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Doom Creator Says Direct3D Is Now Better Than OpenGL

Posted by Soulskill on from the changing-horses dept.

arcticstoat writes "First-person shooter godfather and OpenGL stickler John Carmack has revealed that he now prefers Direct3D to OpenGL, saying that 'inertia' is the main reason why id Software has stuck by the cross-platform 3D graphics API for years. In a recent interview, the co-founder of id Software said, 'I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today.' He added, 'Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns. Direct3D handles multi-threading better, and newer versions manage state better.'"

12 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. "Doom creator"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is Slashdot not for nerds anymore? I never thought I'd see the day when John Carmack was described on Slashdot as "Doom creator".

    1. Re:"Doom creator"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The topic is about comparing one API to another.

      In that context, even if you were to go into a semantic rant about it, John Carmack is the creator of Doom.

  2. Not only that by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They work with the GPU manufacturers. Basically when new GPUs are in development, so is the new DirectX. So MS has a chat with nVidia and AMD. They tell the GPU makers the kind of things they want, the GPU makers tell them the kind of things there hardware is going to have, and they are able to come to a standard that everyone supports. That is why when new GPUs come out they support all the features of the new DX. It isn't some amazing coincidence. Also it is proper support, a single standard that works well with the abilities the cards have. You write your DX driver, and everything works.

    OpenGL functions in much more of a lagging capacity. New video cards come out, and then it gets support for whatever it is they bring to the table sometime later. Khronos doesn't seem to go out and engage the vendors during development and try to have OpenGL ready to meet the next gen cards. Also their strategy often seems to be "just use extensions for it," which means that you can have differences between vendors for how things work.

  3. Re:DirectX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it would be nice. but open source isn't about nice.

    And that is why Open Source doesn't win. Be nice and user friendly, and you are able to play better with others.

  4. Re:DirectX by MrEricSir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Say what you will about the confusing configuration dialogs and lack of build config options. Visual Studio + Visual Assist is (so far) untouched in terms of features and stability.

    (And I'm saying this as a full time developer of Gnome apps...)

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  5. This sounds familiar... by Graham+J+-+XVI · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns.

    *tweak*

    Apple had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve OSX, while Windows has been held back by compatibility concerns.

    :)

    1. Re:This sounds familiar... by emuls · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And then Windows 7 came out and retained it's compatibility while blowing OSX's socks off. Meanwhile, Apple still only provides software updates for the latest 2 revisions (AKA service packs) of their OS (about 3 years) while microsoft still supports it's 10 year old Windows XP. Hipsters like my former self now regret their mac min and macbook purchases and wish they had just gone with a dell laptop/shuttle pc instead. :)

  6. Re:DirectX by Cowmonaut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And how many games are made for Apple compared to Windows?

  7. Re:What shocks me the most.. by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And it is far preferable to the alternative.

  8. Re:DirectX by Danathar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What lunacy...I guess Linux didn't go anywhere either cause it's open source...or Chrome.....or Firefox.....

  9. Re:DirectX by Chelloveck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Commercial will always triumph over open, because open is dumb." -- Dark Helmet

    Or something like that.

    --
    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
  10. Re:DirectX by Tetsujin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    it would be nice. but open source isn't about nice.

    And that is why Open Source doesn't win.

    I feel like the whole idea that we had to "win" in the first place was a fallacy...

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.