The ARB announced OpenGL 3.0 and GLSL 1.30 today

[Brolingstanz]

Funny, I seem to recall that being an NV extension too. Easy mistake to make with that dizzying blizzard of NV_*s in the extension string, some 42 in total by my weary-eyed estimates.

[Rob Barris]

I didn't see it stated; I'm making a (to my mind, quite reasonable) assumption based on the available data. To whit:

1: ATi announces GL 3.0 support in Q1 next year.
2: ATi and Blizzard announce some vague cooperation with regard to Blizzard's games.
3: SC2's earliest (reasonable) release date would be sometime Q1 of next year.

I mean, I don't see it as much of a stretch to say that SC2 will provide GL 3.0 support. I mean, I could be wrong (you'd know better than I), but all the available facts suggest it.

This Siggraph presentation from Blizzard states :

For Starcraft II, we wanted to maximize compatibility with less capable systems to ensure hassle-free game play for as broad a player base as possible. Yet we also wanted to utilize the full potential of any available hardware to ensure the game’s looks were competitive. This meant supporting a wide range of hardware, from ATI RadeonTM 9800/NVIDIA GeForceTM FX’s to the ATI RadeonTM HD 4800s and NVIDIA GeForceTM G200s, targeting maximum utilization on each different GPU platform.

This range of hardware support clearly matches the targeted GL 3.0 capable platforms. That's even more evidence to Korval's deduction...

Actually not, since Radeon 9800 and GeForce FX are not GL 3.0 capable.

[Brolingstanz]

Perhaps that's just a bit of wishful thinking on Korval's part. A big game release touting GL3 in its trailer couldn't hurt things for GL. If Id software follows suit with a big release of their own, leaping lizards... I expect we'd see quality drivers toot sweet (maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part).

[bobvodka]

Well, no, more likely we'll be back in the Quake days of "it'll be fast provided you do what Blizzard or iD are doing'.

Not that it matters much as iD are pretty much going to be using GL2.x (or maybe less, and JC wasn't happy with what happened with GL either) and Rob's comments indicate that Blizzard will be using GL2.x as well so there is no pressure for anyone to produce quality GL3.0 drivers anyway.

[PaladinOfKaos]

NVIDIA has a certain incentive to make quality drivers. All that data being crunched through Tesla cards needs to be visualized somehow. DX is seen as being for games, so I expect that a lot of the visualization code is written in OpenGL.

Of course, OpenGL is the only solution to visualize that data on Linux. I don't know any usage statistics for Linux/Windows in visualization applications.

[Seth Hoffert]

Seeing as D3D10 is a general 3D API, I personally don't see anything wrong with using it for visualization (especially on consumer-level cards) as long as you don't need quad buffers.

EDIT: Of course, there is the benefit of more code/support for using OpenGL for vis... dang, now I'm unsure again.

[knackered]

leaping lizards?

[Brolingstanz]

crazier than a spit-house rat (only I don't mean spit).

God help me I do love a good colloquialism.

[Seth Hoffert]

Nice signature, modus.

[Brolingstanz]

thanks. I really think a bumper sticker would sell like hot-cakes in the arctic.