Couldn't OpenCL have created better and good uniformity vs what MS tried.

[DominionSeraph]

So what has been so GOOD about DX?

Hardware and software development is creatively different, yet the end products are interdependent. DirectX gave both a hard meeting point. It was hard because there was a profit motive for it to be good, timely, and open to all, and Microsoft had the market position to apply it to a large base by fiat.

If 3DFX's Glide had become the de facto standard, 3DFX would've had motive to be monopolistic and close out other hardware manufacturers. OpenGL is an artistic committee, so there's no relying on them. DirectX cut through those problems.

 

[Cerb]

You put too many conditions on it. 1999, which was arguably a much better year for tech than the year after,

Well, in 1998, DX didn't do anything of note.

saw T&L and Quake III (and register combiners or whatever the Gamecube used were by OpenGL/nvidia too if I'm not mistaken) which was not created DX.

So? No features were invented by DirectX (well, really Direct3D). Microsoft did not invent features. Every last feature they decided to put into the standard was invented by one of the involved hardware companies. What they did, unlike OpenGL, was make the decision that one or more minimum features needed to be supported in hardware, and then defined other features as optional, software-supportable, and defined how they would all be accessed in the API.

To this day, OpenGL (non-ES) has very few hardware requirements, and continues to support basically every vendor add-on as a separate feature. What that means is that a game not tied to a certain GPU will need to choose features not to use, that could very well be useful to it. DX makes that rarer.

DX has held graphics way back. OTOH, most people are never ever in their lives, under any circumstances, satisfied with 30 fps and less than the highest possible resolution so it shouldn't surprise me that DX is what most people want now. It wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for illusions though.

How has it held graphics back? What technology has been made, that anyone wanted, that didn't make it due to DX? I see quite the opposite: good vendor tech getting assimilated into the next version (DX 10 and Cg being a major example). Also, it has nothing to do with speed. We can all play 2005 games at 60 FPS (except Bethesda's ). People want more detail in game n+1, and there's a tax to that. We can do 60 FPS just fine, by going backwards a few years in asset detail.

I had to quit playing games because all of the monitors suck because of IP, both IHVs for GPUs are no good (they're unwilling to try anything new and when they do something good, then they abandon it rather than try to improve it) again because of IP,

Name such an IP. And, what monitors have sucked because of IP? Name some products, and name some relevant IP.

and DX may be easier for programmers because most programmers possibly just shouldn't be programming games... only 1% of all programmers could tap the maximum potential out of the Sega Saturn which meant that the Saturn was just as good as the PS1 be it in 2D or 3D.

No, that meant it was hard to program for, because it was an overly complex system. As it is, only the best programmers can do game engines, today, With DX to aid them. What you'd get without that would be fewer games that worked well, and less use of hardware features for games that wanted wide audiences (since features from NVidia would have to be done differently than features from ATI, FI).

If the publishers and many devs are going to demand that the state make me pay to have complete access to their work, then I don't care how difficult things are for them to program for. In addition, programmable blending and depth are not really worse for the average programmer anyway and it makes the natural elite among programmers (like Yu Suzuki and John Carmack), really stand out and help myself and society out.

You don't need to care. The developers care for themselves, not you. Also, have you ever read or listened to Carmack? OpenGL, through the DX 9.0C era, was frustrating him a fair deal. I also still don't get why you stay hung up on silly framebuffer effects that we really don't even need, and that we now can do even not needing it.

EDIT: You mention 1995 and then set 2000 as the date in which OpenGL no longer mattered. In 1997 openGL and 3dfx were lightyears ahead of DX. DX eventually got ahead because MS had enough to invest in gaming after selling a lot of other useless crap first. MS loved their IP and that has to do with why Open Sources fail. The OpenGL board would've continued to work well if it weren't for IP.

No, I mention 1995 because that was around the time that programmable depth and blending, by themselves, could have mattered, due to limited bandwidth. In 1997, DX was just getting started, and at the time, was a clone of the fixed-function OpenGL pipeline. 3Dfx, however, was never lightyears ahead, in software. It was not until DX 8.x that they were trying to really push new features as standard.

That's true, but then perhaps OpenGL's board would've split up and/or things would've been less uniform (especially in the short term, but it can't be known about the long term). Everyone still would've had more options though and that's what matters. It was terrible that MS was charged with Anti-trust violations when it was successful because of the state.

OpenGL is still less uniform, and will remain so. It was only great when there was nothing else, or today, on platforms where there indeed is nothing else. t tries to be everything to everyone, and has all the problems of legislative bodies because of it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Bitboys!

 

[Anarchist420]

OpenGL is still less uniform, and will remain so. It was only great when there was nothing else, or today, on platforms where there indeed is nothing else. t tries to be everything to everyone, and has all the problems of legislative bodies because of it.

Lack of uniformity is good then. DX has all the problems of an individual or an institution trying to rule the world.

It was not until DX 8.x that they were trying to really push new features as standard.

That's true (Rampage would've kicked some ass, if not a lot of ass) and they were late because they were more wasteful with their IP-derived profits than MS was. 3dfx started out making HW for games, Microsoft started out making operating systems which aren't just for games.

No, I mention 1995 because that was around the time that programmable depth and blending, by themselves, could have mattered, due to limited bandwidth.

They could've mattered even then (and I think they would've), but intel got lazy in the 80s after their lobbying for patents was successful. That is, processors and bandwidth would've been sufficient if intel had been vulnerable to market forces (that is, if there had been no IP).

You don't need to care.

Then the devs shouldn't expect patents if every individual doesn't count to them.

The developers care for themselves, not you.

The market would allow less bad producers, it would favor the most efficient programmers... most programmers don't like challenges, especially now that there are fewer games coming out of Japan (that is, Japanese programmers really were the most talented, but MS had to ruin that). I'd have to say the European ones were the worst, but American ones are probably not any better now because they have been too interconnected (Ubi Soft was originally french but now has studios in almost country in the world thanks to the French govt giving them subsidies and favoring the Arts too much; EA and Activision were partial creations by the U.S. gov and we see what they do today... that's because they're kept alive by patents).

Also, have you ever read or listened to Carmack? OpenGL, through the DX 9.0C era, was frustrating him a fair deal.

Kind of, I was forgetting that. Good thing for you to point out. However, I believe that he likes OpenGL better because I don't think he would bother with it if he wasn't a natural elite. He likes what he does (he knew from an early age that he wanted to be a programmer) and he's one of the few programmers who really knows what they're doing and one of the only ones who wouldn't need to be dependent on the state.

I also still don't get why you stay hung up on silly framebuffer effects that we really don't even need, and that we now can do even not needing it.

we may or may not need them, but having hardware blending/depth functions just holds back the good, the efficient, and it makes it hard for devs and IHVs to decide whether they want to use shaders for AA, ROPs for AA or both, when they could just use double precision advanced vector fp units with FMA4 and then let firms make their own drivers so the end user can get the AA they like most... it would also make emulation easier and more straightforward because there would be no hacks necessary. Hacks aren't as accurate and are inherently limited... sometime I can't tell the difference, but in some instances I have been able to tell a huge difference. Documentation or lack thereof is a problem, but horsepower isn't much of a problem especially if the sovereign doesn't award patents and subsidies.

No, that meant it was hard to program for, because it was an overly complex system. As it is, only the best programmers can do game engines, today, With DX to aid them. What you'd get without that would be fewer games that worked well, and less use of hardware features for games that wanted wide audiences (since features from NVidia would have to be done differently than features from ATI, FI).

I don't think that the Saturn was overly complex at all. I liked its original games more than the PS1's original games and it only failed because of the 32X. It would've done fine had SofA not promoted the 32X, which left a bad taste in gamers' mouths, but also used resources that could've produced good american-style Saturn games... I loved the Japanese style games for the Saturn, but most Americans didn't (plus they didn't trust Sega after the 32X), so the Saturn's failure in America is really Sega of America's fault (although they did a decent job with the Genesis, so they weren't bad) for being so down on it and for trying to take the offer that went to Nintendo. Sega should've let Sony keep their bad management (although Stolar made sure the Dreamcast was inexpensive, it wasn't right and I would've been happy to have paid more for it even if it meant one or even two less games I could buy). That said, the Saturn was fine and not really overly complex. Complexity can be good, for programmers that like challenges and for end users that love creativity and ingenuinity.

My point is that things would be done in software and the best would win out rather than going back and forth between two big (and I believe inefficient) corporations. I don't blame nvidia's management since the patents and subsidies are there, but there isn't going to be anything good produced until the state goes away and not until after the chaos clears, if it is even allowed to clear.

Name such an IP. And, what monitors have sucked because of IP? Name some products, and name some relevant IP.

Displays that haven't used DDM for starters. Isn't that because DP didn't have a royalty system when HDMI did? Just asking

To this day, OpenGL (non-ES) has very few hardware requirements, and continues to support basically every vendor add-on as a separate feature. What that means is that a game not tied to a certain GPU will need to choose features not to use, that could very well be useful to it. DX makes that rarer.

That's a good thing. nvidia uses extensions from AMD and others that they didn't invent and that's entirely optional so that's good... they would become part of a more general open GL spec if the IHVs didn't have patent protections. Perhaps OpenGL was too top down and perhaps the API never should've been allowed to thrive in the first place. All the closed source APIs do is provide royalty fees for the devs and that was their ultimate purpose. The open source APIs can't thrive because of IP. How could anything the state issues make life easier/better for society? IP is imaginary property which means it has distorted rationality and kicked logic to the curb for far too long.

 

[Cerb]

Lack of uniformity is good then. DX has all the problems of an individual or an institution trying to rule the world.

Good thing it doesn't rule the world, then.

They could've mattered even then (and I think they would've), but intel got lazy in the 80s after their lobbying for patents was successful. That is, processors and bandwidth would've been sufficient if intel had been vulnerable to market forces (that is, if there had been no IP).

No, those features fundamentally require a limited, and usually fixed, amount of memory that is not main memory, which means holding generations steady, just like consoles. Thinking processors would have been sufficient just shows that you don't have a clue about the problems related to making scalar processing faster, with memory latency increasing and memory bandwidth decreasing. There's no way in Hell our CPUs could have come within 5% of GPU performance. They are fundamentally different systems.

Then the devs shouldn't expect patents if every individual doesn't count to them.

WTF? Devs do not expect patents. They fear and loathe them. Not only that, but so far there has only been a single significant one: Creative's stealing of the efficient shadowing algorithm that Carmack used.

The market would allow less bad producers, it would favor the most efficient programmers...

It already does this. You just don't get to choose what those words mean, and you really want them to mean something they don't.

most programmers don't like challenges

Straight out BS. We love challenges. Management like to avoid risk.

especially now that there are fewer games coming out of Japan (that is, Japanese programmers really were the most talented, but MS had to ruin that).

Again, BS. Japanese people are willing to happily put up with excessive tedium. The U.S. and Russia have very bit the talent and skill, and have shown it over and over again.

I'd have to say the European ones were the worst, but American ones are probably not any better now because they have been too interconnected (Ubi Soft was originally french but now has studios in almost country in the world thanks to the French govt giving them subsidies and favoring the Arts too much; EA and Activision were partial creations by the U.S. gov and we see what they do today... that's because they're kept alive by patents).

Today, I'll grant you the Europe bit, with the exception of the northern countries. Again, though, name a patent. Name a patent that keeps a game developer alive. Please. I beg of you. What keeps them alive is giving people something they want (more people want Scary Movie n+1, than want the next Godfather!).

Kind of, I was forgetting that. Good thing for you to point out. However, I believe that he likes OpenGL better because I don't think he would bother with it if he wasn't a natural elite. He likes what he does (he knew from an early age that he wanted to be a programmer) and he's one of the few programmers who really knows what they're doing and one of the only ones who wouldn't need to be dependent on the state.

So, you haven't. He's not been OpenGL's biggest fan, for some time, now. Rage got made with it on Windows, because it was already in the pipe that way.

we may or may not need them, but having hardware blending/depth functions just holds back the good, the efficient, and it makes it hard for devs and IHVs to decide whether they want to use shaders for AA, ROPs for AA or both,

They already are doing both, and have been for years (now it is becoming user-selectable, though, where previously shader AA was only an option for games incompatible with HW AA). And it works great. I just so happen to be a rater huge fan of SGSSAA+FXAA, an am looking forward to quality motion blur and better engine-optimized shader AA implementations. I really wish they would, in general, slow down on the detail accumulation, and work more on lighting, physics, and AA.

when they could just use double precision advanced vector fp units with FMA4 and then let firms make their own drivers so the end user can get the AA they like most...

They already do this, except without the stupid DP part. Games rarely need DP FP. SP FP has 15 bits that it can lose, before it is not enough, for any visual operations. GPUs have used FMA for ages, and they already implement things how they want in their drivers.

it would also make emulation easier and more straightforward because there would be no hacks necessary.

Why? Nobody yet emulates OpenGL or Direct3D, and it is unlikely that they will any time soon.

Hacks aren't as accurate and are inherently limited... sometime I can't tell the difference, but in some instances I have been able to tell a huge difference. Documentation or lack thereof is a problem, but horsepower isn't much of a problem especially if the sovereign doesn't award patents and subsidies.

That has to do entirely with wanting secrecy for competitive advantage. It can and does happen with no IP laws in place.

I don't think that the Saturn was overly complex at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn#Architecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn#Processors
The Saturn would give The Cell a run for its money.

I liked its original games more than the PS1's original games and it only failed because of the 32X.[/quotes]Games themselves are another issue. The Japanese game devs had a thing for Sega, and it did have a good bit of raw power, for what else was available at the time. What does that, or Sega of America's lacking good clear direction, have to do with graphics advancement or lack of it, though?

Out of curiosity, though, what were some of those games? I know of very few that were in English, when released.

My point is that things would be done in software and the best would win out rather than going back and forth between two big (and I believe inefficient) corporations. I don't blame nvidia's management since the patents and subsidies are there, but there isn't going to be anything good produced until the state goes away and not until after the chaos clears, if it is even allowed to clear.

But, that's not the issue. All of these companies have cross-licensing agreements, to keep their latest new stuff to themselves, but not have to worry about it after a few years. It's not the greatest system, by a long shot, but it doesn't touch on the problem: performance. CPUs can't do the job fast enough. We need 100M+ xtors on a CPU to keep many programs executing one instruction per cycle. That many xtors in a GPU can handle thousands of instructions per cycle. That's the issue. CPUs couldn't do it, and still can't quite. Everyone in their right mind would prefer the CPU, but it has not been until very recently that such a thing has become a viable option, again. OTOH, in the man time, the GPUs have gotten highly programmable. We won't see it for a few years yet, outside of tech demos, but DX11 allows nearly a CPU's level of flexibility.

Just as everything else where performance matters, it gets special hardware, the special hardware gets better, and then the special hardware becomes obsolete. Right now, the special hardware is not yet obsolete.

Displays that haven't used DDM for starters. Isn't that because DP didn't have a royalty system when HDMI did? Just asking

What do USB displays have to do with anything (that's the only display-related DDM I know of)? And anyway, HDMI, Dl-DVI, and DP are all basically interchangeable, up to ~10ft.

That's a good thing. nvidia uses extensions from AMD and others that they didn't invent and that's entirely optional so that's good... they would become part of a more general open GL spec if the IHVs didn't have patent protections.

No, that's not reality. The reality is that they did and do become vendor extensions, which then become optional standards features, so you can't pin down a base feature set, when it comes to hardware (and very few features in general have ever been required to be done directly in hardware). It's not a matter of patents. It takes years to develop GPUs and their features, and everyone does theirs differently. With DirectX, they get to know what's going to be required, what's optional, and how to use what's optional. Meanwhile, as long as they can do it in hardware, each hardware company can implement the low-level hardware however they like.

* yes, it's theoretical only, AFAIK, and would require an accumulator+register architecture

 

[Anarchist420]

Good thing it doesn't rule the world, then.

No individual or institution can rule the world. What I was saying was that it drives some individuals crazy by trying to be the be all end all, just like the Church of Rome used to or the U.S. gov does today. Calling it Direct3D or even Direct X (which D3D is a subset of if I'm not wrong) is a misnomer anyway... it's an API so it isn't "direct" and it doesn't need to be for 3D only either. At least OpenGL was honest because it called itself OpenGL and OpenGL wouldn't have been a mishmash of high level and low level. I had thought what LongPeaks envisioned would've been practical in the long term, but correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Why? Nobody yet emulates OpenGL or Direct3D, and it is unlikely that they will any time soon

I meant more replication. You're right about neither will be emulated soon, but it's because of patents and the fact that the majority has high time preference. Perhaps if the video game industry were stripped of all patents and subsidies and had a crash like in the 80s, then the third wave would make it off ground zero flying. Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft would go out of business rather quickly if their patents were repealed today and replaced with nothing later. Intel would probably have to divide itself in the same scenario.

No, that's not reality. The reality is that they did and do become vendor extensions, which then become optional standards features, so you can't pin down a base feature set, when it comes to hardware (and very few features in general have ever been required to be done directly in hardware). It's not a matter of patents. It takes years to develop GPUs and their features, and everyone does theirs differently. With DirectX, they get to know what's going to be required, what's optional, and how to use what's optional. Meanwhile, as long as they can do it in hardware, each hardware company can implement the low-level hardware however they like.

That's temporally very true. However, time preference has been driven up due to patents and subsidies (call them contracts if you wish). I simply believe the pro-centralizing state has reduced innovation, has resulted in things being too uniform, and caused too many me-too products and driven up costs for society, be they producers (research and development), laborers, or consumers.

Nvidia's products actually were better before the patents got too strong and the fact they used OpenGL while ATi got off the ground by following the pro-IP MS's top-down closed minimum specification shows that perhaps the subsidies and IP nvidia has been awarded has made their production worse. Some of it is human action, but the pro-IP, pro-public-private subsidy state has made things for worse for individual happiness because the state drives individual greed and makes it long term when it could only be short term without statist-corporatism. I believe nvidia has gotten more patents and contracts in recent years. AMD and intel were kept alive by regulations, one via patents and both benefitted in the long run from "anti-trust" regulations.

 

[Cerb]

No individual or institution can rule the world. What I was saying was that it drives some individuals crazy by trying to be the be all end all, just like the Church of Rome used to or the U.S. gov does today. Calling it Direct3D or even Direct X (which D3D is a subset of if I'm not wrong) is a misnomer anyway... it's an API so it isn't "direct" and it doesn't need to be for 3D only either. At least OpenGL was honest because it called itself OpenGL and OpenGL wouldn't have been a mishmash of high level and low level. I had thought what LongPeaks envisioned would've been practical in the long term, but correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Instead of a mishmash of high and low level API, OpwnGL got a mishmash of old and new, with the old making support for the new stuff crufty and too-often optional.

I meant more replication. You're right about neither will be emulated soon, but it's because of patents and the fact that the majority has high time preference. Perhaps if the video game industry were stripped of all patents and subsidies and had a crash like in the 80s, then the third wave would make it off ground zero flying. Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft would go out of business rather quickly if their patents were repealed today and replaced with nothing later. Intel would probably have to divide itself in the same scenario.

If patents magically went away, we would be in chaos. Nobody's going to argue that our patent system is fine, but all their patents really do is prevent little upstarts from entry...into an industry that needs $1B/yr+ for survival. The many players right now all have agreements between each other due to the flawed nature of our system, but how many people will want to start a business that will need them to invest billions, for low potential profits? On the low-performance embedded side of things it occasionally happens, but once you reach the performance level of an iPhone from a few generations ago, it's just not going to be worth it. Patents have effects, but it's how the market(s) has/have shaped the industry that makes it the way it now is.

That's temporally very true. However, time preference has been driven up due to patents and subsidies (call them contracts if you wish). I simply believe the pro-centralizing state has reduced innovation, has resulted in things being too uniform, and caused too many me-too products and driven up costs for society, be they producers (research and development), laborers, or consumers.

What reduced innovation? If you mean just PC GPUs, sure, but that's not because of patents, but due to it not being the trendy platform, due Intel acting monopolostically all these years (yes, they used patents, but they use whatever means they can get away with).

Nvidia's products actually were better before the patents got too strong and the fact they used OpenGL while ATi got off the ground by following the pro-IP MS's top-down closed minimum specification shows that perhaps the subsidies and IP nvidia has been awarded has made their production worse.

No, it went the other way around. MS had people from NV, ATI, S3, Intel, SiS, and probably some others, and unlike with OpenGL, they needed to hammer out features ASAP. ATI didn't follow MS. MS happened to decide that the way forward ATI was taking was a better one.

And, everyone had their fumbles. nNVidia, at the time, was very much not innovating the right way. The GF FX sucked because it was a VLIW machine going against a superscalar machine*, and was designed around a continued trend of adding texture map overlays, as opposed to moving more and more towards shaders. It wasn't ATI following MS: it was nVidia not going the direction the rest of the industry was. And, what did they do? They turned around, and were kicking ass by the 7000-series, and the current DirectX and OpenGL shader functionality is based on their own technology (Cg). Since the FX, they may have had some issues with power consumption, but have making great strides, with new features, and fundamentally new and different designs, that have been made to serve the wants of the market(s) they serve.

Some of it is human action, but the pro-IP, pro-public-private subsidy state has made things for worse for individual happiness because the state drives individual greed and makes it long term when it could only be short term without statist-corporatism. I believe nvidia has gotten more patents and contracts in recent years. AMD and intel were kept alive by regulations, one via patents and both benefitted in the long run from "anti-trust" regulations.

Without all of that, we'd have nothing but monopolies, though. It's a flawed system, but either IBM or Intel would own everything, without it. We've already had robber-barons, we've already had corporate towns, and we've already had cooperative non-innovating monopolies and oligopolies. We're getting innovations at a pretty fair clip, today. Game makers are slow to use them, and most games may not use them in a way you'd like (for that matter, I don't like how they're doing it most of the time, either), but that doesn't mean it's not happening, or that patents are stopping them.

While AMD may be all but required to live by regulations, they manage to keep going without having to rely on that, most of the time, and have excellent cutting-edge GPU technology, easily rivaling nVidia's. nVidia has courted the business world better, but AMD is no slouch, there, and both companies are in a league of their own, for the moment. But also, note that it's for a moment. PowerVR decided to bow out of PCs, due to the risk (without a high-performance 'halo' product, they were having a hard time of it, and embedded people were already loving them). Intel will be competitive, at the high end (Quadro/Tesla and Fire*), given time. Of those companies with good GPU tech, there is plenty of innovation, plenty of markets, and no one is stuck on the top or bottom, without competition to make them paranoid.

* superscalar with VLIW execution units, ironically, for the comparison.

 

[Anarchist420]

Without all of that, we'd have nothing but monopolies, though. It's a flawed system, but either IBM or Intel would own everything, without it. We've already had robber-barons, we've already had corporate towns, and we've already had cooperative non-innovating monopolies and oligopolies. We're getting innovations at a pretty fair clip, today. Game makers are slow to use them, and most games may not use them in a way you'd like (for that matter, I don't like how they're doing it most of the time, either), but that doesn't mean it's not happening, or that patents are stopping them.

The market always wins out (eventually) but the state has gotten so big that it is always shifting things around making innovation occur in unexpected bursts rather than being more constant or predictable or by different people rather. IP and everything a state does simply shifts the natural order of everything around. I'll try not to complain about things because no one would ever find anything perfect, but I do believe patents have held up what I'd want for the time. They may not have even raised prices, because if I asked someone to design what I wanted, it would be expensive. Would it be worth it? I don't know, but I like the truth and what would've originally happened even if it would've meant I wouldn't be alive now.

I think things will eventually go the way I want, and the sooner the chaos is allowed to happen, the sooner the correction will occur, then the less chaos there will be in the future... eventually, the U.S. govt won't be able to build the bubbles back up. The patents need to be abolished and replaced with nothing sooner rather than later. I could die in the chaos (I won't survive into the good, for sure), but I least I believe I would be somewhat vindicated... I don't deserve all, if any, of the good for it though.

All of that said, I ain't holding my breath, because I've tried and tried to no avail and I'm sure Dr. Paul has felt similar at times perhaps because of people like me.

Thank you for replying to me so nicely You did a good job debating and hopefully it stimulated your mind.

 

[Ferzerp]

P&N is leaking

 

[NTMBK]

I think things will eventually go the way I want, and the sooner the chaos is allowed to happen, the sooner the correction will occur, then the less chaos there will be in the future... eventually, the U.S. govt won't be able to build the bubbles back up. The patents need to be abolished and replaced with nothing sooner rather than later. I could die in the chaos (I won't survive into the good, for sure), but I least I believe I would be somewhat vindicated... I don't deserve all, if any, of the good for it though.

...what on earth does the state have to do with an API defined by one company being more successful than an API defined by a group of companies?

I'm honestly quite worried for you.

 

[GlacierFreeze]

I'm honestly quite worried for you.

Me too. He's torn up about ancient history. Pointless caring and arguing about something that doesn't matter a single bit at this point and hasn't mattered in a long time. OpenGL? So what? Time to move on bro! lol

 

[Anarchist420]

I'd rank the results of D3D's attempt at uniformity as a fail. The fact that I just read that at least some DX11.1 features will only be part of Win8 and not windows 7 does not help me view them a unifying force.

Their time preference may have been awful but it may have been a response to the high preference of most people who thought they could be good programmers. If we had just stuck with openGL or something like it we would've seen order and choice.

In a way, because DX is always making abrupt changes from version to version, it makes programming somewhat more difficult too. For instance, Zeus Software doesn't want to make nGlide greater than DX 9.0c, because of the issues (or lack there of) with DX9.0c. Imagine if they had just gone with OpenGL in the first place even though they really couldn't have because OpenGL remained the same largely due to the IP system. If it weren't for patents, then OpenGL would still be ahead, standards would not be further away from uniform, the consumer would be at least as happy, and there would be more choice.

I love John Carmack, especially since he stayed with his principles and OpenGL.

 

[Ben90]

DX was supposed to bring unity in the same way that a gas station wants to create unity by having you buy stuff from them vs. somewhere else. In that respect I find it a huge win. How many of us are locked into Windows because of DX.

 

[3DVagabond]

DX was supposed to bring unity in the same way that a gas station wants to create unity by having you buy stuff from them vs. somewhere else. In that respect I find it a huge win. How many of us are locked into Windows because of DX.

+1

 

[ShintaiDK]

New thread again?

 

[Anarchist420]

DX was supposed to bring unity in the same way that a gas station wants to create unity by having you buy stuff from them vs. somewhere else. In that respect I find it a huge win

Yes, but the State used them and they took advantage of it. Making money off of being open source wasn't enough for Bill Gates' closing from the top down @$$.

How many of us are locked into Windows because of DX.

"How many of us are locking into Windows because of patents" is also a good question... MS got patents, then it created DX, then it got contracts with public schools, and then they finally get a near monopoly on things good for gamers. MS got "too big for their britches" (as for Time for Kids said) because of patents (which would quite possibly be denied by Time for Kids).

New thread again?

Well, I think it warranted another thread for various reasons which I won't go into now.

 

[mikeymikec]

The OSS idea has many positive attributes but unity really isn't one of them.

If DirectX hadn't happened / taken off, an OSS alternative with strong leadership would have been necessary to get major GPU vendors from >10 years ago to work together rather than making their own 3D implementations in an attempt to lock out the competition. Who remembers all of the GPU companies who were around at that time?

Like it or not, Microsoft largely achieved that.

Admittedly I'm not a fan of MS's forced obsolescence tactics wrt DX.

 

[Anarchist420]

The OSS idea has many positive attributes but unity really isn't one of them.

I agree.

However, unity hasn't gone really positive (in a mathematical sense) for DX either and the fact that central planning fails has something to do with that.

I do concede that unity could not be the original intention of DX though... perhaps the fact that DX is an irrational agent has something to do with that and I'm not even sure things can be traced back to one person behind DX.

 

[Gryz]

Open Source Software != Open Standards.

The biggest technological success of the last 15 years has been the Internet. Completely open standards. But people are free to build their own (closed source) implementations of those open protocols. If the standard has some flexibility, companies can still distinguish themselves by building better implementations. I could see the same thing apply to an open API.

 

[NTMBK]

Imagine if they had just gone with OpenGL in the first place even though they really couldn't have because OpenGL remained the same largely due to the IP system. If it weren't for patents, then OpenGL would still be ahead, standards would not be further away from uniform, the consumer would be at least as happy, and there would be more choice.

What patents stopped OpenGL from progressing?

 

[mikeymikec]

Open Source Software != Open Standards.

The biggest technological success of the last 15 years has been the Internet. Completely open standards. But people are free to build their own (closed source) implementations of those open protocols. If the standard has some flexibility, companies can still distinguish themselves by building better implementations. I could see the same thing apply to an open API.

However the Internet started in a much more open state. 3D graphics did not - the interest in it pretty much from the start had a commercial base.

 

[MrK6]

It costs money to do things, and yet people can't get this concept and end up making threads like this.

 

[bononos]

It costs money to do things, and yet people can't get this concept and end up making threads like this.

And alot of money can also help stunt innovation hence this thread.

 

[MrK6]

And alot of money can also help stunt innovation hence this thread.

Proprietary anything usually does. But again, this seems more philosophical argument than anything practical, because, as I said, it takes money to do things. If another standard or company had stepped up to the plate and been embraced, it would have. MS won out and did a decent job of it.

 

[Ferzerp]

Your last thread on the same topic wasn't enough?