What is Happening with OpenGL?

Trapped In Windows Hell asks: "I was just at the local game store looking for a new game, and I noticed the absolute lack of ANYTHING other than DirectX games. Where has OpenGL gone, and what does this mean for games on GNU/Linux? If DirectX is so hard to program in, so clunky to use, and limits the game to being sold on only one OS, WHY do so many programmers use it? It seems logical (to me, at least) that programming as portably as possible, as simply as possible, and using standards where possible, leaves a lot more sales options open for the future... and DirectX seems to close all options *but one*." OpenGL use in Windows gaming has decreased dramatically in favor of the use of DirectX which is improving with each release. Will OpenGL continue to mature on the Windows platform (which arguably is the platform that drives most of the mainstream demand for graphics) or will it continue to stagnate as game and driver developers concentrate on the offerings from Microsoft?

Comments

Re:the reason is...

[emn-slashdot]

Too funny...

So you made some pritty boxes and triangle strip particle engines... Goodie. Those are fun as hell. When you program a full 3d environment with smoke, fog, a fire engine, and do shadows to all objects, then post.

The OpenGL extentions don't apply to the standards based OpenGL API. I'm talking about the wiz-bam new features of different cards (like the Radion's extremely cool anti-aliasing and Z axis dithering)

I'm sure your spining, colored, triangle worked great. Now try to make a 3d engine with the features of Alice or Anarchy Online in OpenGL with OpenGL. It can't be done within a reasonable time period because of all the extentions you would have to use to support all those nifty features in OpenGL.

Really good try at a snappy comeback! :) Grats