, though glinfo outputs :
GL_VERSION: 1.5.1 NVIDIA 61.11
GL_EXTENSIONS: GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_blend_color GL_ARB_window_pos GL_EXT_paletted_texture GL_ARB_multitexture GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_ARB_imaging GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_texture3D GL_ARB_point_parameters
GL_RENDERER: GeForce FX 5900XT/AGP/SSE2
GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation
GLU_VERSION: 1.3
GLU_EXTENSIONS: GLU_EXT_nurbs_tessellator GLU_EXT_object_space_tess
GLUT_API_VERSION: 5
GLUT_XLIB_IMPLEMENTATION: 15

As you can see everything looks fine except the extensions list which is way too short. What happens here please ?

Does anyone here have played with something similar, or have knowledge with OpenGL over network in general (I guess you SGI users know alot about that;)) ?
If ssh and X11 forwarding is not the best choice, I’m also open to change

Thanks in advance !

[Obli]

Originally posted by vincoof:
…but anything really advanced like ut2004 does not.
Some extension don’t work as expected when on the wire. ARB_vbo is one of that. If I am not wrong MapBuffer behaves strangely when indirect rendering is used, not remember now if it returns always NULL or what. Check the spec, you’ll see that.

Originally posted by vincoof:
As you can see everything looks fine except the extensions list which is way too short. What happens here please?
I know the extension list is a list of extensions supported by both client and server but this also looks strange to me since the two machines are similar. Maybe a problem with driver installation?

[vincoof]

Thanks for your reply.

ut2004 doesn’t even start because EXT_bgra is not supported. So I think the problem comes either from the capability to send advanced OpenGL stuff on the network, or the “communication” between the GL server and GL client sides, or simply an incomplete driver development.

The driver is configured properly. I can run ut2004 locally on each system without any problem. Both drivers are 61.11 (the latest ones available for IA32) so there should be no driver conflict. However, the graphics cards are not exactly the same. One is a FX5600U and the other is a FX5900XT. Could that make a difference ? I mean, could I get more extensions supported if I had two identical graphics cards ?

BTW, does that make sense to benefit hardware acceleration with indirect rendering ? I thought hardware acceleration needed direct rendering. Isn’t it mandatory ?²