Re: Is Direct3D a rip-off of OpenGL?

fungus <umailMY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> loquated like no one had ever loquated
before with:

> WTH wrote:
>> Inaccurate flame-bait...
>
> <pttttt>
>
> This is well documented, eg.:
>
> http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/3d.html

Holy schnikes batman, a link on the internet? Then it must be true...

>> Ditto, funny, nobody held a gun to anyone's head to use it. Poor id
>> Software, their development was set back years by DirectX. LOL.
>>
>
> See above.

Ibidem

>>> , rewrote code
>>> on every generation
>>
>>
>> Ditto, only if you wanted to use new features available in the
>> migrated interface.
>>
>
> And you wouldn't want to do this?

Oh, I see, if you want to use new features in OpenGL you don't have to write
any code. Brilliant.
Next you'll pedantically reply with "rewrote code", there's certainly no
reason why anyone would have to rewrite their code to move a rendering
system from DX5 to DX9. Maybe if you spend your time writing demos and
'programming' instead of 'software engineering' you would, but then the
problem is you, not the API. You can have the same problem in OpenGL.

>>> Long term maintenance of
>>> Direct3D-based products would be a nightmare.
>>
>> Ditto, why?
>
> Because you wanted to use those new features you
> just mentioned...? Are you proposing to mix
> Direct3D interfaces all over the program?

What you've just said makes no sense at all. I wanted to use HLSL in a
rendering system a company paid me to write for them just a year ago, I only
ended up billing them about 16 hours for updating the rendering engine in
order to move from one DX interface to the latest and greatest and
simultaneously move the programmable pipeline code to hook to HLSL. You
really need to stop pretending you know anything about DirectX because you
quite obviously do not.

>> I wonder why so many game companies, today, are so ridiculously
>> stupid as to nearly all write DirectX rendering paths?
>
> We've been through all this before:
>
> Games companies are different.

Different than who? This is an OpenGL forum. OpenGL is used to make games.
DirectX is used to make games. OpenGL is used to render in real-time in
modeling systems. DirectX is used to render in real-time in modeling
systems. OpenGL is used in rendering scientific data. DirectX is used to
render scientific data. OpenGL is used to render across platforms. DirectX
is not.

> Games companies
> work to specific time frames and need to plan
> on having specific API/graphics card features
> which will be available at Xmas two years from
> now. Microsoft works with everybody involved
> to achieve this.

Funny, several prominent game companies provide paths through both D3D and
OpenGL. Sort of shoots a hole in that theory of yours.

>>> So is Betamax...and any
>>> number of other products which were lost due to
>>> better marketing and ordinary consumers who chose
>>> the market-leading product over technical specs.
>>
>> Yeah, consumers of games bought their games because they said
>> Direct3D on the side. That's why. LOL.
>>
>
> Huh? We were discussing Windows, not OpenGL.

I guess you missed the point.

>>>> It seems to me that the SGI/Microsoft Fahrenheit project was a scam
>>>> by Microsoft to steal OpenGL's superior methods, combined with
>>>> Microsoft dropping OpenGL support to a bare minimum.
>>>>
>>
>> A scam to keep what open 3D API from coming to market?
>
> Ummm... one called "Fahrenheit".

Why would Microsoft partner an initiative with SGI to produce an API that
was to be "open" (your attribution), when SGI already had an "open" API that
was released to the public? I know two people who worked obliquely with
SGI's side of Faehrenheit and what they tell me is that it basically starved
to death because they couldn't offer anything that anybody wanted that they
couldn't already find in OGL/D3D.

>> Better advice, graphics APIs are toolboxes, just like operating
>> systems. Don't worship one over the other, learn them both (hell,
>> learn to rasterize your own 3D graphics as well.)
>>
>
> Except that "choosing" is about to get more difficult.
> If you use OpenGL and you're short-changing your
> Windows users. I'm sure that many people will go to
> Direct3D because of this.

Why? Are you one of those conspiracy theorists who thinks that OpenGL will
not run on Windows "vista"? LOL.

WTH


.

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