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OpenGL 1.3 Spec Released
JigSaw writes "The OpenGL Architecture Review Board announced the new OpenGL 1.3 specification (1.8 MB pdf). In OpenGL 1.3, several additional features and functions have been ratified and brought into the API's core functionality. New features include Cube map texturing, multisampling, new texture modes that provide more powerful ways of applying textures to rendered objects, compressed texture framework etc. Let's all hope that GL can catch up with Direct3D now, as with the latest DirectX8, Direct3D has done some big steps towards feature-set, speed and even non-bloatiness when it comes to coding for it, while OpenGL 1.2 was released more than 2 years ago and it did not offer as much."
GL is modular and relies on extentions. This produces a far more stable API and allows for the latest bleeding edge tech.
Comparing DX or better D3D to GL is like comparing UNIX to Windows. You can either allow modular ententions or rewrite the API every release, whus breaking backwards compatibility for no reason. GL ext from ATI and Nvidia are much easier to use for development that D3D imho.
Only moogles may disagree. We still love you dan! =)
Until the specs support this kind of functionality.
Give OpenGL some credit here. In some ways, it's D3D that has to catch up. Here's how it was discribed to be by a Very Smart Person who works with nVidia a lot. nVidia comes to Microsoft saying "we want these features", Microsoft says "Okay, do it this way". The engineers at nVidia get frustrated about being limited by Microsoft's model and implement new features anyway and put them in OpenGL extensions. So, D3D has a better spec (arguably), but OpenGL has access to all the features.
Unfortunately, this is a bit like saying, "C++ can do anything D3D 8.X does, given proper libraries and hardware support." The purpose of a standardized API is, well, having a standard. If five different vendors implement extensions for a vertex shaders, each using five different extensions used in different ways, what's a developer to do?
Thanks for the info . That's very informative. Please do tell, though, what's the difference between a "spec" and a "specification" that makes it worth repeating?
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
I have said it before (yes, an OpenGL troll), and I'll say it again: OpenGL can do anything D3D 8.x does. It just does it in a different way.
OpenGL uses extensions, so you don't have to rev the version number to add funtionality, you only have to have supporting drivers (and/or hardware).
That is why OGL hasn't been rev'ed in so long, it didn't need it, so you can provide a stable API for the developers.
It is just cleaner to have this new stuff "built-in", so they do it every now and then.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
The problem with extensions is that at least with DX8 you can write a pixel shader program once and expect it to work on any cards that support that version of the pixel shader (1.0 if you want to be conservative).
If you go with OpenGL you have to write your program for each different vendor extension that comes out. Honestly, what are the chances of ATI or PowerVR ever supporting NV_texture_shader or NV_texture_shader2?
One of the main aims of DirectX was to avoid the situation in the days of games under DOS where a game developer would have to write different code for each different target video card. Through the use of vendor extensions, OpenGL does no better than DOS did - requiring the developer to figure out exactly which cards he is going to support and writing to those extensions individually, also sacrificing future compatibility if the next generation of cards support different extensions.
Writing to DirectX gives some degree of future-proofing your application as forward compatibility of the core API is preserved through revisions of DirectX. Sure this may carry a bit of "bloat around the middle" but that's the price you pay for compatibility.
Of course, if you aren't writing for Windows you're stuck with extensions.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means