[jr2]

Microsoft blocked over many years the work in it, slow it really down and tried many Years that OpenGL and Direct3D melt together.
so there was a lot of work that doesnt done and OpenGL doesnt have Support out of the Box so many feature like Direct 3D.
after the left of Microsoft the committee, now its going on and the most people hope, that OpenGL will catch up what it miss.

Ah, so M$ tried to assimilate OGL, and stalled them until they got behind, then left?  Sounds like M$ to me...  How many people are aware the Windows v. 1.0 didn't actually work, and was released as a demo only to keep ppl from going with one of 2 other OSes in development?

[Nuke]

well take a look at all the other gui based oses at the time. mac os and risc os, both of which predate windows and have just as much if not better functionality as 3.1. microsoft had to spend some time sucking dicks at ibm to gain the capitol nessisary to become the evil empire they are today. it could have happened to anybody. so i dont much give microsoft much credit for creating the revolution or bringing computers to the masses. the revolution was full on and i dont think anyone coulda stopped it, and mac os is far superior in terms of ease of use, better suited for said masses. microsoft was just greedy enough to suck up all the profits with a less than fair buisness model. as they say, **** floats.

[Flaser]

Actually OpenGL is nowhere in danger of "extinction" perse, it's merly not in such a dominant alpha male position in gaming as Direct3D is.

Leave gaming (scientific, opensource, industrial ect. community) and the situation is reversed - or in that area OpenGL could be thought of the the sole contender.

[castor]

How could OGL even die? Unless everything else but Windows goes extinct...

[Nuke]

if apple would sell operating systems rather than computers, they would be killing microsoft. but i guess theyre too happy selling ipods.

[Mehrpack]

hi,
i dont think that openGL will die, but i think its possible that in for gaming will in the next years die, but i do not hope it.
if we will one day break the monopoly of microsoft we need another APIs for games they are open to many systems like OpenGL.
but in the moment the last great game engine they used OpenGL on windows is the doom3 engine, imho, and as far i can me remember john carmack, the boss and chief developer of id, said that he will use in his next engine D3D.
so maybe in some years thier's no great commerical games/engines that use OpenGL and the driver support of Nvidia and ATI is aligned to the great games and engines.

so i see there the problem, i think its possible that under windows the support for driver for games that use OpenGL will drop in some years, maybe.
in the professionell software area not, only games, but Nvidia and ATI have for thier graficcards seperated series with seperated drivers.

but i think in the moment hold the old D3D code FSO to much on and i think to its the right decision to disable D3D in the next build.
but imho we should think about another solution and dont forget D3D completly.
maybe an wrapper in FSO is a good idea, that translate the OpenGL instructions of the engine to D3D instruchtions.
i dont know how complex so wrapper for so a problem is, but maybe its eaiser to update and fixed as a completly second API with own functions in the engine.

Mehrpack

[DaBrain]

the boss and chief developer of id, said that he will use in his next engine D3D.

Well, thare are already some pictures of it... on a Mac. So it just be OpenGL again.

EA also seems to be pretty interested in the Mac OS market. I guess we'll see more OpenGL games from now on.

OpenGL also allows you to use SM 4.0 on Windows XP systems.

I don't think there will be a lot of OpenGL games from now on, but I guess there will be at leat some more.

[Mehrpack]

Well, thare are already some pictures of it... on a Mac. So it just be OpenGL again.

EA also seems to be pretty interested in the Mac OS market. I guess we'll see more OpenGL games from now on.

OpenGL also allows you to use SM 4.0 on Windows XP systems.

I don't think there will be a lot of OpenGL games from now on, but I guess there will be at leat some more.

hi,
yeah your right, i forgat that, that the demo run on a mac.
but that doesnt mean that its an nativ OpenGL game.
that do me now a little bit confused, because this accountment of carmack.

maybe he chance his minds, i hope so, but im finaly not sure and if he will use both API in his next engine then maybe only ID games.
its possible that other games, which use the engine, only use D3D and disable OpenGL.
i hope not, but sadly its possible.

yep i know thats OpenGL alow to use SM 4.0 hardware features over the vendor caps under WinXP, the question is: will use the developer that?
im not so really sure, because it need time to programm the new features in the engine and the vendor caps not so liked by the developer.
a SM 2.0/3.0 fallback, i think, is for the most developer enough, because the most engines today had implant a SM 2.0/3.0 renderer.

i hope so that we will see more games they support OpenGL and bringt 4.0 effects to WinXP but i cant believed it really.

to EA: they has in the past often port thier games to Mac, the total "The Sims" serie is available for Mac, but under Windows still only D3D available.
so i dont think that EA do make thier new games so that you can choise D3D or OpenGL under windows.

i dont will paint the devil on the wall and maybe i see it a little bit to dark, but i think thats a realistic point of view on the situtation momentarily.

Mehrpack

[jr2]

if apple would sell operating systems rather than computers, they would be killing microsoft. but i guess theyre too happy selling ipods.

Well, let's not forget that IIRC, you have to be Mac - approved to even write programs for their computers, and also, that it is illegal to run Mac OS on a non-Mac computer, or another OS on a Mac computer.  Again, this is IIRC.  So if Mac had taken Windows' role, we'd probably be worse off, right?

[blackhole]

'sall perspective.

[Mr_Maniac]

or another OS on a Mac computer.  Again, this is IIRC.

I don't know if it once WAS like this, but now, Apple itself offers "bootcamp" for Intel-Macs. And Bootcamp allows you to install and boot WindowsXP+Vista (IIRC, too ) on the Mac. It contains the Mac-Drivers and some other stuff...

For the whole OpenGL-Topic:
Isn't blizzard offering OpenGL even in Windows? At last WarCraft 3 had a command-line-switch that enabled the OpenGL-Renderer. And I think that I read something like this about WoW... But I might be wrong here...
Oh... And the Unreal-Series at least DID have OpenGL-Support. But I don't know if UT 3 will have it.
AND nVidia itself is using OpenGL for most of it's Tech-Demos. AFAIK, only ONE Demo is using Direct3D right now.
Direct3D is the most used API for games (IMHO unfortunately ...well... at least for DirectX10) and I think that it will stay like this, but I don't think that OpenGL won't be used anymore.
Oh yeah... And don't forget that most of the Modelling-Programs (Blender, TrueSpace, 3DStudio etc.) are using OpenGL!
I think that OpenGL is still "strong enough" that it will still getting driver-support from nVidia and ATI

[wolf]

How do big commercial projects like Doom 3 or Unreal Tournament 2004 (2007?) do it? Do they use D3D for Windows (DX10 left beside now of course ...) and OpenGL for the rest?

Doom 3 only has OpenGL support. UT has D3D, OpenGL and software renderers.

so there was a lot of work that doesnt done and OpenGL doesnt have Support out of the Box so many feature like Direct 3D.
after the left of Microsoft the committee, now its going on and the most people hope, that OpenGL will catch up what it miss.

OpenGL core may have been stagnant for some time, but all the features were available as extensions. There's no catching up to be done.

the next thing is, that writing the code/functions with Direct 3D is easier compared with OpenGL

Prove it.

the only thing that i see for FSO is, that maybe i the future, if OpenGL doesnt have a revial, the manufacturer of graficcards maybe someday will drop thiere support for OpenGL in the driver for gamecards.

3D is not only for games and not only for windows, so this won't happen.

[blackhole]

the next thing is, that writing the code/functions with Direct 3D is easier compared with OpenGL

Prove it.

He's 50% right and 50% wrong. Coding openGL is much harder if you started out in directX. Coding directX is much harder if you started out in openGL. The reason this is significant is that by "much harder" i really mean "much harder." openGL takes a completely different approach on how to handle things that directX does (directX is more object oriented).

[Grizzly]

I like the disortion effect, Mabye its more nice if we could get an actual in game picture . Reminds me of the "Heat" disortion effect in Empire at War...

On the discussion of OpenGL or direct3d.

This is Freespace OPEN-Source
OpenGL is AFAIK also OPEN-source.

[blackhole]

I've made both an HLSL and a GLSL version of the shader. As soon as the SCP team puts in a shader system i can implement it.

[Mehrpack]

Doom 3 only has OpenGL support. UT has D3D, OpenGL and software renderers.

hi,
how old is UT? very old, based on the first Unreal engine and they had support for 3DFx too, imho they was released around 1999.

OpenGL core may have been stagnant for some time, but all the features were available as extensions. There's no catching up to be done.

yeah i know, but you have for the most features to programm for 2 or more graficcards, because they have thiere own extensions.
so if you want to full support functions, they are not in the core, thats a lot of work and carmark wasnt really happy about this, as he programm the doom 3 engine.

Prove it.

please qoute me full, and doesnt cut the half off.
i said:

the next thing is, that writing the code/functions with Direct 3D is easier compared with OpenGL, but im not a programmer and i cant say it excatly.

i had heard it of people that its eaiser, they i trust, but im not a programmer and in this things its often more a personal thing, some one like a programming launguge and said its easy, other person hate it and said its crap.
the true is somewhere in the middle.

3D is not only for games and not only for windows, so this won't happen.

again: it know that OpenGL is used in a lot of professionell programms, but i talk here about the support in the driver for cards they used for gaming!
and the driver for gaming is total different to driver they used for the professionells programms like CAD or rendering.

i doesnt said thats OpenGL itsself will die, i only said, thats is possible that, because games maybe will not use in the future OpenGL anymore, that the driver support for gaming cards will drop by the Nvidia, ATI and co.

ATI and Nvidia today often optimize and fixed bugs in theire drivers only for new, great and often used games, with old D3D games you have sometimes many trouble too (try to play today with a ATI driver above 6.8 Gothic2, its will crash), because they dont fix the bugs, why to few people play this old games.
and if there no new games they use OpenGL as API under windows, i think they will someday drop it, lately if windows switch the driver modell again, like of windows XP to Vista.


i dont wish OpenGL the death or something, or that FSO hold on the old D3D implantation.
i will only want to encourage about so a possible problem and to think about possible solutions.

Mehrpack

[blackhole]

Well, again, i'd be willing to implement DX9, but i'd run out of time and i'd have to stop working on it, and theres not much point in that.

[Mr_Maniac]

hi,
how old is UT? very old, based on the first Unreal engine and they had support for 3DFx too, imho they was released around 1999.

The FIRST UT IS old... But ALL UT-Series had OpenGL! Even UT2004!

i had heard it of people that its eaiser, they i trust

And I heard that OpenGL is easier

, but im not a programmer and in this things its often more a personal thing, some one like a programming launguge and said its easy, other person hate it and said its crap.
the true is somewhere in the middle.

ACK.

again: it know that OpenGL is used in a lot of professionell programms, but i talk here about the support in the driver for cards they used for gaming!
and the driver for gaming is total different to driver they used for the professionells programms like CAD or rendering.

Oh... So gamers don't use Modelling-Programs? So the FSO-People that made the High-Poly Models are all professional CAD-Users or something like this?
Believe me. There are ENOUGH Programs that are relevant for gamers that use OpenGL! And there STILL are enough OpenGL-Games. And, by the way, the Quadro-Drivers are only slightly modified "normal" nVidia-Drivers, AFAIK.

i doesnt said thats OpenGL itsself will die, i only said, thats is possible that, because games maybe will not use in the future OpenGL anymore, that the driver support for gaming cards will drop by the Nvidia, ATI and co.

Well... I can't agree with that... As I said: There are enough programs and games that are using OpenGL. And I think that these WILL be further used/developed in the future.

ATI and Nvidia today often optimize and fixed bugs in theire drivers only for new, great and often used games, with old D3D games you have sometimes many trouble too (try to play today with a ATI driver above 6.8 Gothic2, its will crash), because they dont fix the bugs, why to few people play this old games.
and if there no new games they use OpenGL as API under windows, i think they will someday drop it, lately if windows switch the driver modell again, like of windows XP to Vista.

Again, I can't agree... I don't know if ATI cares about "old games" and OpenGL... But at least nVidia should. And there are ENOUGH gamers that want to play "old" games. Old AND new games. And I don't think that they're only a few people...

i dont wish OpenGL the death or something, or that FSO hold on the old D3D implantation.
i will only want to encourage about so a possible problem and to think about possible solutions.

Well... I don't see this problem. At least not in the "near future".

[Flaser]

I like the disortion effect, Mabye its more nice if we could get an actual in game picture . Reminds me of the "Heat" disortion effect in Empire at War...

On the discussion of OpenGL or direct3d.

This is Freespace OPEN-Source
OpenGL is AFAIK also OPEN-source.

Not entierly accurate, though it's a common mistake.
Freespace code is open, in the regard that it was released, can be read; parsed; and even used for a limited number of purposes.

It isn't open in the opensource / open software way.
Namely we can't use GPLd stuff.

OpenGL isn't GPLd though.

[eaterofpies]

The latest Unreal engine is also supposed to have support for OpenGL as they are supposed to be providing mod tools and a game binaries that run under linux.

Its also supposed to run on the PS3 which I runs OpenGL(Cant remember where I read that though sorry) but Microsoft arent likely to have licensed D3D to them.