OpenGL 4.1 Specification Announced 167
WesternActor writes "The Khronos Group has announced full details for the OpenGL 4.1 specification. Among the new features of the spec, which comes just five months after the release of the 4.0 specification, is full support for OpenGL ES, which simplifies porting between mobile and desktop platforms. It'll be interesting to see what effect, if any, this new spec has on the graphics industry — more compatibility could change the way many embedded systems are designed. There are lots of other changes and additions in the spec, as well." Reader suraj.sun contributes insight from Ars, which brings OpenGL's competition into focus: "OpenGL 4.0 brought feature parity with Direct3D 11's new features — in particular, compute shaders and tessellation — and with 4.1, the Khronos Group claims that it is surpassing the functionality offered in Microsoft's 3D API. ... Whether this truly constitutes a leapfrogging of Direct3D 11 is not obvious."
That's all great (Score:2, Funny)
But, how does this benefit porn viewing?
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Re:That's all great (Score:5, Insightful)
But unless they can fully simulate boob physics proper, it's all for nothing.
Re:That's all great (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's all great (Score:5, Funny)
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Howdy cow... those Japanese ARE [wikipedia.org]insane:
RapeLay is played from the perspective of a chikan named Kimura Masaya, who stalks and subsequently rapes the Kiryuu family (a mother and her two young daughters).
The player can choose from a variety of sexual positions, and controls the action by making movements with the mouse or by scrolling the mouse wheel.
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But unless they can fully simulate boob physics proper, it's all for nothing.
You're applying way higher standards to hypothetical 3d porn than you are the porn sitting on your hard drive right now.
Buzz-speak (Score:2)
Why use pseudo-words like "leapfrogging" when real words like "surpassing" or "overtaking" work just fine?
Re:Buzz-speak (Score:5, Informative)
Leapfrog is a very old and well-known children's game which involves people continually taking the lead by surpassing (jumping over) their playmate. It has a connotation of an endless arms race or continual exchange of leadership in the marketplace. I think the use of the word "leapfrogging" here is perfectly apt. Idiom is a part of the language, and when properly used, gives another layer of nuance to the communication.
Re:Buzz-speak (Score:5, Insightful)
why use the made up word "pseudo-words" when the real phrase "made up words" works just fine?
and why use the word "fine" when there are dozens of synonyms or near-synonyms that work just as well?
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Anyone got patent info? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone following this enough to know if attempts were made to resolve the patent issues?
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/OpenGL [swpat.org]
Or did new issues surface? Any pointers would be appreciated, thanks.
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0x08764356889997754322345678890
Sure it's only 32 bit but you should be able to get by.
Fusion of mobile and desktop platforms (Score:5, Insightful)
The blending of OGL and OGL ES is huge - it essentially underscores that smart phones are now a major 3D gaming platform. I'm really surprised that most poeple here are talking about PC support rather then note the fact that essentially any PC game built for OGL can be ported far more easily to moble platforms now.
Additionally with Nokia's Meego and Google's Android being essentially modified Linux and both likely offering support for this, this may give us a renaissance of linux gaming. And by this I mean proper linux gaming and not "wine" gaming.
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Sound (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if we could only convince some of the top development studios to believe this.
DirectX is not just graphics; it's also sound and input. Programs that use OpenGL have to use something else for sound and input. One popular choice for these is SDL; another is Allegro. But since the introduction of PulseAudio, sound in Linux games has been a cluster[intercourse]. Specifically anything using the Allegro library lost sound, and Allegro games are still silent in (for example) Ubuntu 10.04.
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Khronos defines a complete ecosystem of APIs that provide the functionality of DX beyond just graphics
- OpenMAX IL for close to the metal sound, video and image processing
- OpenSL ES for advanced audio - including 3D positional audio - that can be accelerated over OpenMAX IL
- OpenKODE for IO and cross -platform access to other OS resources
Plus - EGL links OpenGL ES and OpenMAX IL for tighter video/graphics integration on mobile than most desktop systems - and EGL is coming to the desktop I hear..
Most of the
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Non-Xbox 360 gamepads under XInput? (Score:2)
Microsoft recommend a combination of XInput and WM_INPUT these days.
Then what are PC games supposed to use to read third-party gamepads that aren't for Xbox 360? From Wikipedia's article about DirectInput and XInput [wikipedia.org]:
XInput supports only "next generation" controllers. This limits it basically to controllers for the Xbox 360 that also have Windows drivers. Legacy Windows controllers, joysticks and generalized force-feedback devices are not supported.
And suggesting a switch to WM_INPUT almost sounds like suggesting a switch from DirectDraw to GDI back in the 2D era.
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But lets be honest. Sound in Linux has always been a cluster fornication. Pulse Audio is just another piece of the cluster... I guess it has just never really been a big priority with the Linux core team, at least early on.
Another reason i love Slackware, is that its the *only* distribution that has ALSA working out of the box on every box I have put it
Re:Sound (Score:4, Interesting)
``But lets be honest. Sound in Linux has always been a cluster fornication.''
I don't know, man. OSS always worked for me. Then came ESD, which worked on top of OSS but allowed multiple applications to play sounds at the same time. I actually fell from my chair the first time that happened. I had never heard that before. It didn't happen on Windows at the time, despite Windows being king then. Clusterfornication? I wouldn't say so.
Then we got ALSA. I never really understood the point of that. Eventually, free OSS drivers stopped being available for my hardware, but ALSA drivers were available, so I switched. It worked, although a few applications I used needed configuration changes, because they tried to use OSS and failed, ALSA's OSS emulation notwithstanding. I understand other people's experience with ALSA hasn't been as good, but I suspect that has something to do with them switching years before I did.
There have been several other audio systems that I never understood the point of and never used. And then came PulseAudio. What on Earth happened there? Seriously. One day, I was sitting happily thinking how Linux distros had matured so much over the years, and then suddenly, millions of computers went silent, and a million voices cried out in pain and frustration. I don't know what benefits PulseAudio has, but it's clear that somebody screwed up by mass-deploying it when it clearly didn't work reliably yet. I actually think that this debacle has single-handedly reduced the reputation of sound on Linux from "it works, as long as your hardware is supported, which it generally is" to "you are lucky if it works at all, and even luckier if it still works tomorrow". Congratulations, that was quite an accomplishment.
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Then came ESD, which worked on top of OSS but allowed multiple applications to play sounds at the same time. I actually fell from my chair the first time that happened. I had never heard that before. It didn't happen on Windows at the time, despite Windows being king then.
What complete and utter FUD. Funny how the Linux crowd here decries FUD and shouts loudly about marketing based on facts, until it's their turn to make up some random piece of absolute horseshit to make Windows look bad, and then suddenly it's +4 interesting.
If ESD dated back to the Win3.1 days I might have believed you, but I just looked at the ESD changelog, the initial version is given as April 1998. Are you honestly claiming Win95/98 was not capable of playing multiple sounds at the same time? Becaus
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``I'll add historical revisionism to that list.''
Yes. A very bad thing in my book, so it stings me that I would have committed that, even if unintentionally (those statements were based on my recollections from the time - which AC clearly thinks are wrong).
``Linux was never very early with desktop eye candy, sound and that sort of thing. It was a good UNIX clone but the big iron multi-user servers were hardly the greatest example in that respect. It took a long time before there was a simple way to create "
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But since the introduction of PulseAudio, sound in Linux games has been a cluster[intercourse].
Most Linux games use SDL or OpenAL, not Allegro.
A little Googling seems to suggest that the Allegro issues can be fixed by using OSS as a backend instead of Alsa.
I'm honestly curious as a games programmer why someone would choose not to use a cross-platform API specifically designed for games (eg. OpenAL).
Games are the G in Allegro (Score:2)
I'm honestly curious as a games programmer why someone would choose not to use a cross-platform API specifically designed for games (eg. OpenAL).
Possibly because I learned Allegro Low LEvel Game ROutines [sf.net] back when it was for DOS, and DJGPP supported it while Visual Studio was still pay (VC++ Express hasn't been around forever) and MinGW hadn't matured yet.
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I never suggested Allegro wasn't for games, I was just pointing out that audio in Linux gaming isn't as much of a mess as you suggest.
Most (all?) of the ports Loki did for Linux used SDL. Quake and Doom on Linux use OpenAL, which means that any of the games based on those engines also use OpenAL (eg. Tremulous, Urban Terror).
I'm curious if Allegro sound is just broken under Ubuntu or if it's universally a PulseAudio thing? Seems like they have more problems with Pulse than anyone else...
Re:Is opengl relevant anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, if you get your act together, you can always make a comeback. Apple did it; Linux helped make Unix relevant again outside of big iron.
But, you have to be able to sell it and to deliver.
Re:Is opengl relevant anymore? (Score:5, Interesting)
Simply put, yes, OpenGL is awesome. The fuss over OpenGL 3.0 was because it wasn't as awesome as it could have been at that time.
It's also available on many more platforms than D3D.
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Re:Is opengl relevant anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this modded troll because someone doesn't like the truth? What he stated here is a fact. Xbox360's success has ensured that most mainstream developers are using DirectX. You and I may not like it, but it's a fact.
Yeah, and then you can just port it straight to the PS3! Oh, wait...
Re:Is opengl relevant anymore? (Score:5, Informative)
I work in video games. That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. This is obvious trolling, so I won't bother with a deep response, but porting from D3D to OpenGL (or vice versa), is fairly straightforward. A much bigger problem is different CPU and memory architecture that makes porting a pain in the ass, as well as different first party requirements.
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Source isn't on the PS3? So this Orange Box for the PS3 I have is NOT the Source engine that runs HL2? Huh?
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Valve refuses to touch the PS3 (rightly so, it's an awful piece of hardware to program). EA did the port of the Orange Box.
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Correction: Valve refused to touch the PS3, this has changed now. Also it's not because the hardware is awful but only because Valve didn't have the people who were familiar with it.
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Yes obviously if ex-Microsoft Gabe Newell [wikipedia.org] says it, it must be true...
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For those that honestly don't know and do want slightly more details, you can see some of my old comments here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org]. Sorry about the tone, I was bored, and the trolls looked so very hungry...
For those who find clicking difficult, the most relevant bit is this:
GL and DX have near identical capabilities, identical object lifetime management, trivially mappable entry points and trivially mappable state bits, and near identical performance and synchronization behaviors. Porting between the two is trivial compared all the other work a proper port requires.
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"The embedded platforms you mentioned run opengl ES, which is not the same thing."
It is now. You need to work on reading comprehension.
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You are aware that WINE uses OpenGL right?? And that some of the main features of DX11 (tesslation for example) where ports from OpenGL extensions that are years old ... OpenGL is good because its open. It doesnt take much to get a valid extension approved, infact you can write one yourself. It's not geared for gaming, nor does it have any features that a Graphics API shouldn't have. But its good and I dont want to see it gone anytime soon.
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The fuss over OpenGL 3.0 was because it wasn't as awesome as it could have been at that time.
I got the impression that lots of DX coders just jump into forums and flamed away. Most of the pro opengl devs I know where not too unhappy with it. Now looking back I can say quite a few of them think it was a great idea not to push the object model too early... for the simple reason that vendors still were working out what is easy to put in drivers/hardware.
Even on this thread its pretty clear that quite a few comments about what opengl is not, has been made by folks that clearly don't code opengl.
Re:Is opengl relevant anymore? (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely true and not flamebait: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#Longs_Peak_and_OpenGL_3.0_controversy [wikipedia.org]
OpenGL 3.0 was a disaster because it should have been revolutionary but instead it was an extended 2.1 to maintain compatibility with workstation apps (as in graphical workstations).
Today however OpenGL is way ahead of Direct3D. One of its killer features is OpenCL compatibility. GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) is now at version 4.00 and since OpenGL 3.2 supported geometry shaders.
Now is it relevant? Are you kidding me? In this day and age of all these platforms it is _THE_ library. Direct3D is only viable on Micrsoft platforms.
Android, Playstation3, Mac OS X, iOS, Linux, Windows. They all have OpenGL support and thus anyone is now porting, if they haven't already and newcommers all use OpenGL. In fact all the CAD apps have been using OpenGL solely! All the big players and studios are using OpenGL now.
Now the real question is; What is Microsofts next move to stay in the game?
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Android, Playstation3, Mac OS X, iOS, Linux, Windows. They all have OpenGL support and thus anyone is now porting, if they haven't already and newcommers all use OpenGL. In fact all the CAD apps have been using OpenGL solely! All the big players and studios are using OpenGL now.
Now the real question is; What is Microsofts next move to stay in the game?
With the exception of the words 'iOS' and 'Android', this exact point has been made repeatedly over the last few years. Microsoft is already making its next move right now and humming right along.
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While true that this point has always been made, it is only recently other platforms are breaking through.
Welcome to todays world ;)
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Now is it relevant? Are you kidding me? In this day and age of all these platforms it is _THE_ library. Direct3D is only viable on Micrsoft platforms.
Android, Playstation3, Mac OS X, iOS, Linux, Windows. They all have OpenGL support and thus anyone is now porting, if they haven't already and newcommers all use OpenGL. In fact all the CAD apps have been using OpenGL solely! All the big players and studios are using OpenGL now.
Now the real question is; What is Microsofts next move to stay in the game?
Microsoft doesn't have to do anything, how many opengl games came out in the last years? I can think of wolfenstein, some indie games and then what? every other games is running on directx
opengl may be available on a lot of platforms but who cares it's not like you can port crysis from pc to an iphone in a day just because it's in opengl(I know it's not in opengl, it's just an example)
I'm not a game developer but I think that directx/opengl can easily be abstracted by the engine to use whatever is best on
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What do Windows games have to do with a cross platform graphics library? The question was "How relevant is OpenGL".
Furthermore the last couple of years a lot of big titles were OpenGL. There was also a large chunck of Direct3D games (because Direct3D isn't being used for anything besides games, just to point out how much it sucks) . That was because the Direct3D lib was then better than OpenGL.
I don't hope that I have to point out why OpenGL is killing it.
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This is a common misconception by gamers, that their niche hobby is actually relevant. Newsflash: it isn't. Yes yes, we all know how gamers go "I'D GO LUNIX IF ONLY IT HAD GAMEZZ", but even if games are ported, it wouldn't have much impact on the marketshare. The battle is elsewhere.
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opengl may be available on a lot of platforms but who cares it's not like you can port crysis from pc to an iphone in a day just because it's in opengl(I know it's not in opengl, it's just an example)
So, you install a brand new ATI/Nvidia card into your WinXP box. Want geometry shaders? Want tesselation? Want DX11 features on Vista? You're going to need to use OpenGL. The single biggest advantage that OpenGL has right now is windows support.
I'm not a game developer but I think that directx/opengl can easily be abstracted by the engine to use whatever is best on the platform it runs, something like Qt, and I think valve is doing that with the source engine right now
Correct. It's how most devs approach the problem. I for one have made a set of OpenGL classes that exactly mirror the D3D11 interface. It's really not hard to do. The only thing you have to worry about is porting shaders between HLSL/GLSL (which is actually trivial),
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Re:Is opengl relevant anymore? (Score:5, Funny)
That's just because it's on fire.
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Also consistently dominated by Nintendo.
NPD software sales for the top 10 for the first half of 2010.
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/npd-reveals-first-half-2010-bestsellers [next-gen.biz]
Looks like a lot of people are actually buying games for the Wii and probably playing them.
Wednesday (Score:2)
Or so Ars reports [arstechnica.com].
But games? Is anyone still doing games in OpenGL these days, apart from the rare port to Mac or Linux?
Re:Wednesday (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Wednesday (Score:5, Informative)
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And as far as graphics goes, WoW is a great example of OpenGL showing off the best that 2004 graphics technology can provide. I mean, you can't exactly call it visually stunning.
Not that this is the fault of OpenGL... just it's a very bad to use WoW as its torchbearer when Direct3D sports the CryEngine, for example.
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"C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\wow.exe" -opengl
No config file, btw.
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Wine is capable of translating DirectX to OpenGL in realtime, which is how you're able to play that in Linux.
You (and our omniscient mods) seem to have grossly misinterpreted my statement. I am well-aware of how Wine works.
Back when HL2 was released, Wine had horrid/non-existent support for Direct3D 8. So the two options to play HL2 via Wine was either play it in Dx7 mode (-dxlevel 70), or GL mode (-gl). I played it in GL mode since dxlevel 70 caused a crasher in Wine.
The source leak for HL2 also had a GL renderer in it, so they probably had it from the very beginning. However, it seems that Valve has since remove
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Actually, Id Software is the most prominent user of OpenGL technology. Doom 3, Quake, Rage (new game) are all OpenGL.
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All the effort seems to be in the locked down idevices.
Then games could not just be produced with the help of Macs but also played on them.
Yes Apple now has more uptodate games but the forums are filled with frame rate issues. Apple needs basic backend quality gpu code.
Re:Wednesday (Score:5, Interesting)
The flight simulator Il-2 has the choice of switching between OpenGL or Direct X. In fact, it is also written mostly in Java with much of the graphics in C++. This allowed it to be ported to the console in the form of Wings of Prey. The flexibility of OpenGL allowed this company to port easily, and made them money.
The flight simulator X-Plane (now taking the crown for civilian flight simulators since Microsoft has shut down the studio that produced the Flight Simulator line) uses OpenGL. It's creator says in an interview that the choice of OpenGL was the correct one since he was able to port his product to the iPhone in a matter of weeks. This meant he personally got around 3.5 million US dollars in revenue in around a month. OpenGL made sound business sense to him. Here's the interview with him if you are interested: http://techhaze.com/2010/03/interview-with-x-plane-creator-austin-meyer/ [techhaze.com]
If you want to make money on the iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix workstation visualization, embedded electronics such as FAA approved in-cockpit instruments etc then OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL didn't run on Windows then clearly it would be a bad choice, but the fact is OpenGL works well on Windows *and* just about every other platform too. This includes games.
DirectX may be just as good technically but the fact that it is not portable means it is a non-starter for many applications for both technical and commercial reasons.
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OpenGL works well... for the features it provides. Direct3D still has a larger feature set, as well as the added bonus of the other DirectX APIs.
There are cases where OpenGL makes sense, but if your target is Windows and you want features like Tesselation, it doesn't make any sense to cripple yourself for the sake of possible ports down the road.
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Ever heared of SDL?
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There are cases where OpenGL makes sense, but if your target is Windows and you want features like Tesselation, it doesn't make any sense to cripple yourself for the sake of possible ports down the road.
Get with the times lad! OpenGL 4.1 is now better featured than D3D11. Just thought you might like to know .....
FYI: Porting between one or the other API is trivial, just so long as you've wrapped the calls nicely.
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X-Plane is a fantastic piece of software, but I don't know how well it defends OpenGL's honour. The flight model implemented by Austin Meyer is the best ever created for a desktop flight simulator and his overall commitment to accuracy makes it a fantastic simulator. But it's not the prettiest in the world; by modern standards the graphics engine is quite dated. Blizzard is also widely credited for their use of OpenGL in WoW, but again, WoW's graphics are pathetic by modern standards.
For whatever reason the
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Blizzard is also widely credited for their use of OpenGL in WoW, but again, WoW's graphics are pathetic by modern standards.
And yet WoW isn't exactly a huge flop is it? Playability also counts for a lot in a game which proves that: Less-that-cutting-edge-graphics != lousy game. It would be nice if game developers would focus less on eye candy and a little more on playability/quality of content.
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by modern standards the graphics engine is quite dated.
Such a comment suggests its been a very, very long time since you last serious looked at X-Plane.
Look at YouTube and you can find lots of comparison videos. In most videos you can't tell MSFS from X-Plane. In some comparisons, X-Plane looks way better. In others, MSFS looks better. Regardless, "dated" is woefully wrong. Especially when you consider that X-Plane and MSFS are widely regarded as the most visually realistic FS available.
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Um, yes? OpenGL ES is the standard 3D API on mobile devices as well as the PS3. Even the Wii has an OpenGL-like API.
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Having said that, this whole debate about which API is more portable is just a touch silly. Unlike in years gone by, there really isn't much to choose from between any of the 3D graphics API's. They all work in more or less the same way, and all have more or less the same features. Writing a platform specific wrapper really is a fairly
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Having said that, this whole debate about which API is more portable is just a touch silly. Unlike in years gone by, there really isn't much to choose from between any of the 3D graphics API's. They all work in more or less the same way, and all have more or less the same features. Writing a platform specific wrapper really is a fairly trivial to do these days.....
How are you supposed to have a religious war if you bring some facts like that into it? Of course the API matters very little compared to the rest of the system, but when has that ever stopped Slashdotters going rabid over things?
Pick whatever API suits the platform you're targetting and run with it. Have to go cross-platform then use a different shim to the API of choice on that platform. Simple.
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Every time you lock a D3D11VertexBuffer, Steve Bullmer drowns a kitten! Use OpenGL, the only 3D graphics API recommended by Peta!
Re:Announced, but (Score:5, Interesting)
I assume AMD's graphics drivers have also been in development, in concert with the spec, for some time, and will be available soonish, albeit with the usual lag after Nvidia. As for the various embedded guys, hard for me to say. I'm sure that having OpenGL ES made a proper subset, as opposed to a somewhat different near-subset, will be attractive for mobile developers, since it will make desktop to phone/console/embedded and back portability easier; but I don't know whether the embedded graphics hardware that is out there now can be updated with just drivers, or whether some 4.0 features will require an upcoming generation of silicon.
As for games, the first tech demo/fanboy wank publicity stunt will probably be available about 15 minutes after the Nvidia drivers. Widespread use might be a while.
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AMD was faster with OpenGL 4.0, but lol.
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The drivers should be available in the next few days. As for the games, the vast majority of them are written for DX9 level graphics cards thanks to the dominance of consoles this generation, so you could say the same thing about DX11 games.
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My nVidia video card supports OpenGL 3.1 in Linux. I don't have a 4.0 capable card unfortunately, but yes, the drivers are out there.
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I don't think it's much of a problem. No GL developer doing serious work is going to be using a software implementation anyway. It's nice that Mesa is there as a backup, but it's certainly not the end of the world if it is several versions behind. The software implementation just isn't up t
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Yes, Mesa has a software implementation, but Mesa is a *lot* more than that. Most, if not all, open source drivers use Mesa/Gallium3D infrastructure, including nvidia/ati/intel open source drivers.
So yes, it is a problem even if you got the best graphics card on the market unless you use proprietary software. But staying open means staying with OpenGL 2.1 right now.
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Yes, Mesa has a software implementation, but Mesa is a *lot* more than that. Most, if not all, open source drivers use Mesa/Gallium3D infrastructure, including nvidia/ati/intel open source drivers. So yes, it is a problem even if you got the best graphics card on the market unless you use proprietary software. But staying open means staying with OpenGL 2.1 right now.
Honestly, if you're buying closed hardware, you might as well take the dive and download (for free) the closed software to support it. I don't see how, morally or ethically, one is any worse than the other. Drivers are just software glue to connect hardware to your OS. For all practical purposes, you should consider them to be an extension of the hardware, so long as the vendor maintains them responsibly (like NVidia does). FOSS has a very respectable value, but knowingly crippling your hardware for a devia
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``Honestly, if you're buying closed hardware, you might as well take the dive and download (for free) the closed software to support it.''
I would be hesitant to paint hardware and software with the same brush. For one thing, software has practically zero marginal cost, whereas there is a real cost to producing another unit of hardware. For another, hardware is largely an isolated piece of the system, which only interacts with the rest of the system through well-defined interfaces (at the hardware level, tha
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If only that were the case. Drivers, at least on Linux, basically have kernel-level access to the system, which makes them part of the trusted base. That does not combine well with not being able to inspect, much less modify the working of the driver. It could be full of (intentional or unintentional) security holes and other bugs you might never know. And even if you knew, you wouldn't be allowed to fix them. I am sure there are known cases of such security holes. And haven't Windows users been saying for a number of years now that the major cause of crashes on their OS is faulty drivers?
Except you completely misunderstand and misrepresent the situation.
In Linux, the "driver" part you mention is NOT the OpenGL stack. The driver is literally, just that. It provides for direct hardware access and memory management tailored for its workload; unlike the Windows situation which contained that plus the entire video driver. Worse, especially in ATI's case, there was no clear line of delineation which is one of the reasons ATI drivers used to be so crappy.
Whereas on Linux, the video driver is actua
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Ah, yes. In that case then, I'm still waiting for proper 3D acceleration. (I used to use an ATi card with the open source ATi drivers. They weren't THAT terrible, but still really slow).
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``Perhaps there would be better reception for all of these new OGL iterations if they saved up some worthwhile features before putting them into the spec, and just leave the new stuff as extensions until they have a nice upgrade to show.''
My understanding is that they used to do that, but got overtaken by Direct3D because people thought OpenGL was stagnant.
I agree with you, though. As long as it can be put in extensions, that is a nice way of advancing the capabilities of your system without polluting the c
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Perhaps there would be better reception for all of these new OGL iterations if they saved up some worthwhile features before putting them into the spec, and just leave the new stuff as extensions until they have a nice upgrade to show.
Features like a unified way of being able to load and save compiled shader objects? Features like setting multiple viewports for rendering (thus allowing you to dynamically render the 6 faces of a cube-map in a single render pass)? Features like multiple scissor rectangles? Features like the ability to create shader dlls (of sorts via glProgramPipeline)? Features like double precision shader support?
It's one of the most sane set of features I've seen in a point release for some time.... Sure they aren't
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I suppose there is no way to make such comparison now as almost nobody writes games which can run both.
Most studios who develop for consoles can.... Once you've added DX9 / DX10 / DX11 code paths, adding GL & libGCM really isn't that hard.
Nostalgia aside, from what I've been hearing from devs who had contact with DX and then picked up OGL, OGL API seems way more elegant and easier to deal with...
GL4.1 is a lot cleaner than OpenGL before 3.2 (which was a horror!), that much is true. However DX probably still pips it in terms of API cleanliness.
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You know, even if that was true, it would still be worth supporting it in order to prevent Direct3D being without competition.
Even if you're a hardcore Direct3D-only user, you still benefit from the competition between them.