All I have to say to this post is this: Read this. Linux is not Windows! It may sound stupid, but that's essentially what it boils down to. I don't know about the rest of you, but I switched to Linux because I didn't like Windows. Linux is not there to get everyone to switch over from Windows - what's the deal with everyone thinking that we want them to openly welcome Linux with open arms? - it's there to be better than Windows. Emulating Windows doesn't make you better than it.
"IF the geeks want the non-Geeks in their world."
You're welcome to enter our world, but we don't necessarily WANT you to come in. What we want is for everyone to consider the fact that there IS a world outside of MS, and that you don't have to be stuck with Windows if you don't like it.
If you think our goal is to make you switch to Linux, I've got news for you, pal - we make Linux for US, not for you. If you like what we do with it, great. If not, you have three choices - either change it yourself (dive right in, that's what open-source is made for), convince someone else to change it (and if you haven't figured out yet, "it'll make people switch from Windows" isn't very convincing), or don't use it.
Well, the hardware manufacturers still need to make their own OpenGL drivers. As good as 80% performance may sound, it's still not good enough when you consider the fact that many gamers spend in the price range of $500-$1000 on graphics hardware alone - either one really good, high-end card or two cards working together as one. If I spent that much on a GPU, I'd be fuming that my 3D games are running at 80% performance just because MS wants things to look prettier. In fact, even though I'm not a huge gamer, I still don't think I'd be happy with 80%.
Can you imagine buying Xbox 360, only to find out that it runs Xbox games at 80% of the speed? Meaning that you're still going to have to keep the old Xbox around? 80% is nothing for everyday users who play a couple games here and there, but not for the people who want the latest and greatest and use their PC mostly for games.
How would this "allow GPU chipmakers to slash driver development costs"? They'd still need to make DirectX drivers, and they'd still need to make their GPUs compatible with OpenGL or they'll lose support from everyone but MS. Yes, this could allow game programmers to ONLY use OpenGL, and allow hardware makers to make drivers only for DirectX, but it'd lower performance - which is why you bought the 3D accelerator in the first place, right? To increase the speed of your 3D games so they look pretty without crashing your CPU?
An example of how MS can't win? Who do you think is going to benefit from MS undermining OpenGL? No, it's not Apple. Nope, not Red Hat either. Nope, not Sony. I'll give you a hint - it starts with an "m" and ends with "icrosoft".
And I thought these problems were from the way Vista is BEFORE installing the card maker's drivers. That would make MS's drivers faulty, NOT the card vendor's drivers. Plus, why do you need verification? Who gives if MS approved it? They didn't approve MY drivers. . . And what if you have old hardware that needs drivers without WHQL certification?
I remember not too long ago I was installing drivers for my laptop. Not only did it warn me about them not being WHQL-certified, but it wouldn't let me install them - every time I tried to, after telling me the drivers weren't certified, it would return with an error saying that it couldn't find the certification. What genius software - it knows the drivers aren't certified, but it looks for the certification anyways. Brilliant.
From my experience with Windows, it seems like a TON of drivers aren't WHQL-certified, and they still work GREAT.
What are you talking about? XP supported hardware OGL just fine with drivers.
And so what if vendors don't make drivers that don't support virtualization? It's kinda useless to virtualize it since usually OGL's only used for games. Why does MS need to hardware-accelerate the user interface? I saw some Vista screenshots and, yes, it looks different - not different enough to require a 3D accelerator, though.
No, I'm pretty sure OpenGL 2.0 and Direct3D have the same capabilities, and the performance is real close. Also, why, of all things, does ease of use matter when it comes to OpenGL or Direct3D? OpenGL games and DirectX games are just as easy to use, as far as I can tell. You mean for programming? Why does that matter? Unless you're making games, it doesn't. In fact, you'd probably WANT to use OpenGL for that - only MS OS's and consoles use DirectX. PS2, GameCube, PSP, OS X, Linux. . . they all use OpenGL.
So? The only reason the CPU usage was so high was that 3D-accelerated hardware was uncommon, and expensive, back then. Even today's PCs can't do OpenGL (or Direct3D, for that matter) at high framerates without hardware acceleration. Those same screensavers still wouldn't run smoothly even on a 3GHz machine - no matter how much RAM it has - without some sort of hardware acceleration.
In fact, about 7-8 months ago, my graphics card broke. I waited a little while and built myself a PC after Christmas, but, in the meantime, I limped along with my Voodoo3 2000. Even though I had a 1.4GHz machine, it still had trouble playing Counter-Strike at anything much higher than 800x600, because I didn't have good enough 3D acceleration to handle higher resolutions. When it comes to 3D, hardware acceleration is a MUST.
Yes, a driver would directly communicate with the device. . . kinda. The graphics card's driver counts on OpenGL's DLLs (or whatever Vista will use for OGL) to tell it what needs to be done. The driver is dependent on an OGL driver (NOT the device driver, but a separate driver specifically for interpreting OGL calls). If the one included in Vista will translate the OGL commands into DirectX commands, then the game would be slow because this driver would be slow - UNLESS the hardware manufacturer makes its own OGL driver. Problem is, what if MS makes the Vista driver irreplaceable?
Yes, many game developers are using DirectX exclusively, but this isn't necessarily because of its greatness (from what I hear, OGL works just as well in every respect) - they're doing this to make it easier to port over to the Xbox. Otherwise, it simply doesn't make sense - literally every non-MS game console and OS counts on GL for 3d acceleration (PS3, Linux, MacOS, GameCube. . . you name it) and, therefore, it would make sense businesswise for game makers to use OGL since it's supported in all these OS's/consoles - making it that much easier to port over.
It sounds to me like Vista is going to actually translate OpenGL code into DirectX code. If this is the case, even a driver from the manufacturer won't do anything - UNLESS the device manufacturer finds a way to override the code that performs this translation.
Sounds to me (more and more, all the time) like maybe "MS Vista" should be called "MS Disappointment." Nowhere near as many features as promised, no cool new features that aren't already available in other OS's or through third-party programs. . . not to mention it won't run DOOM 3 as well as its open-source alternatives. . . what a horrible move on MS's part.
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"Mr. Reynolds has apparently changed his name to Turd Ferguson."
"IF the geeks want the non-Geeks in their world."
You're welcome to enter our world, but we don't necessarily WANT you to come in. What we want is for everyone to consider the fact that there IS a world outside of MS, and that you don't have to be stuck with Windows if you don't like it.
If you think our goal is to make you switch to Linux, I've got news for you, pal - we make Linux for US, not for you. If you like what we do with it, great. If not, you have three choices - either change it yourself (dive right in, that's what open-source is made for), convince someone else to change it (and if you haven't figured out yet, "it'll make people switch from Windows" isn't very convincing), or don't use it.
Can you imagine buying Xbox 360, only to find out that it runs Xbox games at 80% of the speed? Meaning that you're still going to have to keep the old Xbox around? 80% is nothing for everyday users who play a couple games here and there, but not for the people who want the latest and greatest and use their PC mostly for games.
How would this "allow GPU chipmakers to slash driver development costs"? They'd still need to make DirectX drivers, and they'd still need to make their GPUs compatible with OpenGL or they'll lose support from everyone but MS. Yes, this could allow game programmers to ONLY use OpenGL, and allow hardware makers to make drivers only for DirectX, but it'd lower performance - which is why you bought the 3D accelerator in the first place, right? To increase the speed of your 3D games so they look pretty without crashing your CPU?
And I thought these problems were from the way Vista is BEFORE installing the card maker's drivers. That would make MS's drivers faulty, NOT the card vendor's drivers. Plus, why do you need verification? Who gives if MS approved it? They didn't approve MY drivers. . . And what if you have old hardware that needs drivers without WHQL certification?
I remember not too long ago I was installing drivers for my laptop. Not only did it warn me about them not being WHQL-certified, but it wouldn't let me install them - every time I tried to, after telling me the drivers weren't certified, it would return with an error saying that it couldn't find the certification. What genius software - it knows the drivers aren't certified, but it looks for the certification anyways. Brilliant.
From my experience with Windows, it seems like a TON of drivers aren't WHQL-certified, and they still work GREAT.
And so what if vendors don't make drivers that don't support virtualization? It's kinda useless to virtualize it since usually OGL's only used for games. Why does MS need to hardware-accelerate the user interface? I saw some Vista screenshots and, yes, it looks different - not different enough to require a 3D accelerator, though.
No, I'm pretty sure OpenGL 2.0 and Direct3D have the same capabilities, and the performance is real close. Also, why, of all things, does ease of use matter when it comes to OpenGL or Direct3D? OpenGL games and DirectX games are just as easy to use, as far as I can tell. You mean for programming? Why does that matter? Unless you're making games, it doesn't. In fact, you'd probably WANT to use OpenGL for that - only MS OS's and consoles use DirectX. PS2, GameCube, PSP, OS X, Linux. . . they all use OpenGL.
In fact, about 7-8 months ago, my graphics card broke. I waited a little while and built myself a PC after Christmas, but, in the meantime, I limped along with my Voodoo3 2000. Even though I had a 1.4GHz machine, it still had trouble playing Counter-Strike at anything much higher than 800x600, because I didn't have good enough 3D acceleration to handle higher resolutions. When it comes to 3D, hardware acceleration is a MUST.
Yes, many game developers are using DirectX exclusively, but this isn't necessarily because of its greatness (from what I hear, OGL works just as well in every respect) - they're doing this to make it easier to port over to the Xbox. Otherwise, it simply doesn't make sense - literally every non-MS game console and OS counts on GL for 3d acceleration (PS3, Linux, MacOS, GameCube. . . you name it) and, therefore, it would make sense businesswise for game makers to use OGL since it's supported in all these OS's/consoles - making it that much easier to port over.
It sounds to me like Vista is going to actually translate OpenGL code into DirectX code. If this is the case, even a driver from the manufacturer won't do anything - UNLESS the device manufacturer finds a way to override the code that performs this translation. Sounds to me (more and more, all the time) like maybe "MS Vista" should be called "MS Disappointment." Nowhere near as many features as promised, no cool new features that aren't already available in other OS's or through third-party programs. . . not to mention it won't run DOOM 3 as well as its open-source alternatives. . . what a horrible move on MS's part.