Hello,

How many games are written with OpenGL, these days?. Is it still used in
gaming industry, or it has became a system for "professional"  (CAD etc.)
systems?

Tomasz

cbull wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> How many games are written with OpenGL, these days?. Is it
> still used in gaming industry,

Have a look at the Doom3 engine, the same goes for DARKSTARgames
EVEN engine in development.

> or it has became a system for "professional"  
> (CAD etc.) systems?

It was a "professional" system in the first place, but get widely
used more and more (e.g. the whole GUI of Mac OS Tiger is
rendered using OpenGL).

Wolfgang Draxinger
-- 

"Wolfgang Draxinger" <wdraxinger@darkstargames.de> wrote in message
news:ttpbm2-05d.ln1@darkstargames.dnsalias.net...
> cbull wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > How many games are written with OpenGL, these days?. Is it
> > still used in gaming industry,
>
> Have a look at the Doom3 engine, the same goes for DARKSTARgames
> EVEN engine in development.
>

OK, I agree that there are _some_ (even major) games using OpenGL. But, as I
can see, most of the games are developed with DirectX nowadays. I hope I'm
wrong, but it seems that GL is becoming less popular in games.

Tomasz

cbull wrote:
> 
> I agree that there are _some_ (even major) games using OpenGL. But, as I
> can see, most of the games are developed with DirectX nowadays. I hope I'm
> wrong, but it seems that GL is becoming less popular in games.
> 

And the point is...?


-- 
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"fungus" <umailMY@SOCKSartlum.com> wrote in message
news:uQJke.41591$dr.38474@news.ono.com...
> cbull wrote:
> >
> > I agree that there are _some_ (even major) games using OpenGL. But, as I
> > can see, most of the games are developed with DirectX nowadays. I hope
I'm
> > wrong, but it seems that GL is becoming less popular in games.
> >
>
> And the point is...?

Well, I just want to know wheter I am right. And maybe what is the future of
OpenGL. Is it going to be more popular in gaming industry?

Tomasz

cbull wrote:
> 
> Well, I just want to know wheter I am right. And
 > maybe what is the future of OpenGL.

If you mean is OpenGL going away? Definitely
not. Too many people use it for that to happen.

This isn't a movie with Scottish people
in it - "There can be more than one!"

> Is it going to be more popular in gaming industry?
>

For commercial, cutting-edge, professional
games - the kind where you specify your sales
window (eg. Xmas 2005) Direct3D is probably
better than OpenGL (that's what it's designed
for after all).

If you want portability, you have no choice
but OpenGL.

If you're writing a program with a long
lifespan then choose OpenGL. Microsoft
politics requires them to change the
API frequently ("API churn") so the
Linux boys can't emulate it. Be prepared
to throw books away and rewrite code if
you choose Direct3D.

For anything else then choose the API you
most enjoy working with. I personally think
Direct3D and Microsoft Hungarian notation
is ugly as sin.


-- 
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\_____/  FTB.    For email, remove my socks.

> For commercial, cutting-edge, professional
> games - the kind where you specify your sales
> window (eg. Xmas 2005) Direct3D is probably
> better than OpenGL (that's what it's designed
> for after all).
>

I know it's off-topic, but I would know why actually Direct3D is better than
OpenGL for the purpose you've mentioned. Are there some features of the
modern cards that can be utilized with it and not with gl? Or is it only
politics (we all know whose).

And what about gaming consoles. Can OpenGL be used in them, or is it DX only
zone?

I personally think
> Direct3D and Microsoft Hungarian notation
> is ugly as sin.

I agree :)

Tomasz

cbull wrote:
> I know it's off-topic, but I would know why actually Direct3D is better than
> OpenGL for the purpose you've mentioned. Are there some features of the
> modern cards that can be utilized with it and not with gl? Or is it only
> politics (we all know whose).

I'm going to share my private theory - flame away if you will.

Direct3D API development is driven by Microsoft itself. Every once in a 
while, they bump up the version number, change the old API, and add some 
new stuff. Then the graphics cards vendors scramble to support the 
newest D3D API in their graphics cards. The benefit is that if you write 
for D3D version X, then the graphics cards your game will run on will 
support all features, or not work at all. This could be a good thing if 
you want to throw out a game with a shelf life until the next version of 
D3D comes out.

OpenGL development, on the other hand, is driven by the graphics card 
vendors. They come up with a nice feature to distance themselves from 
the competition (not that there are many competitors these days), and 
roll it into an OpenGL extension. If the extension is good, others will 
adopt it, and at some point the extension becomes blessed by the ARB, 
and will finally end up in the next version of core OpenGL. Take the 
vertex buffer extension, for example. IIRC, it started as Nvidia's 
private extension using glVertexArrayRange, then they added fences for 
double buffering, and then the ARB stepped in and put it under a really 
nice interface, and now VBOs are part of the newest OpenGL. (But the old 
extensions are still there, if your program wants to use them!)

The problem with this approach is that a conforming OpenGL 
implementation does not necessarily support the extensions you want to 
use in your programs. So you have to add extra logic to query for the 
extension you want, then enable them (which is a pain), and fall back to 
alternative rendering methods if it isn't there. I heard rumors that the 
Doom3 rendering engine is actually several different rendering engines, 
with the main program figuring out at load time which one is most suited 
for the implementation it's running on. This adds to the development 
time, but makes your program scale well (well, maybe Doom3 was a bad 
example), and it ensures the program will still run years down the road.

I personally much prefer OpenGL's development model to Direct3D's, warts 
and all. And there are wrapper libraries to ease the pain of enabling 
extensions.

And to answer your original question, features of modern graphics cards 
are exposed under OpenGL and Direct3D, but OpenGL allows card vendors to 
come up with their own cool stuff without having to wait for Microsoft 
to deem a feature necessary. So I would think that OpenGL does a better 
job exposing all functionality than Direct3D - after all, new graphics 
card generations appear faster than new Direct3D versions.

Only my $0.02,

   Oliver

-- 
Email: kreylos@cs.ucdavis.edu
WWW:   http://graphics.cs.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev

In article <d6vjlu$qfa$1@nemesis.news.tpi.pl>,
 "cbull" <cbull@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

>But, as I
>can see, most of the games are developed with DirectX nowadays. I hope I'm
>wrong, but it seems that GL is becoming less popular in games.

DirectX-based games are Windows-only games. If you want to do a 
cross-platform game, your only serious choice is OpenGL.

"Lawrence D�Oliveiro" <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> schrieb im 
Newsbeitrag news:ldo-FCA45E.21451125052005@lust.ihug.co.nz...
> In article <d6vjlu$qfa$1@nemesis.news.tpi.pl>,
> "cbull" <cbull@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:
>
>>But, as I
>>can see, most of the games are developed with DirectX nowadays. I 
>>hope I'm
>>wrong, but it seems that GL is becoming less popular in games.
>
> DirectX-based games are Windows-only games. If you want to do a
> cross-platform game, your only serious choice is OpenGL.

Also, programming DirectX is very awkard. OpenGL is much easier to 
understand. 

> > DirectX-based games are Windows-only games. If you want to do a
> > cross-platform game, your only serious choice is OpenGL.
>
> Also, programming DirectX is very awkard. OpenGL is much easier to
> understand.

I agree with your points. But still D3D is more commonly used in games (I
mean commercial, high-budget games). And I would like to know why. Is it
only MS politics that has made D3D a standard in games development?

Tomasz

On Wed, 25 May 2005 13:38:41 +0200,cbull wrote:
>> Also, programming DirectX is very awkard. OpenGL is much easier to
>> understand.
> 
> I agree with your points. But still D3D is more commonly used in games (I
> mean commercial, high-budget games). And I would like to know why. Is it
> only MS politics that has made D3D a standard in games development?

I'd guess that ARB worked too slow before OpenGL 1.3, and allowed D3D to 
catch up. Also it seems that M$ has pushed D3D to developers a lot more, 
releasing lots of documentation. etc.

Gernot Frisch wrote:

> Also, programming DirectX is very awkard. OpenGL is much easier to 
> understand.

I agree, but it was even worse with older versions, DirectX9 is a bit
easier to understand, but still more complicate than OpenGL, because you
have to do more system low-level things instead of concentrating on the
graphics output.

-- 
Frank Bu�, fb@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de

It might not be used much in currently available games, but it sure
will be used a lot as the playstation 3 graphics have to be programmed
using OpenGL ES 2.0 (if the rumors are true anyway)
http://news.com.com/PlayStation+3+to+be+easy+on+developers,+Sony+vows/2100-1043_3-5606515.html

Also there are a lot of games / game engines which have a GL renderer
which is generally not selected by default.

Personally I like openGL more and find it easier. Plus there is no COM
to deal with and it looks more like c/c++ unlike directx which is looks
like pascal. (Win API)

cbull wrote:
>
> I agree with your points. But still D3D is more commonly used in games (I
> mean commercial, high-budget games). And I would like to know why. Is it
> only MS politics that has made D3D a standard in games development?
> 

Replace "politics" with "money" and you'll
be closer.

Don't underestimate the power of MS reps
going round to visit games developers
and talking to the bosses.




-- 
<\___/>
/ O O \
\_____/  FTB.    For email, remove my socks.

In article <d71odp$r35$1@nemesis.news.tpi.pl>,
 "cbull" <cbull@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

>Is it only MS politics that has made D3D a standard in games development?

Most certainly. The OpenGl SuperBible tells the story of how Microsoft 
was actually one of the founding members of the ARB. However, it started 
pushing its own Direct3D API, claiming it offered superior performance 
to OpenGL. Then it was publicly embarrassed by SGI, who went to the 
trouble to build their own Windows implementation of OpenGL, just to 
prove that it was capable of performance every bit as good as Direct3D.

Markku S wrote:

> I'd guess that ARB worked too slow before OpenGL 1.3, and
> allowed D3D to catch up. Also it seems that M$ has pushed D3D
> to developers a lot more, releasing lots of documentation. etc.

OTOH you don't need a lot of doc for OpenGL as the specification
is publically avaliable. This and the Red Book (aka the Official
programming guide) are sufficient to fully understand OpenGL.
Understanding SF/X requires reading a lot of (more or less
scientific) papers on the Web anyway, irregardless of the used
API. But the core functionality is much easier to understand.

Wolfgang Draxinger
-- 

Frank Buss schrieb:

> I agree, but it was even worse with older versions, DirectX9 is a bit
> easier to understand, but still more complicate than OpenGL, because you
> have to do more system low-level things instead of concentrating on the
> graphics output.

DirectX9 is much more similar to OpenGL than the older versions of
DirectX. The whole API has completly changed since DirectX8.

This shows, how far ahead of it's time the concept of OpenGL was.

Best regards, Martin