Re: LUG: Article: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX - Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:27:53 -0500

OSX => Desktop Composition for Years

Linux => Compiz/KWIN4 (Desktop Cube and Beyond)

Windows => Bubbles screen saver uses a screen shot.

If DirectX were really so powerful, I would expect Windows to have surpassed OSX and Linux with a powerful, fast, and featureful compositioned desktop.

What Windows 7 is distributed on Netbooks? Windows 7 Basic without Aero support.

On my HP Mini, I run Linux. It has a basic Intel graphics card. With Ubuntu Karmic, it supports DRI2, and it runs full desktop compositioning flawlessly and with ease, including redirected OpenGL applications.

Contrast that with the fact that without OpenGL, AutoCAD can't do anti-alising on my MSI which has a MUCH better (ATi Radeon) graphics card (AA is not supported with DX).

The more limitations I run into on Windows, the more I can not help but suspect there is something more there than just "Oh, Microsoft's development team isn't as big as you think it is." (I was told that once.)

Perhaps the problem is that the 3D interface is written with DirectX, when somehow Linux and OSX manage to blow it out of the water with even less developed drivers. (Although huge props to AMD for all their work with Linux!)

OK, I'm tired and rambling. Thanks for the article!

Positively,
Daniel S. Marcus
Omni Impact Small Business Services
Phone: (XXX) 926 9624
Business: daniel@omniimpact.[redacted]
Personal: daniel@d-site.[redacted]
Website: http://omniimpact.com

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:56 AM, Richard Carter < rwcarter@ncsu.[redacted] > wrote:

Here's a great read. I track Wolfire very closely, not for the game they're developing but for their really nice game development-related blog posts. Here is possibly the best post yet, and one that lays to rest probably a couple years of back-and-forth in my mind.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX

Obviously it's not a matter of choice on the Linux platform (barring Wine, of course), but I'm glad to see some support for OpenGL. I'm working on some stuff with JOGL, the Java wrapper for the OpenGL libraries, and while Java doesn't really have a DirectX alternative, I haven't minded the OpenGL learning curve. It is quite a challenge, and most game dev books are written for DirectX so I have to glean concepts and port sample code, but the end results are very nice and can be run in both my Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux partitions with very little effort on my part.

Ricket