Hi Everybody (not everybody, but many) writes engines for DirectX. Nobody likes Windows. OK. But other OS's (like Linux) have no chance, when everything is just for MS DirectX. The trend goes to OpenGL. Every OS can use OpenGL. I read, that an OpenGL engine has a shorter code than a DirectX engine. Also will DirectX 8 support directly OpenGL. I think other OS's would really have a chance, when more programmers use OpenGL. Quake3, UT, Half-Life and other games lead the right way. I hope more people and companys will follow. Now I'm using Win2000-NT and many DirectX games don't work. But the OpelGL games work perfectly. Open sources (OpenGL and much of Linux) are the right way in the future. The user gets more control and more options. Just Microsoft develops DirectX. But many, many people develops on open sources. When Microsoft a new version of DirectX comes, many changes feature OpenGL and Linux. And when Microsoft will be cuted by the goverment, what will happen to DirectX. Who will develop it? I think it's safer, less work and a chance for other OS's to use OpenGL. mfg Astan

I'm not sure what you mean by "DirectX 8 will support directly OpenGL"? That statement makes no sense. DirectX 8 and OpenGL are different APIs. They each have their own driver model, and there in no sense in which saying that "one supports the other" is even a meaningful statement. While it's true that OpenGL having cross-platform support is an advantage, it's actually a pretty small one. The market for games on non-Windows systems is vanishingly small (not counting consoles, obviously, but none of them have OpenGL implementations anyway). Weigh this up against the disadvantages. D3D has, in general, slightly better driver coverage. Also, D3D is now leading the way with new features. There are already things you can do with D3D that you just can't do with OpenGL (e.g. render to texture), and this trend will accelerate with the next release of DirectX. You seem to be under the impression that OpenGL is open source. Don't be fooled by the name. OpenGL is a proprietary API that is licenced out by SGI. There's also a problem with the ARB (OGL's steering committee). In that it contains lots of people who all have a vested interest in doing things differently from one another in order to differentiate their products. With Direct3D there is no such problem. In fact, it's in MS's interest to drive convergence between graphics card vendors, which is a thing. Direct3D is much more directly driven by the needs of _software_ developers. Furthermore, Direct3D is specifically driven by the needs of _games_ developers. OpenGL has to cater for every kind of graphics developer, from games developers through to industrial data visualisation apps. Sometimes the needs of these groups coincide, but often they don't.

I'm more interested in D3D. But thats because I bought a G400 Rffggh, tgghfh...

Astan is correct (well sort of). Microsoft are planning to merge OpenGL and D3D to produce a new API codenamed Farenheit. I'm not sure when this is going to happen but i don't think that it will occur with DX8.

I can assure you that DirectX 8 has nothing much to do with OpenGL. I know this because I work for MS on the DX team.

I think of Open Source as a form of Marxism. Before you all run away and tell the US that Holland is a communist nest, let me clarify. I mean Marxism, not Communism. Basically what's happening is that the people who are able to create applications do so, and give them to the rest of the users for free, assuring through the GPL that the software remains truly free. The reason why this works and communism as in the USSR didn't work is that once a program is written it can be copied so that everyone can use it. Food or other industrial products can't be copied, so they have to be made in great quantities which inevitably lowers the quality. With software it doesn't work that way. As for OpenGL not being opensource, indeed OpenGL isn't. However, Mesa is, and it's a 1 on 1 copy of OpenGL interface-wise. Then for the ARB, apparently things work in a different direction in the two implementations. With OpenGL it's the hardware manufacturers that specify the software interface to their cards, with D3D it's the software interface manufacturer (Microsoft) that decides which features will be supported, after consulting the hardware manufacturers. As for the antitrust case against Microsoft, I read the judge's Finding of Facts and I must say that I'm impressed by what Microsoft did to push Netscape out of the market. I mean risking some 50% of your sales to hold off a competitor is rather drastic, but they did and it worked. Very clever businessmen. The right way into the future? I don't know. I'm a Linux user with experience with Win31/95/98 and some experience with NT4, and I've been toying around with a BeOS demo disk lately. I don't think there is a OS for desktop use at the moment. BeOS doesn't have enough apps, Linux is too complicated for the average user, and Windows isn't stable enough (IMHO, YMMV). ------------------ jsr@dds.nl UIN #14961705 These are not my views, but those of id Software

OpenGL does however, have one steamingly point in it's favour... it was not brought to us by the company that made the design decisions that brought us 'windows'.. [This message has been edited by Scrambled_Egg (edited 19 November 1999).]

So why do I use DirectX? Well, I want to write a game. A game for a platform that is easy to use and easy to INSTALL!! As I am a programmer, I have to problem in installing Linux or whatever. And I don't have a problem in installing the right drivers and Kernels for my hardware. And I don't have problems with organizing user levels and access rights. But I am a programmer. I am expected to do so. But I'm writing a game for users. Users are not programmers. Perhaps they have problems with doing all that technical organization stuff. Why do you thing MS invented stupid things like wizards? You can set all this information on one single screen. But without tons of text, users don't get along with this mass of requested information. And you expect them to install Linux? Sorry dude, but are you crazy? Another thing. I'm too young for it, but I heard enought to thing to know enough. I heard some people talking about the old times, where we had many many operating systems and platforms like an ATARI or a Commodore64. Well, again I want to write a game. A game for users. A game, many many people can play. But how many times do I have to convert it to other platforms? All this had an end. There was a OS, called MS-DOS and later there was even Windows. I don't say, it's a way all this went, but it resulted in some things. Now we have one single platform to develop for. Now we have one single API to develop for. And we don't have to take care about hardware and platforms and OS-Architecture and stuff. And all this results in one basic advantage: I don't have to sit down and write something which makes it possible to sit down and write a game. I simply can sit down and write a game. So far, Alex ------------------ Alexander 'DaJudge' Stockinger Lizard Studios ( www.lizard.soft-ware.de ) Interests: 3D programming, AI

I personally don't understand what you all have against Windows9x, too. Just a few years ago, everyone wanted a standard-system, something easier to program than DOS, something more comfortable to use than DOS, ... No we have got this point, you can create your software with ease and it'll work on nearly every system. You don't have to worry about all that little problems anymore. As to DirectX, I use it because I started with it and like it. I can understand people who say "OpenGL is nicer to code", but I personally started coding together with DX and that's it. If you wanna write portable code, use OpenGL and that's it. We had this discussions that often, it's kinda annoying. It doesn't interest me if the API I use is written by Microsoft or SGI, the only thing I'm interested in is how I like the API. If you say you'll never use DX because it's by Microsoft, than it's everything but professional. And about OpenSource ... do you wanna earn money by coding games or normal apps ? How do you want to earn money when giving them away as freeware/opensource. It might work on alternate OS' like Linux, but not on the ones that are used for earning money. As a user, you might like to get everything for freeware, but as a developer ? CU ------------------ #40842461 Skullpture Entertainment

Hi OpenGL isn't open? Huh... "got some wrong information. OK." DirectX 8 won't support OpenGL? Huh... "one more time" Could you give me mor information? Linux becomes bigger and bigger. Now, you can get it in some shops, like MS Office. Today, everybody have Windows, because you must have it. When someone would come and say "Hey, every game: now for Linux", I would not work with this shit. mfg "Mit Freundlichen Gruessen" = "With friendly greetings" (free translation!) Some german stuff. :-) Astan

You're confused about "DirectX 8 won't support OpenGL?". The point is that it's a meaningless thing to say. It's like saying "will Winsock support DirectSound?". They're totally separate. One is not dependent in any way on the other.

I thought MS and SGI were supposed to be working together on this Fahrenheit thing?

I was following the opengl/directX/farenheit thing quite closely, especially as we at my previous company had to make a quick desision which API to take. Back then, things were even messier than now and directX did not look like a choice. Although I don't work there now, I think we made the best choice in going for openGL. However, DirectX doesn't suck like it used to and besides, you have to use directdraw (well, I'm sure there are other ways that I'm not privvy to) to change screen modes so directX creeps in there anyway. Farenheit, as far as I'm aware, is not going to happen. Sorry folks, I thought it would be nice as well but SGI seem to have lost interest and I've read that work is not going ahead with it. DirectX's advantage and disadvantage over openGL is that it is more closely tied to the hardware and I always thought that farenheit would just be direct3d with openGL like commands. It's all very confusing and annoying and I think we would all be happier if other companies corporate politics didn't cause so much grief for the rest of us but look at it this way; Great games have been done in OpenGL and DirectX so just pick one (or both) and learn to use it. Tim.

Hi Everybody knows it. You're playing a DirectX Game and it smashes (crash!) and the Desktop resolution is down. You don't have this Problem with OpenGL (i think so). mfg Astan

Right; okay... My 2 cents... OpenGL is a *far* better designed API. To quote Mr. Carmack: "There are two viable contenders for low level 3D programming on win32: Direct-3D Immediate Mode, the new, designed for games API, and OpenGL, the workstation graphics API originally developed by SGI." And: "Direct-3D IM is a horribly broken API. It inflicts great pain and suffering on the programmers using it, without returning any significant advantages." Then: "The overriding reason why GL is so much better than D3D has to do with ease of use. GL is easy to use and fun to experiment with. D3D is not (ahem). You can make sample GL programs with a single page of code. I think D3D has managed to make the worst possible interface choice at every opportunity. COM. Expandable structs passed to functions. Execute buffers. Some of these choices were made so that the API would be able to gracefully expand in the future, but who cares about having an API that can grow if you have forced it to be painful to use now and forever after? Many things that are a single line of GL code require half a page of D3D code to allocate a structure, set a size, fill something in, call a COM routine, then extract the result." Sorry to spend my post quoting someone else, but I agree very strongly with this, and despite the age of the argument, all these points are still true... Look here: http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/3d.html for more... _________________ Pete, pjh5@doc.ic.ac.uk _________________

Wasn't Carmack actually slating the _OLD_ direct3D (version 3.0) which was generally accepted as being pretty lame. I seem to remember hearing this ages ago and I was under the impression that he quite likes the newer Direct3D versions (as do most developers it would appear. Regarding Farenheit - I believe SGI got fed up and are now just doing the minimum required (they are obliged to do a certain ammount because of the original contract). I thought that MS were going ahead with it anyway, but I'm unsure. And I don't think there is any point in developing games for Linux, certainly not for a year or two anyway. It still isn't a very nice desktop OS (IMHO) and I doubt it ever will (I think it needs redesigning and rewriting from scratch if it is ever to be any ). As for Mesa, well it is supposedly 100% compatible with OpenGL (but they have to pay money to Silicon Graphics to get it properly accredited), but (IIRC) it does use 3dfx for all hardware acceleration - which I feel might peeve off a few TNT2 owners. I think there is a Mesa version for BeOS which might offer a decent market for computer games in a few years though. ------------------ Mark "Wes" http://www.wes.easynet.co.uk

I think many of John's comments were based on old versions of D3D. For example, notice how he cites execute buffers as an example of the complication in D3D. We replaced those years ago. John also gets to see a rather rosy view of things. After all, pretty much the one and only test app for OGL driver writers is Quake 3. Which means that in effect he gets a team of people at each hardware vendor dedicated to making sure his stuff runs okay. So it's hardly surprising that things work out okay for him. You only need to read the OGL game dev mailing list to know that many other developers bitch on a daily basis about how OGL driver features which weren't used in Quake are often just plain broken. It's true that Direct3D was a lot more complicated to use than OpenGL. The gap is much, much smaller now. Also, some of that complexity buys you a little bit of power. For example, because of the way we handle textures versus the way OGL handles textures, we need one less copy of each texture in system memory - and when you've got a huge texture budget (like, say, Unreal) then that makes a big difference. I know Tim was seeing a 30% speed boost on UT running on D3D versus OGL, simply because of the texture issue. Furthermore, although the core OGL API is simple to use, that's not the end of the story. These days there are a bunch of extensions you need to use if you want to take advantage of cool new features like cube-mapping or multitexture. At which point the OGL code starts getting more complex, and ends up very similar to D3D code. Furthermore, with OGL, it's quite likely that there are several different extensions from different hardware vendors which essentially do the same thing, so you need to write multiple code paths to get the same result, whereas with D3D if the feature is there it's always accessed in the same way.

Oh man this is scary. You're actually convincing me D3D is better and it sounds rather logical as well. Well I have to use OpenGL anyway. Indeed Mesa is fully OGL compatible and last thing I heard they were getting it SGI accredited (SGI has done a lot for Mesa and the free software community). Also nVidia are working on drivers for the TNT and TNT2, I'm actually running the TNT X server and glx plugin right now. As for earning money, there's no reason why you can't sell Linux programs, you're not obliged to spread your software for free. And if you want something easy to use and install, why don't you write for the iMac? It's even simpler than the pc to the end user, and you always have the same hardware so no driver trouble. Plus they're stable and selling like ice-cream in the Sahara desert. So, what are you waiting for? NuFAN: depends on your definition of "work" ofcourse. I agree on choosing an API based on who made it is unprofessional, and I already wrote about the Open Source thing, basically you can get any tool for free and sell the programs you create with them. Isn't that nice? ------------------ jsr@dds.nl UIN #14961705 These are not my views, but those of id Software

OpenGL: Easier to learn, much more portable D3D: More Powerful (certainly these days) Thats how I see it anyway.

Hi, the Carmack-letter is from 1997 ... do you remember Execute Buffers and that ugly shit ? Yeah, D3D was ugly at that time, but have a look at it now. The ugliest thing is the initialization (if you've done it three times, it's easy, too) and the rest is easy (with DrawPrimitive).

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Everybody knows it. You're playing a DirectX Game and it smashes (crash!) and the Desktop resolution is down. You don't have this Problem with OpenGL (i think so).

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Wrong ! LOURENS : Let's see it from another point. You develop compilers and Linux becomes the way to go. There are several free compilers available, so nobody will buy your one. So, how do you wanna earn money ? OpenSource is a thing for engines like Genesis3D or Crystal Space, but not for anything. Remember all the people who try coding better parts of the OS and they get it to crash and don't get it work until next install again. Is this the way to go ? Don't expect people to be like they should be : They aren't. As to the free tools, there are many many companies who develop tools, how can they earn money if anything is for free ? That'll cost many jobs. And I guess there won't be that much free software available when Linux is the no. 1 OS. It'll be the same as under Windows, expect the OS is OpenSource. You won't get free a free LinuxOffice 2004 and whatever, because there's a growing industry of developers who wants to earn money and needs to earn money. And not every developer who works on the programs for free will do this in future. It'll be another thing. CU ------------------ #40842461 Skullpture Entertainment

Nufan: Earning money? Well either develop something else, or make your compiler better than the free compilers. Borland will bring out Delphi and C++ Builder for Linux, and people will buy them because they like the IDE and are willing to spend money on extra programming comfort. There are companies (Mystic Games Development springs to mind) that make money by selling engines despite the existance of Genesis3D and Crystal Space. So I think that argument doesn't work. Next one: Coding parts of the OS and getting it to crash. Well, what you do is simple. You compile a new kernel with your modifications. You boot that kernel. It crashes. You save the core dump and the backtrace and reboot the pc. Instead of loading "linux" at the LILO prompt you load "linux_old", which is your previous working kernel, and you load up the OS. Then you use the GNU devtools to analyse the core dump and backtrace, and you fix the problem. Recompile kernel and give it another go. If people weren't like that Linux and Open Source/Free Software wouldn't even exist. And another one...Well no ofcourse you won't. You get Notepad and Wordpad for free with Windows, and if you want more you buy Office. If a company really has something to offer it will sell, and if it's not so then it won't sell and the company will disappear. That's called market economy. And why would you need companies anyway? The end user doesn't care where his software comes from as long as it works well and the price/performance ratio is reasonable. As for your argument that it will cost a lot of jobs: There are far too little people to fill all the job openings on the IT market so I don't think that'll be much of a problem. Plus you still need system administrators, helpdesk people, and more of that....bites the dust. Lastly I'd like to add that there are companies who are making money by writing Open Source software. First of all companies like SuSE and Redhat ofcourse, but there are also companies that are hired by other companies to improve certain parts of other Open Source projects. Say one company wants to make a game and wants Linux drivers for different graphics cards. They can then hire this company to write those drivers and make them publicly available as Free Software. Should I add "Linux advocate" to my signature? ------------------ jsr@dds.nl UIN #14961705 These are not my views, but those of id Software [This message has been edited by Lourens Veen (edited 19 November 1999).]

Oh for Christ's sake can everyone please SHUT UP about DirectX vs OpenGL, I am sick to death of coming on to this notice board and seeing at least 10 messages a week entitled "OpenGl vs DirectX?". What is the problem? This argument was only relevant about 3 years ago when DirectX was in it's infancy and OpenGL was pretty much an established API. DirectX has evolved into a very powerful API and is becoming the de facto standard for PC games development, OpenGL has only really stayed around because of iD based engines and technology, as tonycox says, it was OK for John Carmack to bitch about it but that's because he basically has a team of driver engineers making sure that OpenGL works well with the latest incarnation of Quake. Enough is enough, the bottom line is IF IT DOES WHAT YOU WANT THEN USE IT, IF IT DOESN'T THEN DON'T. If you want to use OpenGL then go ahead but PLEASE, PLEASE stop telling me about it because I'm really not interested I would much rather talk about something more interesting than people's personal preferences about API's.

I'm talking about Linux vs. Windows, or Open Source vs. Proprietary Stuff. I don't know much about OpenGL or DirectX. ------------------ jsr@dds.nl UIN #14961705 We could still be friends

Microsoft appears to have infiltrated this board. sorry tony

If someone posted an unfavourable comparison of something you were working on, I'm sure you'd step in and defend your product, right? Or perhaps you'd prefer I didn't read and respond to messages from people on this board? I like to think I provide helpful responses quite often.