GLSL ES: Nested boolean expressions evaluated incorrectly on PowerVR SGX 540 (Android)?

PowerVR Insider
1

I have code similar to the following in one of my vertex shaders:

#define NUM_ITERATIONS /* some value /

bool found = false;

float value;

float limit = / some value /;

for(int i=0; i<NUM_ITERATIONS; i++)

{

float v = / calculated /;

if(!found && (v < limit || i == (NUM_ITERATIONS-1))

{

value = v;

found = true;

}

/ some more code /

}

This code, compiled on a Samsung Nexus S (Android 4.1.2, GL_RENDERER=“PowerVR SGX 540”, GL_VERSION=“OpenGL ES 2.0 build 1.8.GOOGLENEXUS.ED945322@2112805”) doesn’t work, the code inside the if seems to be executed always (at least) in the last run of the for loop, not (only) in the first iteration where (v < limit || i == (NUM_ITERATIONS-1) is true (it seems to ignore the bool found). If i change the code to

/ … /

if(!found)

{

if(v < limit || i == (NUM_ITERATIONS-1)

{

/ … /

}

}

/ … */

everything works as expected. The same (incorrect) behaviour also happens on a Kindle Fire HD (Android 4.0.3, GL_RENDERER=“PowerVR SGX 540”, GL_VERSION=“OpenGL ES 2.0 build 1.8@785978”), but not on an Apple iPad 1 (IOS 5.0, GL_RENDERER=“PowerVR SGX 535”, GL_VERSION=“OpenGL ES 2.0 IMGSGX535-63.14.2”)



I am able to (privately) share the full shaders, if it helps with debugging.



Edit: I forgot to mention that the first version of the shader works fine on (at least) an Adreno 320, a Mali-400 MP and an Nvidia Tegra 3.

2

Hi Pontomedon,



Sorry for the delay in getting back to you - I’ve investigated this and you’re right, it seems to be a weird compiler bug. I will submit a bug report for this - thanks for letting us know! Unfortunately there’s not much we can do in terms of actually fixing the compiler in devices out in the wild, but at least you’ve got a work around. Please let me know if you have any questions.



Regards,

Tobias

3

Hi Tobias!



Thanks for your response! I know there’s nothing you can do about the existing devices, but my shaders are so full of workarounds for bugs in other compilers/linkers that this little issue doesn’t matter at all, and it’s the only bug in the PowerVR driver that i’ve noticed so far :slight_smile:



By the way, I don’t know if it helps, but i think the first version of the shader (with the combined boolean expression) worked fine on an iPad 1 (ios 5.0), which is an SGX 535 iirc, so it may be an Android specific issue.

4

Hi Pontomedon,



Glad to hear that ours are usually not too bad! Less glad about the number of workarounds though - that’s unfortunate :frowning:



As for iOS, Apple writes their own shader compiler, using ours only as reference so it’s not surprising to hear that there are differences. It points to a bug in our reference code regardless, so hopefully we’ll get this fixed asap :slight_smile:



Thanks,

Tobias