I''m starting to doubt the future of GL. With DX8 out and the huge GeForce 3 Support. Is it time to learn D3D? Should I stop struggling with GL driver incompatibilities? It just seems that every card manufacturer is not keeping to the standard. My game engine provides massively different output on a variety of cards. The only card it looks right on is Voodoo 3''s. On every other card, buffering is messed up, or lighting is not working, or colors aren''t correct. I can''t stand it any more. Is D3D better implemented across the board? Please help. I''m ready to drop this whole programming idea and become a drug dealer - it has to be easier

Voodoo drivers has bad reputation for both OpenGL and Direct3D so it is probably something wrong with your code. OpenGL can do more with a GF3 than D3D. Recently did someone asked on the Microsoft DirectGraphics newsgroup why the shadow map extensions on GF3 is not supported by D3D. The reply from MS clearly showned that they do not even know about it.

Direct3D may catching up fast but they do not even pretends to be faster anymore. The current goal seems to something like OpenGL. MS releasing 1.2 ( or 1.3) would be nice but not particulary important.

I do not know which one is the best. The difference is perhaps not so big anymore.

I definately think OpenGL still has a future. Remember that OpenGL is also crossplatform. Runs on Windows, MAC and linux/ DirectX only runs on Windows.

Quake 3 was written using OpenGL and lots of the other new games use OpenGL.

Will Doom 3 use OpenGL or DirectX ?

Jan
http://home.global.co.za/~jhorn

Why doubt the only supported crossplatform 3D graphics API''s future, when there''s nothing wrong with it? What would there be to replace it? Remember, there''s a lot of workstation''s out there that don''t use Windows.

About the Geforce 3, NVidia released a statement saying more of its features could be accessed through OpenGL than Direct3D. They didn''t want people to think that Direct3D''s new features were all that it could do.

Also: Microsoft has finished the OpenGL 1.2 implementation for Windows, they''ve been testing it for at least a year now. SGI made an OpenGL 1.2 implementation for Windows a while back, but Microsoft won''t allow them to release it (for some unknown, but probably obvious to most of us, reason).

So far so good, not a flamewar yet...

[Resist Windows XP''s Invasive Production Activation Technology!]

Open GL definitely is here to stay I dont see it going away for a pretty good time or simply forever, the reasons are:

0.-Is already a 20+ year old system, it has endured time incredibly well already. Unlike DX which has been "re-designed" almost as a whole in every compilation.
(all arrays start at zero we all know that. =) )

1.-Direct3d only works on MS systems and thats its biggest problem, specially now that consoles are getting much more attention than the PC market (sad but true) and it will prolly stay that way from now on, specially when FREE to develop consoles finally arrive (nokia is building one, MS had to open xbox to indies and there is a PS2 linux kit out there) guess which one of those consoles use directx? hint:only xbox and it can also use opengl.

2.-MS os are not that good, everybody complains about them for good reason (the main problem is that somehow they are still DOS able which is a big resource problem and anyway they are buggy as hell due to poor QA), if MS did better OS''s than it does now, they could get some other markets than the PC and with it directx on them, but as it is now, the only ones that use WINDOWZ are those who dont have other choice but to use it, lots of people will love to use ANY other working OS on their systems.. if their favorite programs and hardware worked on it which is unfortunately not the case... yet.

3.- Read number 1, repeat 3 times then continue.

4.-Opengl is already the standard in graphics programming, at least 70% or more of the world graphics community uses it, almost every tutorial, sgi paper, graphic research is based on it, and on top of that it works! is quite a bit easier to understand than DirectX because it doesnt use the COM system but simple functions, and each day more and more cards are capable of using it.

(skip here if you already are aware of geforce3 opengl extensions)
DX8 made us truly believe that Opengl was toast , due to the vertex buffers and shaders and stuff it delivered, but ID software is making Doom 3 using OpenGl using geforce 3 in no less than a MAC! and they are definetily using vertex buffers and shaders, so they are still used in opengl, only that they are reached through extensions instead of the SDK itself, thats all! Nvidia released the SDK to fully use opengl geforce3 extensions recently.
(Thank you, we now return to our regularly scheduled answer)

Just not to turn this into a flame war, I would advice the following: when you build your game engine, use a DLL like structure to use either opengl or direct3d for rendering, if you only can aim for one, then question the portability of your engine and your own experience and skill then choose one. The choice is finally yours.

Personally I prefered Opengl because I was sick and tired of getting stuck in Dx8 due to the manuals not covering the aspects I needed. And almost no source to get info from. 90% of the info out there is opengl based (check if you dont believe me!)

Opengl is good for at least other 10 or 20 years, even Ms has been forced to be Opengl compatible (on XBOX no less!), most of the best games coming and out there are opengl based or compatible , Opengl is going nowhere for a loooong time.

Now a good question will be:, "will MS and DX still be around in 5-10 years?" XBOX out there (which means MS could dedicate to gaming instead of OS''s, or lose quite a big deal in the progress whichever comes first) linux gaining more strength every day, XP generating high frequency waves of "I wont get that, is against my privacy!", the lost monopoly trials, the info blackouts, the REAL future of MS is simply... uncertain, but that kids is another story.

I hope that helps!

/*Signature start>

Remember kids when stuck with an ugly bug from hell, start chanting:

"The power of C compiles you!"
"The power of C compiles you!!"
"The power of C compiles you!!!"

Gets them every time!

=)

C ya!
*/

I don''t really care. I use both API''s and I love both API''s, no need to prefer one over the other. There is no reason to think that OpenGL will die to, because Linux is growing stronger by the day, which makes OpenGL a lot tastier than that "other" api (due to portability). My vision of the future is this:

1) microsoft dies :-)
1.5) directx dies :-(
2) linux rulez :-)
3) OpenGL rulez :-)

three smileys and one saddy, that''s not to bad!

(PS: I know this is not very realistic, but I can dream can''t I???).