Microsoft planning to drop native OpenGL support in Windows?
by Stefan Lundmark · in General Discussion · 08/06/2005 (10:37 am) · 50 replies
According to OpenGL.com Microsoft is planning to drop native OpenGL support from the Windows Vista platform.
What worries me is this:
and
What worries me is this:
Quote:
OpenGL performance will be significantly reduced - perhaps as much as 50%
and
Quote:
No extensions will be possible to expose future hardware innovations
About the author
#2
1) They own DirectX
2) They own Windows Vista
Since Vista is meant to be msft's answer to Apple's Sexy UI Goodness, they need to strongly, and quickly inovate in the area of graphics (Project Areo).
If they need to strongly support two graphics backends in parralell, both that do basically the same stuff, and one that they have no creative control over (OpenGL).. I think it is a very smart move to focus on DirectX, and include optimizations that route.
And dont start ranting about how msft is a monopolly. We all know that. I am talking from the technology standpoint.
Also, when you say OpenGL will be 50% slower.... I belive I know why. OpenGL wont be supported *AT ALL*... meaning that OpenGL will all be done via software emulation. That's just a guess, but an educated one.
08/06/2005 (12:50 pm)
I think it's a smart move. 1) They own DirectX
2) They own Windows Vista
Since Vista is meant to be msft's answer to Apple's Sexy UI Goodness, they need to strongly, and quickly inovate in the area of graphics (Project Areo).
If they need to strongly support two graphics backends in parralell, both that do basically the same stuff, and one that they have no creative control over (OpenGL).. I think it is a very smart move to focus on DirectX, and include optimizations that route.
And dont start ranting about how msft is a monopolly. We all know that. I am talking from the technology standpoint.
Also, when you say OpenGL will be 50% slower.... I belive I know why. OpenGL wont be supported *AT ALL*... meaning that OpenGL will all be done via software emulation. That's just a guess, but an educated one.
#3
08/06/2005 (1:04 pm)
Hmmm I'd like to hear an GarageGames employee's thoughts on the matter. I always run the graphics in OpenGL on my pc because it seems to be faster. I'm not going to upgrade to Vista if its going to cause support problems with the projects I'm working on.
#4
08/06/2005 (1:07 pm)
Microsoft owns the world - period. I am no API or OS fanboy (although I was upset when I had to abandon my Amiga for a PC in 1992 because I could not find engineering software that I needed for school at the time!), but OpenGL has been significantly lagging technologically behind DirectX now for a couple of years. Remember, APIs, OSs, and languages are all tools, not personal commitments! :)
#5
There is a reason why the newest Graphics cards are getting people excited when they announce native directx 9.1 support.
08/06/2005 (1:15 pm)
@Scott, i forgot about that reason.. but yeah, OpenGL is already far behind DirectX technologically.There is a reason why the newest Graphics cards are getting people excited when they announce native directx 9.1 support.
#6
Please check your sources before stating things like that.. it's not like it's the first time.
It's a problem because:
1. It will be slower, if it is written ontop of the DirectX layer.
2. Might cause sideeffects for O/S's or applications that require OpenGL.
Do you honestly think OpenGL drivers will be as much developed if Windows drops it from support? I don't.
08/06/2005 (2:52 pm)
@Matt:Quote:
Yeah. TGE and TSE support DirectX. Plus you can only achieve normal mapping through DirectX so far.
Please check your sources before stating things like that.. it's not like it's the first time.
Quote:
Why is that a problem? doesnt Torque support DirectX?
It's a problem because:
1. It will be slower, if it is written ontop of the DirectX layer.
2. Might cause sideeffects for O/S's or applications that require OpenGL.
Do you honestly think OpenGL drivers will be as much developed if Windows drops it from support? I don't.
#7
I think this is horrible, because i love OpenGL, and that means that the new Quake 4, and Enemy Territory: Enemy Territory will have problems. They are based on Doom 3, which is OGL Exclusive i believe. Frankly, i am looking forward to those games.
Also, how is Windows limiting their fanbase, and limiting technology a good thing. For those of you with ATI Cards, you probably wount have any problems, but i have an Nvidia card, and Nvidia favors OpenGL, and CG.
Maybe its time for Mac OSX to work on all PC's, or someone to make a 100% user-friendly linux distro, with wine integration?
08/06/2005 (4:46 pm)
Personally i love OGL. I like its ease of use when programming. People say DirectX is ahead of OpenGL? May I ask why you think this? If you think its because DirectX has audio support, and model support? Then might i point out OpenAL, and OpenML, part of the Open family. I think this is horrible, because i love OpenGL, and that means that the new Quake 4, and Enemy Territory: Enemy Territory will have problems. They are based on Doom 3, which is OGL Exclusive i believe. Frankly, i am looking forward to those games.
Also, how is Windows limiting their fanbase, and limiting technology a good thing. For those of you with ATI Cards, you probably wount have any problems, but i have an Nvidia card, and Nvidia favors OpenGL, and CG.
Maybe its time for Mac OSX to work on all PC's, or someone to make a 100% user-friendly linux distro, with wine integration?
#8
08/06/2005 (5:11 pm)
In regards to Doom 3, I don't know whether they had planned to release it exclusively for xbox in the beginning but it seems highly unlikely that they would decide to make it for the pc using opengl if they knew it would cause problems for the xbox release. The Doom 3 engine is OpenGL.
#9
Also from what I have read about Vista is you can go back to the Old XP style interface and get normal/current OpenGl performance. The poor performance that is being mentioned is the new GUI for Vista is DX10 based or something... from what I have read...
08/06/2005 (5:33 pm)
Shoot me now if my understanding is wrong (crash course in torque). doesn't Torque natively use OpenGL and convert all directx calls through OpenGL ones??? I am sure I remember seeing something like that somewhere. Also from what I have read about Vista is you can go back to the Old XP style interface and get normal/current OpenGl performance. The poor performance that is being mentioned is the new GUI for Vista is DX10 based or something... from what I have read...
#10
b) Don't forget Mircosoft's track record. Competition makes them work, otherwise they are lazy. For example, Internet Explorer. They effectively reassigned their development team on Internet Explorer to other projects when they thought there was no competition. Along comes Firefox and suddenly MS is talking about IE7.
If D3D takes over and kills OGL in the Game market, expect Microsoft to be lazy with their new-found monopoly and to cease any major investment in any 3D related sector that they can't force major $$$ out of. They'll focus on the XBox360 to the detriment of PC.
They'll leave hobbyist D3D features in the bottom draw and only do wha helps "corporate partners" etc.
At least OpenGL is just that, an OPEN GRAPHICS LIBRARY, So that benefits are accessible by everyone (including independant game devs) not just those with deep pockets.
Plus D3D doesn't run natively on Linux or Mac.
I used to like MS, but everytime they patent something like smileys or attempt to cripple open standards with IE or try and hurt OGL I like them less and less.
08/06/2005 (5:46 pm)
A) I don't see how OGL has been lagging behind D3D. Sure you had to use extensions to get shaders before OGL 2.0 but that isn't very hard. (Doom3 engine was around long before OGL 2.0)b) Don't forget Mircosoft's track record. Competition makes them work, otherwise they are lazy. For example, Internet Explorer. They effectively reassigned their development team on Internet Explorer to other projects when they thought there was no competition. Along comes Firefox and suddenly MS is talking about IE7.
If D3D takes over and kills OGL in the Game market, expect Microsoft to be lazy with their new-found monopoly and to cease any major investment in any 3D related sector that they can't force major $$$ out of. They'll focus on the XBox360 to the detriment of PC.
They'll leave hobbyist D3D features in the bottom draw and only do wha helps "corporate partners" etc.
At least OpenGL is just that, an OPEN GRAPHICS LIBRARY, So that benefits are accessible by everyone (including independant game devs) not just those with deep pockets.
Plus D3D doesn't run natively on Linux or Mac.
I used to like MS, but everytime they patent something like smileys or attempt to cripple open standards with IE or try and hurt OGL I like them less and less.
#11
Now, from sights on the poll's on Dev Master (last time i checked) people liked PS3 over XBox 360. Also, PS3 is gonna be OGL. What i'm saying is there may be some changes in the way ID Software does things, seeing as the PS3 is popular, is supposed to be a super computer, and replace computers, and uses OGL. If theres a big enough fan base, what would stop ID Software to going console, and telling MS to stick it? ID Software has always made things using OGL, or Software in the beginning from what i've seen. I'm not trying to start a war, i'm trying to show an example about how this is not in MS's Benefit. Atleast in my views, i could be wrong.
08/06/2005 (7:50 pm)
In reguards to roger, yes. However IE is clever, as seen in Quake 2, in a matter of weeks they could have a DX Wrapper in the engine. The point is the engine was designed around OGL, not DX. So even if its 1 FPS, there will more then likely be a performance drop. Reguarding XBox, it was a 2nd choice for ID Software i believe i read somewhere were they uses Xbox, because they didn't want to degrade the performance by using PS2. Now, from sights on the poll's on Dev Master (last time i checked) people liked PS3 over XBox 360. Also, PS3 is gonna be OGL. What i'm saying is there may be some changes in the way ID Software does things, seeing as the PS3 is popular, is supposed to be a super computer, and replace computers, and uses OGL. If theres a big enough fan base, what would stop ID Software to going console, and telling MS to stick it? ID Software has always made things using OGL, or Software in the beginning from what i've seen. I'm not trying to start a war, i'm trying to show an example about how this is not in MS's Benefit. Atleast in my views, i could be wrong.
#12
For my part, I don't care if MS kills GL in Windows. DX has always run faster with more support. A base install of WindowsXP can run a program that uses Direct3D 8, but not OpenGL. That's why we wrote TSE using the graphics layer, because it doesn't care what is underneith.
Now for the armchair programmers:
08/06/2005 (8:11 pm)
OGL is a piece of shit. It's interface is a pain in the ass, and there is currently no research in progress on it that really excites me at all. There is no "OpenGL 2.0", and there probably never will be. The ideal that was GL2 is pretty much gone and it was just decided, "Eh add on to GL 1.5 and make shaders," yeah that's wonderful, ARB, thanks. Hey BTW, can we render to texture in a reliable, cross-platform way yet? No? Ok great...we'll just keep on waiting for superbuffers or whatever may get supported in a year or so by the drivers. Here's something that may blow your mind, guys. There is no fixed function in modern cards...it's emulated via shaders. Here's something else that may blow your mind, the next generation won't have that fixed function at all. When you draw a 1px wide line, you draw it with a shader. I don't expect anything after Vista to have fixed function. For my part, I don't care if MS kills GL in Windows. DX has always run faster with more support. A base install of WindowsXP can run a program that uses Direct3D 8, but not OpenGL. That's why we wrote TSE using the graphics layer, because it doesn't care what is underneith.
Now for the armchair programmers:
Quote:Totally wrong. Normal mapping is a shader technique that can be done in OpenGL or DirectX.
Yeah. TGE and TSE support DirectX. Plus you can only achieve normal mapping through DirectX so far.
Quote:OpenAL is not an answer to DirectSound. OpenAL is an orphaned child that Loki gave birth to. Creative will occasionally pass a rasin down so that OpenAL doesn't starve to death, but that's about it; and nobody who is serious uses the .X file format. OpenGL is easy to use in immediate mode and that's it. If you want to do anything serious with it, it's a lot easier to use DirectX. You coulnd't use on-card vertex buffers in a way that was supported by all graphics cards until pretty recently, where as you could do that with DirectX8.1. Furthermore there are about 5 ways to draw a triangle in OpenGL, and all of them suck except for one. In Direct3D there is one way, and it is the best way. Make a vertex buffer, and draw it. (Unless you count DrawPrimitiveUP, which says right in the documentation that it is slow.)
Personally i love OGL. I like its ease of use when programming. People say DirectX is ahead of OpenGL? May I ask why you think this? If you think its because DirectX has audio support, and model support? Then might i point out OpenAL, and OpenML, part of the Open family.
#13
08/06/2005 (9:05 pm)
Heh, I can't tell if you're being serious, or seriously sarcastic, Pat. :)
#14
Is it a safe bet that T2D and TGE will eventually get some of TSE's Graphics API agnosticism (if that's what is is?) I vaguely recall a thread where someone's T2D or TGE game would not launch on a video card that mas missing OpenGL, even though DX was supported (it should have been able to play in DX mode). Seems like missing OpenGL could cause problems?
08/06/2005 (10:07 pm)
Quote:That's why we wrote TSE using the graphics layer, because it doesn't care what is underneith.
Is it a safe bet that T2D and TGE will eventually get some of TSE's Graphics API agnosticism (if that's what is is?) I vaguely recall a thread where someone's T2D or TGE game would not launch on a video card that mas missing OpenGL, even though DX was supported (it should have been able to play in DX mode). Seems like missing OpenGL could cause problems?
#15
@Pat, thanks for keeping it clean and objective.
And what about the fact the majority of GG sales are Mac and as far as I know there is no DirectX for Mac?
As an employee doesn't that worry you?
08/07/2005 (1:35 am)
Quote:OGL is a piece of shit.
@Pat, thanks for keeping it clean and objective.
And what about the fact the majority of GG sales are Mac and as far as I know there is no DirectX for Mac?
As an employee doesn't that worry you?
#16
And OpenGL will not die with this.
"There is no "OpenGL 2.0", and there probably never will be."
What the hell are you talking about ?
What are they using in the PS3 ? Maybe Opengl 2.0 ?
"Hey BTW, can we render to texture in a reliable, cross-platform way yet? No? Ok great"
Weird, i can do that for a long time now.. Your heard of p-buffers yet ?
"There is no fixed function in modern cards...it's emulated via shaders. "
And what's the problem with that ?
Instead of having a fixed function and a shader function in the drivers, all goes trough the same path.
"OpenAL is an orphaned child that "
And OpenAL is so bad, so horrible that is used in the Unreal Engines, yes, the orphaned childs of Epic.
Besides, OpenAL has nothing to do with OpenGL, OpenGL can only be compared to Direct3D.
DirectX is a major piece of crap to the developer, allways changing how the things work, people need to be messing in manuals each time a new version is released.
At least in OpenGL we can use the same functions that were used 10 years ago, and use the extensions to get the modern functionalitys, i quite like this system.
I'm pretty sure that TSE works with the current version of DirectX, but hipotethically, lets supose garagegames closes, and in the meantime DirectX moves to Directx11 , what happens to the people that bought TSE ?
Can you guarantee they won't need to change the code in TSE to be able to recompile for DX11 ?
You cannot, because MS is allways changing things, and not making them backward compability (developer wise).
In OGL you are pretty sure that no change in code is needed.
08/07/2005 (2:27 am)
Well, DirectX is a major piece of shit.And OpenGL will not die with this.
"There is no "OpenGL 2.0", and there probably never will be."
What the hell are you talking about ?
What are they using in the PS3 ? Maybe Opengl 2.0 ?
"Hey BTW, can we render to texture in a reliable, cross-platform way yet? No? Ok great"
Weird, i can do that for a long time now.. Your heard of p-buffers yet ?
"There is no fixed function in modern cards...it's emulated via shaders. "
And what's the problem with that ?
Instead of having a fixed function and a shader function in the drivers, all goes trough the same path.
"OpenAL is an orphaned child that "
And OpenAL is so bad, so horrible that is used in the Unreal Engines, yes, the orphaned childs of Epic.
Besides, OpenAL has nothing to do with OpenGL, OpenGL can only be compared to Direct3D.
DirectX is a major piece of crap to the developer, allways changing how the things work, people need to be messing in manuals each time a new version is released.
At least in OpenGL we can use the same functions that were used 10 years ago, and use the extensions to get the modern functionalitys, i quite like this system.
I'm pretty sure that TSE works with the current version of DirectX, but hipotethically, lets supose garagegames closes, and in the meantime DirectX moves to Directx11 , what happens to the people that bought TSE ?
Can you guarantee they won't need to change the code in TSE to be able to recompile for DX11 ?
You cannot, because MS is allways changing things, and not making them backward compability (developer wise).
In OGL you are pretty sure that no change in code is needed.
#17
08/07/2005 (3:11 am)
Roar! 
#18
pick your camp and arm yourselves...
religious fanatics take a back seat for a few minutes...
--Mike
08/07/2005 (7:06 am)
Here we gooooooooooooooooo...pick your camp and arm yourselves...
religious fanatics take a back seat for a few minutes...
--Mike
#19
No need to turn this into something that it ain't.
Those are pretty fair arguments.
Myself, I like to have alternatives.. and I find it easier to program with OpenGL than with Direct3D, honestly.
08/07/2005 (7:08 am)
@Michael:No need to turn this into something that it ain't.
Those are pretty fair arguments.
Myself, I like to have alternatives.. and I find it easier to program with OpenGL than with Direct3D, honestly.
#20
meee!!!!
me turning it into something it aint?!?!?!
hahahahaaa... read up a few lines Stef...
if anything, i'm trying to add a lil
humor, and a wee bit of perspective to what has obviously gone
far left (or right) of what it should've been...
don't single me out for putting up a mirror in front of everyone so
that they can see what they really look like...
or maybe you think that comments like...
to be honest, i was a bit taken back seeing this coming from some of the people who i considered to be leagues above this sort of stuff...
now, you're out to lecture me... an observer, who's only 'crime' is that he chooses to try and add a lil level headedness and humor to this brewing food fight in an attempt to calm things down a bit...
right...
get a grip Stef... this has already started down the road to being something that it aint... without my help... before i even came into the scene...
so far, all i see is a lot todo about something which has yet to be confirmed nor denied...
--Mike
08/07/2005 (7:57 am)
@Stefan...meee!!!!
me turning it into something it aint?!?!?!
hahahahaaa... read up a few lines Stef...
if anything, i'm trying to add a lil
humor, and a wee bit of perspective to what has obviously gone
far left (or right) of what it should've been...
don't single me out for putting up a mirror in front of everyone so
that they can see what they really look like...
or maybe you think that comments like...
Quote:OGL is a piece of shit.
Quote:Well, DirectX is a major piece of shit.pand your lil authoritative lecturing to Matt...
Quote:Please check your sources before stating things like that.. it's not like it's the first time.... are snippets of what the world should see as beeing pretty fair arguements.
to be honest, i was a bit taken back seeing this coming from some of the people who i considered to be leagues above this sort of stuff...
now, you're out to lecture me... an observer, who's only 'crime' is that he chooses to try and add a lil level headedness and humor to this brewing food fight in an attempt to calm things down a bit...
right...
get a grip Stef... this has already started down the road to being something that it aint... without my help... before i even came into the scene...
so far, all i see is a lot todo about something which has yet to be confirmed nor denied...
--Mike
Torque Owner Jason Swearingen