OpenGL 1.4 Spec Finalized

Sesse writes: "SGI announced yesterday that the OpenGL 1.4 specification was agreed upon by the ARB. Trying to minimize the gap between D3D8 and OpenGL, the standard adds a lot of functionality already common (being exposed as extensions in many drivers today), but more importantly brings a standard specification for vertex shaders. This should be good news for anybody doing cross-platform eyecandy :-)" This announcement is related to, but broader than, the one mentioned earlier about bringing OpenGL to mobile devices.

Comments

OpenGL 2.0

[f00Dave]

Fine, fine, 1.4 is good and all that, but OpenGL 2.0 is where it's REALLY at (as far as game development goes). I'm waiting for the ARB to finally admit that there's two distict uses for GL: CAD and Games. So why not split them off? Well, where would the pressure to extend GL come from if Carmack and Co. weren't shoving Quake N down the IHV's throats? ;-)

Then again, remember MiniGL?

Brr.....

Re:bad news for Linux?

[Moridineas]

gah, what am I even bothering to respond...

Anyways, first "Micro$hit" as you so elegantly and maturely call them probably won't be the one incorporating OpenGL into "Winblows X[tra]P[oopy]" (brilliant I must say--share your wit more, please!)--it will be the driver writers from the video card companies.

Secondly, the "kernel hackers at Linux" (wherever that is?!) have nothing to do with this either--ever heard of the Mesa3D project??

Thirdly, reverse engineer? Mesa3D works WITH NVIDIA and others, afaik there's no reverse engineering going on--and not for the base implentation (see sgi).

Fourthly, it's called OpenGL for a reason (hint, pay attention to the open part). In the past this has meant open to users, but it truly is "open" now, check the SGI website for information about the OpenGL sample implementation license. Reverse engineer?? what would you even reverse engineer?? (sorry to repeat myself)

For your last points, feel free to work on your open source 3D standard, if it's useful people will definitely use it. OTOH, DirectX and OpenGL have an immense amount of work put into them already, they might be hard to equal! Oh wait, you said "we" ('we should work') referring to "anyone but yourself"--troll on!

Re:Oh no he's isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

now they come up with some alleged interview with carmack

Uh, that's the finger.planetquake.com .plan archive. The same text's also here and here and here and ... well, you get the idea.

I think Carmack's working from an OpenGL 2.0 draft and providing input to help define it.

Re:"Intellectual property" issues??

[Creepy]

It is currently legal to write "OpenGL compatible" libraries by following the published specifications for OpenGL. You can't legally use the OpenGL logo or list your product as being OpenGL, even if it works better than some commercial implementations, but as long as you're not reverse engineering someone else's code, OpenGL licensing allows it. I believe a change in the license would be required for Microsoft to force a fee on Mesa.

I also doubt if the SGI sale was the result of shortsightedness - it probably had more to do with needing a quick infusion of cash. Too bad M$ had to be the one to give it too them.

Re:No way

[Anonymous Coward]

I mostly agree, but the gap is closing rapidly. You can already push over 100 million polygons/sec on the latest gamer cards. Of course, there will always be a market for expensive industrials boards, but it's not worth forking OpenGL development into two different versions.

There's lots of people doing "industrial" 3D work on "gamer" video cards. If the original poster had his way, the people who make software like 3DS and Maya would have to support two different graphics APIs to satisify all their users!

BTW, as an aside, it's interesting to note that NVIDIA has some new patents on tile-based rendering (originally developed at Gigapixel, bought by 3Dfx, and in turn transfered to NVIDIA). If I understand correctly, that sort of technology could allow board manufactures (ASUS, etc.) to pursue their own multi-chip designs. Maybe in the near future industrial 3D accelerators will just be made up of a bunch of cheap off-the-shelf "gaming" chips wired together.

Re:"Intellectual property" issues??

[SurfsUp]

It's amazing how SGI was short-sighted when they sold lots of their patents regarding 3D to Microsoft.

It's not as bad as all that. Microsoft is in a precarious position with respect to enforcement; Microsoft is, in a legal sense, a monopoly, and the patents constitute a further, legally granted monopoly, which they have purchased. Translation: Microsoft buys its way into an extended monopoly position. Imagine how well that will fly if there is any attempt to enforce.

Microsoft management is no doubt keenly aware of this little problem, and so we'll see that the real use they will make of these patents is for FUD, and to slow down the completion/deployment of the OpenGL 2 standard. But this too is a risky strategy, and not only in a legal sense; we're already beginning to see the public backlash. If Microsoft tries to use its position on the OpenGL ARB to slow down the process of working around their newly acquired IP, the shit will really hit the fan. It was one thing when Microsoft used its power to marginalize OpenGL on the Windows platform (thanks kindly to John Carmack for preventing that strategy from succeeding completely); it's quite another if Microsoft decides to attempt this on non-Windows platforms as well. Stay tuned.