You haven't missed anything.
You haven't missed anything.
Thanks, HexCat. I kind of figured that since the newsletter is still "Spring 2007". Too bad though, I would love to hear something official.
Anyway, better a well thought through API than something simply slapped together. Like an API with *cough* very long datatype (API NAME_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC) descriptors and half asses backwards compatibility.
While true it's been six months since 'almost ready' and no word, and as much as you might dislike D3D you can't argue with results; DX9 is used all over the place by major developers on the PC. Sure, it might change but apprently the docs, examples and such are enough to keep people with it.
Stability is nice, but change too slow and people move on.
I definitely agree. Yet the way the API is constructed is horrible in my opinion. And I think that OpenGL would be in real trouble if MS would do a total naming convention conversion for the next D3D release.
But looking at the WINAPI, this will never happen.
Maybe not that sad.Originally Posted by dor00
Hmm.. thats sadly..
OpenGL 3 will live in the jokes.
Maybe it's better than just being forgotten or living as a ghost in the subconscious of the minds of graphics programmers, which will use Direct3D for the foreseeable future.
Philipp
Do you honestly believe that? There are two platforms supporting Direct3D, namely: Windows and Xbox. Unless all graphics programmers switch over to a Microsoft platform this will never happen. It would mean a total abandonment of SGI workstations, Linux, Unixes, Mac and a butt load more which are all heavily used in combination with OpenGL.
Plus, you can access most (if not every) piece of functionality Direct3D provides through extensions AFAIK. Unless you want to take advantage of WDDM -- which is Vista only and not useful for OpenGL -- I see no reason to switch to D3D as long as I can access D3D10-like features through OpenGL under Windows XP.
In all honesty, I pretty much understand why its taking a while. The spec is developed mostly by independent companies who first have to agree on a bunch of stuff. I think it was John Carmack who said a year or so ago that he was less active on the ARB because he had so much stuff to do -- which should be understandable for most parties involved in the spec. Also, if you look at the release dates of the previous APIs, you notice that there's about 2 years in between major changes in versions. When it was announced that 3.0 was going to be released in September 2007, I think the Khronos Group kind of jumped the shark after the release of 2.1 in 2006; maybe for community attention, who knows?
But then again, why promise when you can't deliver and say "oops, we f-ed up!" a month after 3.0 was supposed to be finalized? It would just be nice to hear something at this point, but no reason to switch to D3D unless IHVs stop developing extensions for OpenGL, or a decision is made to stop developing OpenGL in its entirety.
Sorry about the length of the post, it just happened!
"unless IHVs stop developing extensions for OpenGL"
this is already happening outside the Nvidia world.
Hmm, it's probably unlikely that Unices will start to support Direct3D, but not impossible. There's stuff like winelib (it has a Direct3D implementation, though it's a wrapper on top of GL for now) and C# compilers on Unices. The Linux people might develop their own 3D API as well.Do you honestly believe that? There are two platforms supporting Direct3D, namely: Windows and Xbox. Unless all graphics programmers switch over to a Microsoft platform this will never happen. It would mean a total abandonment of SGI workstations, Linux, Unixes, Mac and a butt load more which are all heavily used in combination with OpenGL.
Free Linux drivers are moving towards the new Gallium3D architecture, an API-neutral driver model is one of the key features of Gallium3D.
When OpenGL doesn't evolve except for extensions Direct3D will be exposing hardware features in a much more natural way than OpenGL and be easier to learn and use.Plus, you can access most (if not every) piece of functionality Direct3D provides through extensions AFAIK. Unless you want to take advantage of WDDM -- which is Vista only and not useful for OpenGL -- I see no reason to switch to D3D as long as I can access D3D10-like features through OpenGL under Windows XP.
Whenever news about GL3 came it was claimed that the spec was nearly complete and they were working on it. Last time we heard anything about GL3 was in october 2007, half a year go.In all honesty, I pretty much understand why its taking a while.
Unless Khronos or at least someone influential among them wants GL to die this doesn't make sense.
Maybe they decided to make a completly new API that doesn't resemble GL. That would explain the silence: They wouldn't want to tell that GL is dead before the replacement is ready.
Whatever the ARB's reasons are, no matter if they still want to get GL 3 done, replace it by GL ES or something completly new, their time is running out.
Philipp
Your cynicism irks me but there's a truth to it. I guess the coin also has two sides in this case. Yet I highly doubt anyone would implement Direct3D if they wouldn't have to, even if it were possible and they were allowed to.
Why step away from standardization? If this would happen it would work against everything that has been developed since 1992.
The wine people are doing it for compability reasons anyway.
http://winehq.org/site/status_directx
Says D3D8 and D3D9 are 95% complete. While it is a wrapper on top of OpenGL I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to change that for performance reasons.
Why step away from standardization? If this would happen it would work against everything that has been developed since 1992. [/QUOTE]
When Qt was non-free and there was no free alternative, GTK+ and Gnome were developed. OK, the situation probably isn't that bad with GL and it makes much more sense to use just use GL ES, which seems to be still alive (though the standard seems to be more confusing than GL in some places and the standardization process seems even less transparent).
Philipp
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