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Valve Open Sources Their DirectX To OpenGL Layer

Posted by Unknown on from the please-port-mame-hlsl-shader-to-sdlmame-kthx dept.

jones_supa writes "A bit surprisingly, Valve Software has uploaded their Direct3D to OpenGL translation layer onto GitHub as open source. It is provided as-is and with no support, under the MIT license allowing you to do pretty much anything with it. Taken directly from the DOTA2 source tree, the translation layer supports limited subset of D3D 9.0c, bytecode-level HLSL to GLSL translator, and some SM3 support. It will require some tinkering to get it to compile, and there is some hardcoded Source-specific stuff included. The project might bring some value to developers who are planning to port their product from Windows to Linux."

6 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. On the road to replacing DirectX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With a big company (in terms of money) like Valve pushing OpenGL there is a real chance DirectX will face serious and permanent competition. We will finally have a serious alternative to the suffocating model of forcing a new operating system down peoples throat through software. It worked great with the browser, now lets hope Valve can make it happen for games.

    1. Re:On the road to replacing DirectX by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think that only worked so well for the browser because MS let IE stagnate for so long. I don't think they are doing the same with DirectX. DirectX continues to evolve and stay up to date. It's one thing to convince the non-programmer, general computer user to keep using mediocre tools, it's a whole other story to try and get developers to do the same.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:On the road to replacing DirectX by LoRdTAW · · Score: 4, Insightful

      OpenGL is pretty much used everywhere but Microsoft targeted games (Windows and Xbox). Using DirectX on Windows games allowed them to be portable between PC and the Xbox so more and more games went the D3D route to remain portable between the two.

      I believe almost all CAD and 3D modelling software are OpenGL based. Android and iOS use OpenGL ES while any non Windows OS such as Linux and OSX use OpenGL for 3D graphics. With the big push to mobile and Microsoft left in the dust, OpenGL is the dominant player.

  2. Re:Makes sense by RaceProUK · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If only it was MIT-licensed so people could club together and add support for the rest of Dx9 (and 10 and 11 while they're at it)...

    --
    No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
  3. Re:Winelib by JDG1980 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Probably not. The wine guys tend to be more or less anti toward anything that they didn't write and thus can assert that it's not infringement on Microsoft's source code. Accepting that much code from Valve sounds very risky for them.

    Valve isn't some fly-by-night operation. They almost certainly have more exposure to legal liability than the Wine project would.

  4. Re:Winelib by LoRdTAW · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hold on, The subset of DX9.0c is probably the Xbox360 native API: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL_and_Direct3D#Gaming

    The original Xbox supported Direct3D 8.1 as its native API while the Xbox 360 supports a modified version of Direct3D 9.0c as its native API.

    This could be useful for studios looking to port Xbox360 titles to the Steam Box platform. It makes sense as there are a lot of titles that could see a sort of resurrection on Steam and bring in some more money. It is also possibly the same D3D API subset used for Windows Phone 8.