Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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.
But unless they can fully simulate boob physics proper, it's all for nothing.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
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.
[
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.
Check out Illusion's games, boob physics as good as it gets
You are aware of Valve and Blizzard, right?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, for slashdotters, it may actually be as good as it gets...
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