Game Development Community

OpenGL 3.0?

by Tyler Slabinski · in General Discussion · 08/28/2008 (8:22 am) · 3 replies

I went to the OpenGL page and found this link. It says something about OpenGL 3 coming out... What does that mean for Torque? Could it give the game engine(s) new possibilities? Would there need to be a complete rewrite of the game engine(s)?

Discuss.
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Associate Tom Spilman
Sickhead Games
#1
08/28/2008 (3:04 pm)
I'm no OGL expert, but it seems many people in the OGL community are upset about 3.0.

It was originally explained to be a major rewrite of the API to better fit how modern 3D hardware works. This would mean less use of ARB extensions and hacks to get basic features that D3D users have had for years. When it turned out to not be that major rewrite people flipped out.

So since OpenGL 3 isn't that major rewrite as promised it doesn't affect Torque.

Torque 3D Owner Pat Wilson
#2
08/28/2008 (3:13 pm)
If OpenGL 3 results in Macs being able to use real render targets, I'll be happy.

What people fail to realize is that OpenGL is a spec, and nothing more. It is entirely up to the driver implementers to deliver on the spec. In the case of Mac OpenGL, you can render to any render-target format. Just as long as it's R8G8B8A8.

This spec has brought GL closer to being relevant in the world of graphics programming. The real issue is that nobody cares how it runs on Windows on nVidia cards. If the driver implementations for Apple are garbage, than it's another useless API revision. Anyone shipping a game, on Windows, has wisely moved to DirectX.

Associate Alex Scarborough
#3
08/28/2008 (3:28 pm)
Quote:What people fail to realize is that OpenGL is a spec, and nothing more. It is entirely up to the driver implementers to deliver on the spec. In the case of Mac OpenGL, you can render to any render-target format. Just as long as it's R8G8B8A8.
And only sometimes. For example, if it's a cubemap face and you're on the GMA X3100 you shouldn't do it too frequently for too long, otherwise it'll kernel panic. Woo!

Regardless, no, GL3 will not have any impact on our currently shipping engines, and it wouldn't have mattered if it had been a complete rewrite. Until an implementation which supports a forward-compatible context is delivered it's just another 500 page pdf to put yourself to sleep reading through.