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OpenGL 4.1 Specification Announced
WesternActor writes "The Khronos Group has announced full details for the OpenGL 4.1 specification. Among the new features of the spec, which comes just five months after the release of the 4.0 specification, is full support for OpenGL ES, which simplifies porting between mobile and desktop platforms. It'll be interesting to see what effect, if any, this new spec has on the graphics industry — more compatibility could change the way many embedded systems are designed. There are lots of other changes and additions in the spec, as well." Reader suraj.sun contributes insight from Ars, which brings OpenGL's competition into focus: "OpenGL 4.0 brought feature parity with Direct3D 11's new features — in particular, compute shaders and tessellation — and with 4.1, the Khronos Group claims that it is surpassing the functionality offered in Microsoft's 3D API. ... Whether this truly constitutes a leapfrogging of Direct3D 11 is not obvious."
But, how does this benefit porn viewing?
Linux is still a large OpenGL platform, and although you can use wine to get DirectX functionality, I would say OpenGL is still relevant, especially in the OSS side of things.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Hey, if you get your act together, you can always make a comeback. Apple did it; Linux helped make Unix relevant again outside of big iron.
But, you have to be able to sell it and to deliver.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Anyone following this enough to know if attempts were made to resolve the patent issues?
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/OpenGL
Or did new issues surface? Any pointers would be appreciated, thanks.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Simply put, yes, OpenGL is awesome. The fuss over OpenGL 3.0 was because it wasn't as awesome as it could have been at that time.
It's also available on many more platforms than D3D.
Leapfrog is a very old and well-known children's game which involves people continually taking the lead by surpassing (jumping over) their playmate. It has a connotation of an endless arms race or continual exchange of leadership in the marketplace. I think the use of the word "leapfrogging" here is perfectly apt. Idiom is a part of the language, and when properly used, gives another layer of nuance to the communication.
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According to these guys Nvidia will have test drivers sometime this week. Since that is also when the spec becomes generally available, it seems safe to assume that the spec was written in fairly close consultation with at least the big graphics players.
I assume AMD's graphics drivers have also been in development, in concert with the spec, for some time, and will be available soonish, albeit with the usual lag after Nvidia. As for the various embedded guys, hard for me to say. I'm sure that having OpenGL ES made a proper subset, as opposed to a somewhat different near-subset, will be attractive for mobile developers, since it will make desktop to phone/console/embedded and back portability easier; but I don't know whether the embedded graphics hardware that is out there now can be updated with just drivers, or whether some 4.0 features will require an upcoming generation of silicon.
As for games, the first tech demo/fanboy wank publicity stunt will probably be available about 15 minutes after the Nvidia drivers. Widespread use might be a while.
That fuss, as I understand it, culminated in a lot of former opengl developers giving up on opengl and moving to directx, even though it meant being windows only... I was asking because with that mass exodus, does opengl still have a critical mass to sustain itself in the mainstream?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You are aware of Valve and Blizzard, right?
Any 3D iDevice game is being done in OpenGL ES, which counts for a fair few(albeit mostly small and casual) games. Android likely accounts for fewer; but doesn't exactly do directx either.
Source Engine is DirectX on Windows.
It's all you get on many embedded platforms, such as the iPhone, Android, and friends, plus it's all you get on Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. etc. So long as there are 3d applications on those platforms (and others), and no new spec is created, OpenGL will have a critical mass to survive. Whether it will ever take over the Windows game development market again remains to be seen, however.
SSC
Is this modded troll because someone doesn't like the truth? What he stated here is a fact. Xbox360's success has ensured that most mainstream developers are using DirectX. You and I may not like it, but it's a fact.
Yeah, and then you can just port it straight to the PS3! Oh, wait...
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Not totally true. Hardware tessellation is pretty sweet if you have a machine powerful enough to do it properly.
But they've ported it to Mac, and that version does use Open GL. Same for WoW, but Blizzard actually let's you enable OpenGL in windows by a config file. Although the last time I tried it, it didn't seem as stable as the DX client.
Have you ever tried playing modern games in Wine? It's a crap-shoot on weather or not they look correct. OpenGL is still very relevant for Linux and Mac gaming. Besides, how do you think Wine accelerates games? It's still using OpenGL even if it's a Direct X game.
Now if we could only convince some of the top development studios to believe this.
DirectX is not just graphics; it's also sound and input. Programs that use OpenGL have to use something else for sound and input. One popular choice for these is SDL; another is Allegro. But since the introduction of PulseAudio, sound in Linux games has been a cluster[intercourse]. Specifically anything using the Allegro library lost sound, and Allegro games are still silent in (for example) Ubuntu 10.04.
Yes, Mesa has a software implementation, but Mesa is a *lot* more than that. Most, if not all, open source drivers use Mesa/Gallium3D infrastructure, including nvidia/ati/intel open source drivers.
So yes, it is a problem even if you got the best graphics card on the market unless you use proprietary software. But staying open means staying with OpenGL 2.1 right now.
I work in video games. That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. This is obvious trolling, so I won't bother with a deep response, but porting from D3D to OpenGL (or vice versa), is fairly straightforward. A much bigger problem is different CPU and memory architecture that makes porting a pain in the ass, as well as different first party requirements.
The flight simulator Il-2 has the choice of switching between OpenGL or Direct X. In fact, it is also written mostly in Java with much of the graphics in C++. This allowed it to be ported to the console in the form of Wings of Prey. The flexibility of OpenGL allowed this company to port easily, and made them money.
The flight simulator X-Plane (now taking the crown for civilian flight simulators since Microsoft has shut down the studio that produced the Flight Simulator line) uses OpenGL. It's creator says in an interview that the choice of OpenGL was the correct one since he was able to port his product to the iPhone in a matter of weeks. This meant he personally got around 3.5 million US dollars in revenue in around a month. OpenGL made sound business sense to him. Here's the interview with him if you are interested: http://techhaze.com/2010/03/interview-with-x-plane-creator-austin-meyer/
If you want to make money on the iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix workstation visualization, embedded electronics such as FAA approved in-cockpit instruments etc then OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL didn't run on Windows then clearly it would be a bad choice, but the fact is OpenGL works well on Windows *and* just about every other platform too. This includes games.
DirectX may be just as good technically but the fact that it is not portable means it is a non-starter for many applications for both technical and commercial reasons.
That's just because it's on fire.
Not trying to troll at all, and I concede your point. I know Valve has even stated that the reason Source isn't on the PS3 (it will be for portal 2) was because of the cell processor in the PS3. It wasn't because of OpenGL. I stand corrected on this point.
why use the made up word "pseudo-words" when the real phrase "made up words" works just fine?
and why use the word "fine" when there are dozens of synonyms or near-synonyms that work just as well?
The blending of OGL and OGL ES is huge - it essentially underscores that smart phones are now a major 3D gaming platform. I'm really surprised that most poeple here are talking about PC support rather then note the fact that essentially any PC game built for OGL can be ported far more easily to moble platforms now.
Additionally with Nokia's Meego and Google's Android being essentially modified Linux and both likely offering support for this, this may give us a renaissance of linux gaming. And by this I mean proper linux gaming and not "wine" gaming.
"The embedded platforms you mentioned run opengl ES, which is not the same thing."
It is now. You need to work on reading comprehension.
Um, yes? OpenGL ES is the standard 3D API on mobile devices as well as the PS3. Even the Wii has an OpenGL-like API.
You are aware that WINE uses OpenGL right?? And that some of the main features of DX11 (tesslation for example) where ports from OpenGL extensions that are years old ... OpenGL is good because its open. It doesnt take much to get a valid extension approved, infact you can write one yourself. It's not geared for gaming, nor does it have any features that a Graphics API shouldn't have. But its good and I dont want to see it gone anytime soon.
Wine is capable of translating DirectX to OpenGL in realtime, which is how you're able to play that in Linux.
Absolutely true and not flamebait: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#Longs_Peak_and_OpenGL_3.0_controversy
OpenGL 3.0 was a disaster because it should have been revolutionary but instead it was an extended 2.1 to maintain compatibility with workstation apps (as in graphical workstations).
Today however OpenGL is way ahead of Direct3D. One of its killer features is OpenCL compatibility. GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) is now at version 4.00 and since OpenGL 3.2 supported geometry shaders.
Now is it relevant? Are you kidding me? In this day and age of all these platforms it is _THE_ library. Direct3D is only viable on Micrsoft platforms.
Android, Playstation3, Mac OS X, iOS, Linux, Windows. They all have OpenGL support and thus anyone is now porting, if they haven't already and newcommers all use OpenGL. In fact all the CAD apps have been using OpenGL solely! All the big players and studios are using OpenGL now.
Now the real question is; What is Microsofts next move to stay in the game?
Here be signatures
``Perhaps there would be better reception for all of these new OGL iterations if they saved up some worthwhile features before putting them into the spec, and just leave the new stuff as extensions until they have a nice upgrade to show.''
My understanding is that they used to do that, but got overtaken by Direct3D because people thought OpenGL was stagnant.
I agree with you, though. As long as it can be put in extensions, that is a nice way of advancing the capabilities of your system without polluting the core standard with things that, perhaps, nobody will be using anymore 10 years from now. On the other hand, if a bump in version number makes the world happy, then why not? You can always cook up a new standard to get rid of the bloat (as exemplified by OpenGL ES).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The fuss over OpenGL 3.0 was because it wasn't as awesome as it could have been at that time.
I got the impression that lots of DX coders just jump into forums and flamed away. Most of the pro opengl devs I know where not too unhappy with it. Now looking back I can say quite a few of them think it was a great idea not to push the object model too early... for the simple reason that vendors still were working out what is easy to put in drivers/hardware.
Even on this thread its pretty clear that quite a few comments about what opengl is not, has been made by folks that clearly don't code opengl.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
A huge amount of the 3d computer market is not games. We have all nivida/linux machines in the lab (about 200 machine in the department) for protein structure visualizations. Another company i worked with had a huge investment for CAD/CAD hardware. Its all opengl.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
opengl may be available on a lot of platforms but who cares it's not like you can port crysis from pc to an iphone in a day just because it's in opengl(I know it's not in opengl, it's just an example)
So, you install a brand new ATI/Nvidia card into your WinXP box. Want geometry shaders? Want tesselation? Want DX11 features on Vista? You're going to need to use OpenGL. The single biggest advantage that OpenGL has right now is windows support.
I'm not a game developer but I think that directx/opengl can easily be abstracted by the engine to use whatever is best on the platform it runs, something like Qt, and I think valve is doing that with the source engine right now
Correct. It's how most devs approach the problem. I for one have made a set of OpenGL classes that exactly mirror the D3D11 interface. It's really not hard to do. The only thing you have to worry about is porting shaders between HLSL/GLSL (which is actually trivial), although you can always use cg if you want an even easier life....
I suppose there is no way to make such comparison now as almost nobody writes games which can run both.
Most studios who develop for consoles can.... Once you've added DX9 / DX10 / DX11 code paths, adding GL & libGCM really isn't that hard.
Nostalgia aside, from what I've been hearing from devs who had contact with DX and then picked up OGL, OGL API seems way more elegant and easier to deal with...
GL4.1 is a lot cleaner than OpenGL before 3.2 (which was a horror!), that much is true. However DX probably still pips it in terms of API cleanliness.