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Is It Time For an OpenGL Gaming Revolution?
MrSeb writes "In a twist that reinforces Valve's distaste for Windows 8, it turns out that the Source engine — the 3D engine that powers Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, and Dota 2 — runs faster on Ubuntu 12.04 and OpenGL (315 fps) than Windows 7 and DirectX/Direct3D (270.6 fps); almost a 20% speed-up. These figures are remarkable, considering Valve has been refining the Source engine's performance under Windows for almost 10 years, while the Valve Linux team has only been working on the Linux port of Source for a few months. Valve attributes the speed-up to the 'underlying efficiency of the [Linux] kernel and OpenGL.' But here's the best bit: Using these new OpenGL optimizations to the Source engine, the OpenGL version of L4D2 on Windows is now faster than the DirectX version (303.4 fps vs. 270.6 fps). If OpenGL is faster, and it has a comparable feature set, and hardware support is excellent... why is Direct3D still the de facto API? With Windows losing its gaming crown and smartphones (OpenGL ES!) gaining in popularity, is it time for an OpenGL revolution?"
Not necessarily better than OpenGL, but better than 270.6 fps.
Valve's blog post, near the bottom, indicates that they plan on fixing the hang-up with Direct3D, now that they know that the hardware can do better than 270 fps.
because it makes steam obsolete.
Who let this one through?
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/08/02/1236203/valve-shares-performance-numbers-on-port-of-left4dead
Since we've jumped from the performance revealed article this morning to the time to bury Direct X article this afternoon, I can only assume tonight's article will be about "doing away with the legacy OpenGL."
I'm a bit skeptical about these numbers..
did you forget to take your meds?
Because MS makes Windows and bundle their API with it of course.
Besides that most, if not all, of my console games are OpenGL not DirectX.
I don't think anyone ever reasonably stated that Linux wasn't efficient, or that OpenGL wasn't adequate compared to Direct3D. Or maybe they did, but it wasn't factual. A properly configured Linux system has been faster than Windows for some time, at least for the past few years. The main problem with Linux has always been the lack of polish and presentation to the general public. The pieces have always been there, it's just been very fragile. Maybe now that someone is stepping up to the plate, Linux can receive what it's needed all along: better marketing and polishing. IMHO, it hasn't been large technical issues keeping Linux back. The technology is sound, and has been for quite some time.
I use OpenGL at work and as much as I prefer it over DirectX, the ARB (opengl board that decides on additions/updates/changes) sometimes takes a while to introduce new features that DirectX gets much earlier and they sometimes make questionable choices on how things are supported and the OpenGL docs are sort of terrible and vague.
-SaNo
DirectX has the advantage of other features built in. OpenGL is just graphics. DirectX also does audio and manages controller input.
Low, there are several Open source API's that offer these other features, and some that bundle them with OpenGL, but it isn't as standardized.
I use LWJGL personally.
The only issue is that they are claiming that Open GL version runs better then the Direct X version is we really do not know if they are the same graphic detail. The reason I say this is look at the TF2 Mac port that uses Open GL, its not in any regards the same graphic quality as the Direct X windows version. I am beginning to wonder if the same thing is why the Windows version is rendering using less fps. We don't have any screenshots of the differences, just one paragraph on a blog that is quite lite in details.
I'd also suspect that WinRT and Win8 Metro apps won't support OpenGL... (Can anyone confirm/deny?)
...it's time for an editor revolution.
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/08/02/1236203/valve-shares-performance-numbers-on-port-of-left4dead
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Major software companies will put more effort in the tablet and more portable touch displays.
That's already starting to happen. Tablet sales are 24% of the market in 2012, but are increasing 100% year over year. If that continues for 18 more months, tablets will be outselling "traditional form factor" PCs, including laptops and desktops, within a few years. Of course, the installed base of traditional PCs is still larger so it will be several years after that before the tablet form factor has a larger install base, but the writing is on the wall.
It was never about performance or features. The issue has always been about return on investment.
If I wrote an OpenGL engine in 2006, I could release my title on Mac, Windows and Linux. That sounds great, but how many additional sales do I get for Mac or Linux in 2006? Conversely, writing a DirectX engine in 2006 means I can release on Windows and XBox, where there is a massive return on investment.
Now that Mac has stormed to over 14% market share, and mobile development is huge, there is a return on investment in OpenGL. That is what matters. If wonder if it is too late for Sony to capitalize on this approach for their PS4? Surely they have development hardware in the hands of key developers. If the PS4 used a standard x86_64 processor and supported OpenGL, it would make game development that much easier. Maybe the really smart move is a low-power, quiet Nvidia ARM CPU paired with a beefy NVidia GPU.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
One of the BIG issues is this: D3D9 vs OpenGL v2.x. The architecture of D3D9 has that each draw call (i.e. each batch) is really freaking heavy call. It is heavy in GL implementation as well, but D3D9's is very, very heavy.
Now make a more honest comparison: D3D10 vs OpenGL 3.x and/or D3D11 vs OpenGL 4.x. Those numbers are for mare informative.
Additionally, a fair amount of D3D's implementation is actually Microsoft (think of what they provide as a framework to make a driver). On the other hand, when making a GL implementation, the implementer does it from scratch on their own. Open source drivers are usually based off of Mesa, which sucks which is one of the reasons why open source GL implementations suck compared to the closed source ones. My hunch is that an OpenGL implementation is more work than a D3D implementation.
Now lets talk GL bugs. For NVIDIA and AMD, the GL2.x feature set is very, very reliable. GL3.x feature set is mostly reliable. GL4 feature set is the wild wet: be prepared for bugs.
I remember from when I was doing GL3 work (before GL4 was out) and there was a bug in NVIDIA related to gl_ClipDistance. Essentially, gl_ClipDistance would not work in shaders (the GL program failed in glLinkProgram and/or the shaders failed to compile). The bug fixing was essentially NVIDIA just finding out... passing GL conformance tests I suspect leaves large gaping holes... and when combined with GL extensions, it is unholy.
Atleast desktop GL has come a long way now with AMD making good GL drivers (as years ago ATI GL drivers were basically just able to play IDSoftware games). But GL4 features is dicey, simply because the conformance tests are not that much and not a lot of code out there using it.. in comparison Microsoft's verification, although can leave holes too, does a much better job... D3D driver bugs are rarer than GL driver bugs usually.
But you boys on desktop have no idea how good you have it... GLES2 implementations are buggy all the time in weird horrifying ways. This is one reason why iOS is better game platform than Android: essentially only a handful hardware/driver combinations to find bugs and create work arounds.
I question what the actual image quality looks like on both. DirectX has a lot of fancy features that improve the graphics that OpenGL does not. Did they turn off all of these features that improve the graphics for DirectX or add them with their OpenGL version? I highly doubt it.
Also when the frame rate is that high it typically isn't a good test. Create a map with enough detail that the frame rate gets dropped below 60 and compare them there for a real test.
While it would be cool if they could get OpenGL looking as good and working as efficiently as DirectX I wont' believe it until I see proof. This article sounds more like OpenGL propaganda than reality.
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Tablet sales really don't mean much because people are not replacing desktops with tablets. They are using tablets in addition to desktops. Now, tablets COULD affect laptop sales, as they are much similar to each other as to what they can do, in some respects anyway.
As for a linux port, so what? Xbox/PS games have been ported to PC and vice versus for years. Doesnt mean much that Valve is porting to Linux. All it means is they see a new area to make money, from sole linux users, which are a SMALL % of desktops.
the 800 gorilla.
Wow, that's a lot of gorillum.
It's too feature limited. It's not even up to par with Direct3D 9.0c/9_3, let alone D3D10+. No MRTs, no compute shaders, no geometry features (tessellation, instancing, etc), no standard texture compression format, etc.
Exactly.
Valve has bean counters too, and it's quite apparent that the cost of porting their steam platform to Linux will give them some profit. Valve knows that the majority of desktop gamers are Windows based. That will not change ever. What _might_ change is the fact that the tablet gaming market will become even larger, but so far all evidence is that people who play tablet games aren't doing so in lieu of playing games on their desktop.
I would bet that people who game, aren't going to be swapping platforms for a new mobile game. The games just are not the same.
Because I want the underlying OS available at the same time for music playing, or web browsing, or any number of tasks I have my computer working on.
You really want to try playing any of the games mentioned in TFA on a touchscreen? Touchscreens are a horribly limited input device compared to keyboard+mouse, and this is why big games will stay on some combination of desktop and console. Dedicated (read: simplified controls) FPS/RPG/MMO games will rise for touch devices, but few of them will be ported elsewhere because of totally different input paradigms. As an example, I cite the dumbing down of Oblivion and Skyrim controls because of their XBox ports. Going to touchscreens requires an order of magnitude more simplification.
Furthermore, the desktop will not wither or die. Production of applications, games, graphics, video and audio has to be done somewhere, and it won't be on touch devices, which are almost purely for consumption. Simple things can be produced on touch, like email and IMs, but not much more, certanly nothing that requires UI precision or extended periods of typing.
Tablets are a fad that will go the way of the netbook, and faster. Once people see beyond the hype of "shiny! sleek! new!" they'll begin to wonder why they bought the thing. They make little sense for the average person, but in certain vertical markets where they act as a digital clipboard (ie, hospital patient charts) they have a future.
I followed a few links and found my way here:
http://www.paranormal-entertainment.com/idr/blog/posts/2012-07-19T18%3A54%3A37Z-The_zombies_cometh/
It's a blog about an experience intel driver developers had working with the Valve Linux team. What I found interesting is that the Valve developers prefer working with open drivers for an obvious reason - It's hard to find out what went wrong when you're dealing with a black box. What I gathered from the discussion is that this openness was a huge boost to development of both the game and the driver. This gives me hope that there may be a bright future for open source graphics drivers and even gaming on Linux.
From the blog:
Haswell will have 40 execution units in it’s best bin. It’s 2,5 faster even if they not gonna change anything in shaders, which is unlikely. Plus 64 MB of on-package memory to deal with bandwidth problem.
With that performance and official open-source driver Intel will be the best choice for gaming in Linux next year, at least in notebooks.
A pretty good GPU + an open driver + an open kernel coupled with a working relations ship between the 3 groups should result in a super graphics and games on Linux. I'm not a gamer, but I'll buy their games just to support this. Typing this on a Sandy Bridge machine pulling from xorg-edgers.
As far as reason for not liking Win8 goes, making your entire business model at best second fiddle to the MS store and at worst obsolete is a pretty good reason.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Windows app store optional? It sure is in the consumer preview. I didn't see Valve decrying Apple for making the Mac App Store. Steam works just fine on the Mac, and it will continue to work just fine in Windows.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
People seem very excited about the 20% "increase" in fps, but it is misleading. To get the actual increase in speed, you need to use the frametime instead:
270.6 fps = 3,695 ms per frame
315 fps = 3,175 ms per frame
So the actual difference is a measly 520 microseconds. A change this small might not even be something that is related to the OS or graphics api used. It may even be because the windows OS they used is 64-bit, and the linux OS is 32-bit.
Forget Betteridge's Law for a moment ;-)
Any move away from a monoply is a good move.
Any improvement that benefits the users (and doesn't hurt the developers) is good.
Have fun!
I like my spaghetti with source.
I've played a few Linux ports - America's Army Online, Diablo 2 (with Cedega), etc.
And they've all palyed faster under Linux, than windows on my own PC.
Also crashed a lot less, when played in Linux.
So I'm not surprised, and think they are reasonable numbers
..........FULL STOP.
If OpenGL is faster, and it has a comparable feature set, and hardware support is excellent... why is Direct3D still the de facto API?
Because Valve is using DX9, not DX11. Even the Gallium3D developers have stated DX11 is much cleaner, easier, and feature rich than OpenGL. There are many things DX11 can do 2x-3s faster than DX9 but breaks engine compatibility with DX9, which makes me wonder how a proper DX11 optimized engine would compare to OpenGL.
Rule of thumb is if a graphics engine works with DX9/OpenGL, then it is not making full use of DX11 because the optimal flow of data is different and would require an entirely differently designed engine.
Oblig xkcd http://xkcd.com/605/
People don't change the game they play, that much I have gathered. I have always been more concerned about the games I wont be able to play anymore than the games that are about to come out net week. So to me, windows has always been an unstable platform that barely looks after its own. In my mind, if someone finally bursts their bubble, at least they wont be able to fuck anything else up by forever changing the rules of the game in the name of selling new versions. Did we ever need direct X? Any reason why direct X couldnt be an open standard? Were they too self centred to just work on opengl? No, of course like any other company, microsoft is the best at anything ever, the only way...
I have never ever given a flying fuck about the difference between opengl and directx apart from one thing: one was open, and one was not. In the process of cynically trying to control the game market, microsoft have forgotten that it needs to also be preserved for posterity... but fuck all that, as long as we have angry birds, who cares about all that other shit... //end drunken rant. more beer needed.
My mouse moves in a space that is less than a square foot and it allows me to have absolute precision.
My displays at work cover close to three square feet and has horrible precision if I was to use it as a touch compatible surface.
Mouse wins.
Go wave your arms in front of you for 8 hours and then tell me touch input is the future.
Also, having a keyboard is non-replaceable as an input device when actually doing anything more than looking at information.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
First of all, no it doesn't. Steam offers more than just a store. Aside from the obvious fact that everyone who owns games on it already will stick with it, it offers cloud support, chat and gaming with friends, etc. MS tried the same with GFWL: I know of not one single person, not even on the Internet, who liked it. Oh I'm sure there is someone out there, but it was nearly universally despised by gamers. I have little doubt the Windows 8 store will suffer the same fate, probably by actually using GFWL for the games part (MS for some reason refuses to let it die).
And second, of course, there are anti-trust issues. Massive ones. Much much much bigger than the ones that came with IE, since very very serious money is on the line with digital stores. And it isn't just Valve, either: EA (Origin), Gamestop (Impulse), and CD Projekt Red (Good Old Games) et alia will all be after Microsoft's head if they try to use their first-party advantage to undercut them.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
How do we nominate a Slashdot post for a Pulitzer?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I'd also suspect that WinRT and Win8 Metro apps won't support OpenGL... (Can anyone confirm/deny?)
I'd also expect WinRT won't support graphics, mathematical functions or English. (Can anyone confirm/deny?)
I don't know, but it works for me.
On the referenced blog, I asked whether they'd repeated the test for a 64-bit Linux distro to directly compare to the 64-bit Windows installation they used. Unfortunately, my comment there got deleted. Does anyone have any insight as to what effect switching to a 64-bit distro might have? On one hand, x86-64 has a reputation for being more compiler-friendly than x86-32, what with more explicitly-named registers and all the other goodness. On the other hand, it'd have to sling around longer pointers (and possibly waste more space on 8-byte-aligned data structures? Is that true?). What would the net result likely be?
Put another way, I wish they'd eliminated that rather large test environment variable before publishing their numbers.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
> below the threshold that the eye can see which is 30fps?
Gamers most certainly can tell the difference between 30 Hz and 60 Hz. On the PC, gamers want to run at 1080p at the highest quality while still guaranteeing the framerate will stay above 60 Hz with 16 - 32 players.
To do 3D *properly* you want to run at 120 Hz MINIMUM, to guarantee each eye gets 60 Hz.
This nonsense of "high frames don't do anything" is based on ignorance.
If L4D2 was using the latest DX11.1 implementation and the latest technique, I'm not so sure it would be faster on OpenGL.
That's really not true. Google for performance of DX11 vs DX9: in many cases, DX11 is actually slower (20% slower or so seems to be the trend). Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2, Lost Planet 2: all slower in DX11. A lot of this is the fact that they are simply tacking on DX11 features, since they have to support DX9 for legacy hardware and OSes (which Source definitely would), but DX11 is not necessarily faster simply because it is newer. Indeed, it is often slower because of that: graphics card support for it is no-where near as good as it is for DX9.0c.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Tablet sales are 24% of the market in 2012, but are increasing 100% year over year. If that continues for 18 more months, ...
... they will have 174% of the market?
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Tablets are a fad that will go the way of the netbook, and faster.
I strongly disagree:
I am just waiting for the Transformer Infinity's price to come down a bit, then I will order one, with the keyboard dock. Not as a replacement for but as a complement to my desktop and laptop. I will use it for taking notes during lectures, as a portable media player on standby duties, and - if I can get over my aversion to not having a physical book in front of my eyes - maybe for reading during commute. I will still write my thesis papers on my desktop, I will still code on my desktop, I will still game predominantly on my desktop - that is what it is designed for, after all. But that does not devalue the additional options a tablet offers me.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
"Past performance is not an indication of future returns."
Or, another good one: "house prices double every 7-10 years".
The real world does not have a frame rate
Careful.
I like this one better: http://www.robandelliot.cycomics.com/archive.php?id=274
Then how come several other major game companies have come out against Windows 8. For instance, Notch of Mojang, the creator of Minecraft, hates Windows 8, and at the same time also dislikes steam and refuses to sell Minecraft via Steam. Also, how does it make Steam obsolete? When EA came out with the Origin appstore, Steam was still able to thrive. Apple came out with the Mac App Store, and then Game Center, both of which compete with Steam (Game Center directly so), but it hasn't hurt Valve any. Desura, a game platform similar to Steam beat Valve to the punch on Linux support, but really that has only helped boost Valve. Plus there are others like direct2drive, Impulse, etc. Despite all the competition, Steam isn't even slowing down, and there are several reason why. 1: Many companies have not liked the terms Microsoft has for publishing via their marketplaces (such as paying to certify every release and patches, which can cost $40K a pop). 2: Most of the competition, and will also include the Windows store, are not multiplatform, and when they do support other OS's, their support sucks. People like buying a game once, and then being able to play it on both Windows and Mac (and later Linux). If you buy an app on the Windows store, you can only use it on Windows. Have a mac in the house, or a Linux box that you also play on? Sorry, gotta buy the game again elsewhere. 3: Many companies have been grumbling for a while that MS is crippling those who don't want to use Direct X. Any time a commercial game gets sold, the devs have to pay for Direct X licensing if they want to use Direct X. Problem is, Microsoft only supports OpenGL v1.1 in Windows 7. OGL1.1 came out in '97. The latest spec is version 4.2, and has huge improvements (as can be expected with 15 years of technology advances). Also, not all versions of Windows 8 will support Direct X (Specifically, the ARM version). OpenGL is well liked because it is cross platform. You make a game using OpenGL, and you can make it work on PS3, all the current Nintendo systems, Android, iOS, Mac OS, Windows, etc. Direct X is limited to Windows, Windows Mobile, and Xbox. Windows may rule the desktop, but not everyone games on the desktop, so Windows centric options aren't the best choice.
Here is a complete list of Win32 APIs that are supported for Metro apps. If you look under "Graphics", you'll notice that it has Direct2D and Direct3D, but not OpenGL.
No, it shows the myths that DirectX is vastly superior are false and since you can use OpenGL on any platform except maybe WP7 that is the reason you should use it.
My Transformer Infinity tablet can use a keyboard and trackpad/mouse, it also has a full HD display and HDMI out.
Right now it is technically feasible to play traditional games only a few years behind the state of the art on high end tablets without having to dumb the games down for a touch interface.
A few years down the line, steam for android/iOS could be not only practical, but very profitable.
Did we ever need direct X? Any reason why direct X couldnt be an open standard? Were they too self centred to just work on opengl?
Don't forget the origin of DirectX: Microsoft wanted to encourage game developers to embrace Windows 95 at a time when Win 3.11 had been seen as a business-application-only platform, with DOS preferred for games. DirectX was developed as a collection of APIs for games running in Windows 95 that handled input, graphics, music, sound, networking, etc. Only Direct3D, which initially shipped with DirectX 2.0, is directly competing with OpenGL.
I don't think there was a similar comprehensive API available for the PC market at the time DirectX was released. My copy of Need for Speed SE actually runs on either DOS 6.22 or Win95 w/ DirectX.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Yes, and Microsoft can use their cash mountain to "encourage" developers to use the app store, even running it at a loss for a while in order to destroy Valve's business. It's not as if they've never done this before!
Apparently you haven't followed the changes in OpenGL 3 and 4, which made major changes to how it works like eliminating the fixed function pipeline. Probably the best change was ditching the shader model used in 2.0 for one that works a lot more like HLSL and Cg (which is massively more flexible, but more work to use).
When I used DirectX, it seemed largely the same as OpenGL until DX9, which was a huge improvement over OpenGL. Now I'm not so sure again, but I only really have time to dabble in both.
Have you tried to install an xp era game on linux?
much easier to pirate the windows version and use wine.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
You must mean, "Where do I put a CD on a stripped down bargain computer/booksize computer/tablet?"
Seriously, optical drives aren't going away any time soon. People still spend ungodly amounts of money on DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, and more and more people are watching them on their computers.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
My tablet has a keyboard dock with trackpad, I can even use a usb mouse. It can also last for over a week without charging with light usage, or up to 24 hours of hd video. And its not an Apple iPoop either.
That's a pretty loaded statement. If you use a tool for a specific tasks, and forgo newer tools that come out in favour of revisions of the tool that you have been using because it remains the best tool for the job, then you haven't "gone out of your way to avoid every computing trend," rather, you've continued to use the best tool for the job. There are no devices more suitable for the kind of stuff these people do than desktop computers with discrete video cards.
Aren't there some games companies who published stats on how many players use Wine to run their games?
I doubt anyone would use wine if there were native versions available, and the number of people using wine is relatively easy to count.
What's much harder to quantify, is the number if people who dual boot and would choose a linux version if it were available, especially if it was faster.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
A netbook is a laptop whose display is too small and of too low a resolution to do anything but the simplest tasks on, whose keyboard is too compact and cramped to comfortably type more than a few paragraphs on and whose hardware is so lacking in performance that few applications run sufficiently fast on it. Gaming is pretty much impossible due to the low graphics performance. There are only two advantages over a full-blown laptop: portability (smaller size, lighter weight) and battery time.
netbooks are great for playing nethack.
Coincidence? I think not.
"I need this $300 video card for .... Photoshop. That's the ticket" ;)
I'm not intending to be judgmental, only pointing out that desktops aren't the default choice anymore. It's a pretty narrow audience that plays Valve-type PC games, and has little to do with Angry Birds or whatever. (I'd also bet the Valve audience is also a good deal more 'techie' than the general public, which means they're more likely to try Linux.)
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
...can get excellent performance out of the hardware and software. I'm actually an OpenGL partisan, but Direct3D is only part of DirectX. Input, sound, graphics, networking, all in one API - that really is a powerful argument for DirectX. OpenGL + SDL + OpenAL is far from a bad API set to develop for, but you gotta admit it could use some polish. Hopefully, greater attention to Linux gaming will catalyze that polish. Which should mean that not-so-major game companies who don't have the hardware vendors on speed dial can get some benefits from this, too.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
They get confused by the fact that old phosphor TV screens only required ~ 30FPS to produce fluid motion. They forget these old screens had both a fade-in and fade-out time that effectively smoothed out the interval between frames.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Never underestimate the stupidity of the pointy headed boss. I just had to migrate a law firm from a office messaging suite they have used for over 10 years (mainly because of the billing integration) to outlook 2010 and exchange because one of their partners worked with another lawyer from another company and had outlook. Seriously, they gauged their abilities on what they think makes other companies productive.
After buying all the add ins and so on to replicate the functionality they previously had, I was told the real reason was so they could connect their ipads and look important in court when they sent and checked their emails and adjusted their scheduling. Of course they already had this ability if they would have asked for it to be set up on their devices or just talked with other team members already using it.
The point is, Microsoft will always have a sale and be relevant on the desktop when decisions about purchasing for large companies are made out of envy and conformation more then economics or utilitarian functions. I've already had to deal with other vendors only supporting MS products like office and outlook which is mostly easy to get around when you can trap and view the mapi calls and data associated with them (interestingly, mapi was supposed to make inter program communication vendor agnostic). But vendor lock in and favoring Microsoft in this has been something that has been around for years and years which does not follow logic in the least. Your projected demise of MS and these other companies will probably defy it too. Well at least from a business aspect which somewhat ensures a home personal aspect too. Most apple users I know also have MS computers specifically because they need it to do work at home at times.
I'm having trouble understanding your reply. The people who play games don't buy $300 video cards to run Photoshop. They buy them to run very demanding 3D applications. You can't run those applications on other platforms, so it isn't a matter of going out of one's way to avoid alternatives.
So your tablet is usable (for input) when you turn it into a laptop. That's not really much of a defence of the tablet form-factor.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Uh.... considering Glide was the first and only 3D api for quite a while and it was later followed by DirectX/OpenGL. That's quite wrong. Also, Microsoft went into a deal with SGI to create a 3d API based on OpenGL which Microsoft Cynically shitcanned/backstabbed SGI on.
Glide was based on a subset of OpenGL features specifically chosen by 3DFX for gaming. So I guess it may have been the first 3D API designed specifically for gaming (though I think Direct3D began around the same time, it just sucked), but it certainly wasn't the first 3D API.
DOS was preferred for games because it allowed low-level hardware access. Windows 3.x required everyone to use dog-slow GDI for graphics, which was only good for stuff like solitaire and minesweeper.
With DOS mostly invisible in Windows 95, Microsoft knew they would be completing against their own legacy OS so they had to change it. They had to create a way to play games in Windows but still allow low-level hardware access. DirectX was born.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Sometimes I wonder, since most public sales rankings don't include digital downloads (what a redundant term), and right now the aging current generation of consoles can't hold a candle to PCs for size of selection or quality of graphics. I have pretty old, moderately priced, video card, and my hardware is hardly new or exciting (AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black, ATI/AMD 5770, 6GB of DDR2), and pretty much every game I play looks better than it would on a console, with better FPS, textures, shading, FOV, etc... If I was a console gamer (I have a forgotten, forlorn, Wii) I'd probably be thinking of trying PC gaming. Especially since the barrier to entry is pretty low right now (you have a moderate computer from the last 2-3 years? Have $100-200 to throw at a video card? Poof, new console that you can also use for more than a paperweight when your not gaming).
Sadly the sales figures won't tell us if this is happening, since they only count retail. I have a feeling that the majority of PC games are now bought through digital distributors like Steam, GOG, or Desura.
I wonder what would happen to sales figures if they suddenly added Steam's statistics to them...
Also, Valve isn't anything special, they aren't terribly "techie". I don't see what would make them so either, you download a client, you hand them your credit card, and games automagically appear on your computer, with no (ideally) setup, mucking with registries, or anything else of a technical nature. Using Steam is about as simple as using a console, sans the time to download the game. Click a button, you're playing. Nothing remotely technical. If you were talking about GOG, then sure... you might have a point... but not Steam.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
If you're arguing that people buy systems specifically to play high-end PC games, then we are in total agreement.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Well, no, if consumers sales are being dominated by laptops, then people can't just throw in a video card ... that's 1999 style thinking. A self-selected group of "high end gamers" buys hardware designed for the "enthusiast' market.
However, there's tons of PC gaming going on in the laptop world, things like Spore or WoW and so on, and I'm sure Steam gets a piece of that. Even L4D might be old enough that its playable on basic Intel kit. That's the market that's more likely to be 'disrupted' by tablets
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The full story is excellently described here.
Ideally you would write for OpenGL on all markets but..... well, read it yourself. The future on the other hand is uncertain, maybe we'll see more OpenGL now.
But apparently wasn't clear that my comment was intended as a joke. Well, you can't have it all.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Is it time: Yes
Will it happen: No
We're long passed time to get onto OpenGL. In the late 90's there were a few of OpenGL game on Windows (Homeworld for one) but since then video card manufacturers have dropped the ball on OpenGL and developers have become complacent and lazy relying on DirectX. It's going to be pretty difficult to stop mainstream devs from suckling at the teat of DirectX and to get ATI/Nvidia to pick up their game.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
opengl32.dll
Doesnt mean much that Valve is porting to Linux. All it means is they see a new area to make money, from sole linux users, which are a SMALL % of desktops.
I don't agree. Valve is porting their games to Linux, but they're also encouraging other developers to port to Linux and opening up the Steam platform to Linux. The way Steam works, if you buy a game on 1 platform and it's available on other platforms, you can play it on the other platform for free. This means that it's not only from sole Linux users, and Linux users don't need to be a large percentage of desktops to start out. If suddenly all my Steam games are available for Linux, I could switch to playing them on Linux instead of Windows. If the performance was superior, I would switch in a second.
So this means you could buy a game once, and choose to play it on Mac, Windows, and/or Linux, freeing us from having to buy games for a particular platform. This is even more noteworthy because of rumors that Valve is working on a Steam-based game console. Gaming is often cited as one of the things that keeps people running Windows. Many people (including myself) have a Windows desktop computer that is used solely for playing games. I think if gaming were to become truly platform independent, you might see a noticeable drop in Windows market share in the home market.
You must be working on wall street.
If you sell 2 tablets in 2009 and sell 4 tablets in 2010, that is what percentage of growth?
Meanwhile, if you sell 100 million desktops in 2009 and 110 million desktops in 2010, what percentage of growth is that?
It is the same with the so called BRIC economies. Massive growth? Yup, percentage wise. Easy when you come from nothing. I could double my speed on the mile if I actually did some excersise for once. Meanwhile olympic athletes are happy with a tenth of a second! They must SUCK!
Calculating what is really being used out there, that is hard. For instance, mobile gaming devices. We know they are being sold but I don't see them in public. Turns out that many use them at HOME and NOT on the go. Many a laptop never leaves its desk. Meanwhile how many tablets are gathering dust like the Wii which outsold in hardware but severely undersells in software? Nintendo ain't reporting losses for nothing.
People who claim because item X sold a lot is going to kill off item Y are the kind who just love headlines and stop to think. Like you.
Attach a keyboard and a tablet becomes a laptop? Really? So all of a sudden it gets a HD? USB Hub? Ethernet port? Multi-channel sound output? Expansion bays? Right click? Multi screen support?
I didn't understand how people could be reviewing Windows 8 in a positive way. And then I saw a video review on a "reputable" site and they reviewed it on a "desktop" with a resolution that would make a netbook weep. Yah... no wonder then that the slashdot sentiment differs a bit, how many here run at netbook resolutions?
Tablets can only replace a PC for those people who barely use a PC, in the same way a bicycle or public transport can only replace a car for those who barely use the functionality of a car. I should know, I don't have a car and don't miss it and when people ask, but how do you move house with your own car then, I say "I don't!". Really who the fuck wants the hassle, I pay a company who sends a big truck and strong men and they do it faster, safer and me not getting tired which is the most important bit.
If you use a PC without needing to easily cut and paste, have a right click menu for ease of access or for that matter, pin-point control... well... then a tablet can replace your PC. I have tried to make slashdot posts on a tablet and it is a pain in the ass for editing.
And ergonomic. I know the kind of people that can replace a desktop with a laptop. They are the ones who will develop back problems. You are NOT SUPPOSED to work in the position that a laptop forces you to work in. Head UPRIGHT, screen at eye height!
Sure, you can buy a dock and external monitors and you just made your laptop into an easily overheating overly expensive non-upgradable desktop. Wheee!
But hey, if you think tablets can replace PC's, fine. I give you my tablet for free. But if you EVER even touch a PC or laptop for the rest of your live, you put a tattoo on your forehead "I am to dumb to exist, please kill me". Deal?
Didn't think so.
People have been crying the death of the desktop for years if not decades. By the way, what happened to smartphones replacing the desktop? That seems to have dropped away, suddenly it is the tablet that is the new king... odd that... did you ever post that the smartphone would replace the PC?
Zero growth is normal in mature markets, it is inevitable that someday everyone will have the product and you can only sell replacements and PC's last a long a time now. High growth is normal in immature markets. Only a fool would make absolute predictions by comparing these two figures.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Edit code... on a tablet?
Really? On a touch screen keyboard. Edit code? No right click? Murderous copy past? For gods sakes if you force me to work on windows with no 3rd mouse button I already loose productivity and you want me to work with one click? You an apple fan?
I hate to imagine what kind of code you write.
What about 3D modelling or even photoshopping? On a tablet with a touch screen finger input? Man, and I thought I hated designers but even I would not torture them like this.
I suppose I am just to old to get caught in the next wave of excitement that is going to change everything and then it doesn't.
Come back in ten years, if everything is still the same... well... then you are an old fart too getting fed up with young kids crazy dreams. Just like me and those who came before. Everything the same as always.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You think you're funny?
http://www.pulitzer.org/files/entryforms/2013planofaward.pdf
There you go.. full instructions..
Uh.... considering Glide was the first and only 3D api for quite a while and it was later followed by DirectX/OpenGL. That's quite wrong. Also, Microsoft went into a deal with SGI to create a 3d API based on OpenGL which Microsoft Cynically shitcanned/backstabbed SGI on.
Glide was based on a subset of OpenGL features specifically chosen by 3DFX for gaming. So I guess it may have been the first 3D API designed specifically for gaming (though I think Direct3D began around the same time, it just sucked), but it certainly wasn't the first 3D API.
glide doesn't do all that much.
Glide was based on what 3dfx cards could do and couple of conviniency functions. pretty much all those cards did was blit(and interpolarate texture coords and lighting) zbuffered horizontal lines really fast(and for some 3d engines that made it pretty easy to support glide).
now the opengl 3dfx miniport created for quake is sort of a subset chosen specificially for gaming, namely one game called quake.
but glide really wasn't much of a d3d competitor since d3d aims to do so much more, which is both good and bad, but you get more acceleration without work with modern cards with it for free.
also it's not that much of a news that some things run faster on linux, even some wine'd stuff does that from time to time.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.