Re: OGL portability and future delivery

nopa wrote:


Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
D3D 10 is being forced on customers and doesn't offer
anything OGL can't deliver. Thoughts?


Um, yes... but people aren't going to resist.

No surprise there. :)

I've taken a look and the driver argument is rubbish,
libraries like Havoc can provide GPU accelerated physics via
OGL, and everything else will be exposed via extensions.

Ah, well. At least the IHV's are keeping options open.

I think Apple can play an important role. If they decide to
support D3D on OSX, it could be a severe impact against OpenGL.

But Apple will never do this for 5 reasons:

1. MacOS X is a Unix based operating system (BSD Usertools, Mach
based Darwin Kernel). In it's concept DirectX is contrary to the
Unix philosophy KISS.
2. MacOS X GUI system QuartzExtreme is a Layer above OpenGL and
thus inherently coupled with it. Though not impossible I don't
see a reason why Apple should change the underlaying API for no
sensefull reason.
3. DirectX is no standardized API. It a propritary Microsoft
product, with one, and only one company (=Microsoft) dictating
it. There are no sample reference implementations avaliable, the
same goes for an exact specifiaction of the API, which changes
with every version.
4. Making heavily use of a certain API as an operating system
standard library underlying layer requires the API being stable.
OpenGL has proved to be stable for over 10 years (OpenGL 1.1
1996 IIRC)
5. DirectX 10 relies on the Windows Driver Model. Since MacOS
X != Windows, and Darwin although being a Microkernel has an
inherently different driver model than Windows any
Implementation of DirectX 10 would require massive changes in
the OS.

I don't understand what benefits does Microsoft get from D3D,
since it's a free download.

A propritary API they can use to dominate marketshare? Just think
about how many games can't be used by the Linux/BSD/Solaris
community properly due to Direct3D. Games using OpenGL, although
compiled and linked for Windows can be easily run with WINE,
which has nothing more to do than provide basic Win32 GDI
windowing and calling convention conversion of OpenGL calls.
DirectInput and DirectSound haven't changed since DirectX 7 and
are well reimplemented by WINE.

I think I'm going to develop my own graphics API, with one
driver for OpenGL and another driver for D3D, and be open for
developing new drivers whenever any other annoying company
decides to create a new stupid API, which will happen sooner or
later.

You're free to implement an OpenGL like API. Wait... this has
already been done and called Mesa. The problem is just, that the
HW vendors must provide you with either drivers for your API or
enough documentation that you can write drivers on your own.

Wolfgang Draxinger
--

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: OGL portability and future delivery
    ... However if a critical underlying API is changed this is a major ... implemented by wrapping a layer aroung OpenGL. ... And they will tell Apple about it, ... changing to DirectX would require a lot of work. ...
    (comp.graphics.api.opengl)
  • Re: OGL portability and future delivery
    ... DirectX is no standardized API. ... OpenGL has proved to be stable for over 10 years (OpenGL 1.1 ... DirectX 10 relies on the Windows Driver Model. ...
    (comp.graphics.api.opengl)
  • Re: please sign for not delete the opengl from next release of windows
    ... problems in a long haul for *windows* as platform considering driver ... OpenGL, Direct3D, GDI all in their drivers. ... Writing DirectX code is mostly extra complexity if their applications ... different API features. ...
    (comp.graphics.api.opengl)
  • Re: OGL portability and future delivery
    ... I've taken a look and the driver argument is rubbish, ... OpenGL, a robust API developed from the experiences of an earlier API, ... be much better without this annoying computer market. ...
    (comp.graphics.api.opengl)
  • Re: direct3d / openGL??
    ... people will choose OpenGL because it is available on non-Microsoft ... DirectX is built upon COM and OpenGL is built upon plain old C code. ... to call the OpenGL.dll API calls. ... aren't the first who tried to compare the two technologies. ...
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