An Open Source Direct3D 8.0 Wrapper for Open GL

Jason writes: "RealTech-VR, creators of the V3X 3D engine, also developed a Direct3D-to-OpenGL wrapper and they have now open sourced their work. They are seeking for more hackers to help porting the wrapper to Linux and MacOS. A lot of the functionality of Direct3D is already ported but it still needs quite some work. Get the scoop at OSNews."

Comments

Direct3D and the Mac

[feldsteins]

I have always viewed Direct3D as a Really Bad Idea for the Macintosh platform. I mean, that's all we need is to hitch our 3D waggon to Microsoft. We'd always be a version behind, some features would never be implimented, etc. And then when all game manufacturers were using D3D, whoops! Microsoft isn't supporting D3D on the Mac anymore.

Even some game developers I have spoken to seemed pretty positive about the idea. "if only we could do D3D," they said. I think otherwise for the reasons stated above.

And what does this new "wrapper" mean to us? I hope it doesn't mean that Game developers or porting companies don't bother with the OpenGL conversion (when necessary). For if this turns out to be the case I fear the sceneario above may come to pass in the long run. Bottom line is, this scheme seems to still leave 3D on the Macintosh platform vulnerable to the whims of MS.

A good idea?

[tempest303]

Is this really such a hot idea? Compatability is cool, but wouldn't developers' time be better spent improving or coding for OpenGL?

SDL/OpenGL vs DirectX OR the end of open standards

[XRayX]

I'm not sure if this is a good thing. Of course it might be great to have something like this integrated to Wine to play DirectX Games under Linux, but if the other wrappers (DirectSound/Input/Play etc.) are implemented and run something stable, me as a game developer would think twice about porting this to truly open standards like OpenGL and SDL ("Why don't use the DirectX wrapper?").
So if you see things on the long run, this might be more a damage than a boost to native Linux/OpenSource game-development.

Make it a non issue

[DeadBugs]

STOP buying D3D games
KEEP buying OpenGL games

Re:Make it a non issue

[Cryptnotic]

That's not really practical for the large majority of game buyers. It would be like telling Americans to stop speaking English. And since Microsoft has gotten DirectX into game consoles (Dreamcast, X-Box), developers have a strong incentive to develop using only DirectX (Easy ports of DirectX games).

Cryptnotic

Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux

[Ryan Amos]

What sort of crack are you smoking? Extra compatability is always a good thing. Get the notion that Microsoft has nothing to offer out of your fucking head. At some point, Linux has to grow up beyond the "fight-the-power" angst-filled culture that is quickly alienating it from the corporate market (wonder why you don't see quite so many people pushing Linux anymore? It has a bad rep in corporate America.) If you're in favor of a less functional operating system just because "Microsoft is evil! Fight the man!" you need to grab a bottle of Clue (tm) and take twice daily. Sure, I don't approve of everything Microsoft does, but you don't see me running around like a spoiled 6 year old who is mad because a girl wants to play with his friends.

Karma to burn, baby.

Re:Not much there

[IGnatius T Foobar]

They are about where we were 18-20 months ago, and this is certainly not keeping me up at nights.

True enough -- but there was a time when Linux wasn't keeping the SCO people up at nights either. Fear commoditization.

Re:SDL integration

[CoughDropAddict]

SDL provides kind of a minimal interface, which makes it really easy to pick up and learn. If you want to expose / accelerate all the features that DirectX does, you'd need a significant rewrite or extension of the SDL API.

SDL has had the ability to create OpenGL contexts for a long time. And we're talking about Direct3D, not DirectX, so the DirectDraw example doesn't apply.