OpenGL 3 Updates

[LogicalError]

Well that's that then. Goodbye OpenGL.
I'm going to install vista so i can use d3d10.
Really feel sorry for you linux folks, you got the worst side of the deal.
sigh.

[H. Guijt]

Tsuraan, can you enumerate what functionality you're looking for that isn't currently covered ?

I'm not Tsuraan, but I was under the impression that we would get an API that would be easier to use, easier to write drivers for, and easier to get good performance out of. For all these things it is CRITICAL that the size of the API be reduced.

This has not happened: we get the same old API plus a whole bunch of new extensions. Developing for OpenGL is therefore still as much a minefield as before, with availability of features, and performance thereof, essentially completely unpredictable from system to system. So the major failure, here, is not that new features are missing; it is that old features have too much unpredictability built in.

A secondary failure is the complete loss of trust incurred by Khronos, after delivering so little after so much time. Nothing you say will now make any difference now; your credibility has evaporated. What does it matter if a shiny new API will be available in a year? We will all be programming DirectX 11 by then, and think of OpenGL as "that cool thing that could have made a difference if only it had been handled a bit better".

I haven't posted on this forum before (but I lurked for a very long time), but honestly, that the ARB couldn't see this coming and therefore has to ask questions like yours is beyond my ability to understand...

[Zengar]

Amen!

[dor00]

Well that's that then. Goodbye OpenGL.
I'm going to install vista so i can use d3d10.
Really feel sorry for you linux folks, you got the worst side of the deal.
sigh.

Indeed.. an idea come in my mind right know, who win here...

[bobvodka]

We will all be programming DirectX 11 by then

I was at GameFest2008 in London last wednesday, I've seen whats coming with DX11 and even the DX10/10.1 cards get an improvement with free thread functions for resource creation and secondary rendering threads to create display list for play back. It looks nice and I'm considering skipping DX10 and programming to the DX11 model when the beta/preview SDK hits in november.

Yes, that's right, November this year.

[HAL-10K]

Please calm down. I really understand CAD-like companies. Making new API with no backward compatibility would brake it all.

No. Why do you think that?
You could still use drivers written against the old API spec.
I think that IHVs would continue driver support for quite some time even for future hardware.

Software that is developing too slowly to be able to switch to a new API is usually no subject to a fast pace of new hardware anyway.

It would be easier for them to go to DX10 now instead of waiting for and implementing OpenGL3.0.

Certainly no argument to fall behind even more after all these years.

If you are writing small apps or games, go to DX.

I hope Apple is celebrating to destroy their chance to be a part of a multi-billion dollar market!
(What were they expecting with such a minimalistic presence at the board?!)

[H. Guijt]

Ok, I need to moderate my previous reply a little because I was a bit too harsh. Section E.1 indeed removes a lot of cruft, although maybe not enough.

I'd like to point out that the specification is still in dire need of a rewrite: it goes to considerable length to describe features (line stippling, just to name one example) that are already marked as deprecated. That's unhelpful, and no doubt part of the reason for the heat in this forum today.

And was I really wrong to expect OpenGL 3.0 to start with a list of zero extensions? I.e. just a core specification, completely cleaned of all the cruft, and without any need for any vendor-specific stuff?

On a more personal note, I notice that chapter E.1 could be restated as "every single OpenGL feature as used by H. Guijt in any of the work he did with OpenGL in the last four years." Apparently I have a knack for finding the API paths that are the worst possible choice. This is NOT a complaint that you are removing "all my functions" though, but rather a complaint that somehow none of the documentation that I read (the red book, mostly) told me that I was on the wrong path. Same as my complaint above, then: the specs guide you down the wrong paths.

A final question: will we be getting include files where we can turn deprecated features off completely using some #define? Because that would be extremely useful - assuming there is still anyone left using OpenGL after today, of course.

[LogicalError]

If i would've gone to Siggraph this year, I'd go the OpenGL BOF just to BOO at them, and then leave.

[Timothy Farrar]

IMO, a few of you might want to take a few moments to get control of your emotions and look at this from a more objective and logical perspective.

GL3 is a better match for current hardware, GL3 has much of DX10 level functionality. Vendors most likely on board with providing fully functional GL3 drivers (NVidia drivers in September right?, don't know about the other vendors, but I'm sure this will be public soon). I think this is great news.

Functionality wise there are some rather awesome improvements here,
* integer support
* interpolation control
* precision qualifiers for older hardware
* the invariant qualifier
* deprecated fixed function support
* array texture support
* texel fetch (integer coordinates)
* sRGB support!
* 10/11-bit floating point support
* conditional rendering
* fine control of buffer sub-regions

Personally I could care less what the API looks like as long as it is fast, it supports the hardware features, and all vendors actually provide drivers.

[Leadwerks]

I don't even understand what most of those features mean. Am I just stupid? I don't know, I only wrote an engine with OpenGL, maybe I am not that smart.

Conditional rendering is useless for instanced rendering. Since I am already using queries, and the NV extensions was already available and I haven't bothered with it, I doubt I will.

I don't understand why CAD companies blocked this. If they don't want to improve their software, why not just keeping using OpenGL 2.1?

I don't think developing for DX11 is smart when only about 15% of computers are using Vista. I'll just keep using OpenGL 2.1 and hope that Intel comes up with something more open-ended with Larabee.