OpenGL 1.3 Spec Released 193
JigSaw writes "The OpenGL Architecture Review Board announced the new OpenGL 1.3 specification (1.8 MB pdf). In OpenGL 1.3, several additional features and functions have been ratified and brought into the API's core functionality. New features include Cube map texturing, multisampling, new texture modes that provide more powerful ways of applying textures to rendered objects, compressed texture framework etc. Let's all hope that GL can catch up with Direct3D now, as with the latest DirectX8, Direct3D has done some big steps towards feature-set, speed and even non-bloatiness when it comes to coding for it, while OpenGL 1.2 was released more than 2 years ago and it did not offer as much."
does it do sharders? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:OpenGL = Direct3D 8.1 (Score:1, Insightful)
DirectX is a great standard for 3D graphics.
I've spent many a day playing DirectX games on Linux/BSD/Macintosh/BEOS/OS2/QNX/Amiga.
Oh crap! What am I saying? DIRECTX DOESN'T SUPPORT ANYTHING NON MICROSOFT!!!
Yes that's a standard alright.
Standard piece of BS.
Catch up to what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing DX or better D3D to GL is like comparing UNIX to Windows. You can either allow modular ententions or rewrite the API every release, whus breaking backwards compatibility for no reason. GL ext from ATI and Nvidia are much easier to use for development that D3D imho.
Only moogles may disagree. We still love you dan! =)
Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny bit... (Score:2, Insightful)
Gamer 1 " Good god this quake 3 is SUCH 24 bit color, how could they stand it?"
Gamer 2 "Totally!"
Implementation (Score:4, Insightful)
As to this issue of Direct 3D having a bigger feature set et al., this is only a worthy argument if we are talking MS-Windows. Outside of the Windows platform Direct 3D means nothing, since it isn't available there. OpenGL is currently the only cross-platform solution worth mentioning (please correct me if there is another). IMHO, the SDL game API made the right move in using OGL for it graphics, since the last thing we need is yet another graphics API that is just about supported. Maybe one thing that will help OGL, especially in games, is if more noise was made about it.
Re:The funny bit... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>>>
Is this really such a *bad* thing? K & R wrote the UNIX API and said "do it this way." Is anyone complaining? IEEE standardized the API into POSIX and told people to "do it this way." POSIX is perhaps the most successful OS API in history. Somtimes, a nice standard is just better than some additional freedom (especially when that freedom is for hardware developers, which aren't highest on my ethics list).
about OpenGL 1.2... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OpenGL = Direct3D 8.1 (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenGL Death: This is not such a sad thing (Score:0, Insightful)
This is not a bad thing. While this does not bode well for Linux / MAC users, it does mean good things for the majority of the game playing market -> Windows users.
Back in the day when 3dfx was the big bad daddy, developers who knew how to code for their card made the decision to only support Glide, and if they supported other APIs, they weren't done as well.
Deus Ex is probably the best example of this. It was based on the Unreal engine, which had glide as its primary API. In subsequent patches, epic fixed Unreal so that its Direct 3D played well. Ion Storm did not, and as a result, the game runs like ass on my 1.2 with 512 MB ram and GeForce 2.
Much like modem standards (remember those wars?), user interfaces (sorry, just read someones disertation on why having 12 different window managers under linux is a bad idea), it is not always a good idea to have multiple ways of doing things. If everyone supported Open GL, that would be great. However, todays hardware is written with Direct3D in mind, and it saves work for the developers, as well as making things more consistant for the end user, if everyone would just use it.
Captain_Frisk
Re:Open GL is Dying (Score:2, Insightful)
In the ruthlessly Darwinist gamer/graphics market the answer to "who is the market leader" and "who has the best solution" is usually the same, as long as you consider that "best solution" does not mean "most sensible and powerful API". From a developer's point of view OpenGL may very well be better but it just isn't where the money is.
(And BTW, I am not the author of the parent to which you replied. That's a not-even-thinly-disguised recycled anti-BSD troll.)
Re:like deja vu all over again (Score:1, Insightful)
My guess is that it's easier for people skimming the homepage of /. [slashdot.org] to read. ;-)
OpenGL = Direct3D 8.1 (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenGL uses extensions, so you don't have to rev the version number to add funtionality, you only have to have supporting drivers (and/or hardware).
That is why OGL hasn't been rev'ed in so long, it didn't need it, so you can provide a stable API for the developers.
It is just cleaner to have this new stuff "built-in", so they do it every now and then.
instead (Score:2, Insightful)
Extensions vs Core (Score:5, Insightful)
If you go with OpenGL you have to write your program for each different vendor extension that comes out. Honestly, what are the chances of ATI or PowerVR ever supporting NV_texture_shader or NV_texture_shader2?
One of the main aims of DirectX was to avoid the situation in the days of games under DOS where a game developer would have to write different code for each different target video card. Through the use of vendor extensions, OpenGL does no better than DOS did - requiring the developer to figure out exactly which cards he is going to support and writing to those extensions individually, also sacrificing future compatibility if the next generation of cards support different extensions.
Writing to DirectX gives some degree of future-proofing your application as forward compatibility of the core API is preserved through revisions of DirectX. Sure this may carry a bit of "bloat around the middle" but that's the price you pay for compatibility.
Of course, if you aren't writing for Windows you're stuck with extensions.