openGL vs DirectX

[coomarlin]

Remember back when Quake was the sh!t all you heard about was openGL. It was supposed to be the thing of the future. But it seems as things go on it just keep loosing it's popularity. The majority of games are based on DirectX now. What happened? Is directX that much better? nVidia and ATI keep focusing on advertising DirectX 9 capable. They don't even bother to mention openGL.

What is the current state of openGL? Is it dying? Are any new games solely based on it? Doom III? What gives?

 

[Guspaz]

As I understand it, OpenGL has stagnated due to two things: Beurocracy, and competition.

Let me elaborate. First, OpenGL decisions are not decided by one entity; for example, look at JPEG2000, a format which is much better than the original JPEG, but is still in it's infancy due to slowness in standards adoption and ratification. With DirectX, Microsoft holds all the cards, and can make much faster progress.

Second, with OpenGL, there are many different companies who have a say in OpenGL. For example, remember when pixel shaders first came out, and nVidia and ATI used DIFFERENT extensions? This problem is lessened by DirectX due to it's nature.

As for DooM 3, AFAIK, yes, it's OpenGL.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Doom III = OGL.

We're still waiting on OpenGL 2.0

Mind you, OpenGL stands for ... well ... open graphics library. Meaning people can optimize, tweak, and hack it to get mad levels of performance at the expense of standards.

I'm all for that.

- M4H

 

[BFG10K]

OpenGL is not going anywhere. it may or may not survive in the PC gaming industry but that's largely irrelevant. Thanks to its SGI roots it'll always be present in professional 3D rendering.

 

[coomarlin]

Yeah. I know it's always had it's place in the high level prfeesional market. I was just curious as to why it was declining in popularity amoung th gaming industry. Your thought make sense. Even with that, I wonder why ID seems to stick with openGL when most other companies are favor directX. i guess Carmack seems like he would be a fan of something more open to the community rather than something from an industry giant.

 

[Haden]

DirectX is for windows only while OpenGL is (or becoming) standard on any os (Linux/BSD/BeOS...).
DirectX however features full kit to create game: Direct3D, DirectInput, DirectSound... with OpenGL developers still have to find best sound/input solution,
plus DirectX is very easy to take and use (from my limited experience).
ID seems to like open source (gossips spread they developed some games on Linux and then ported to Windows), and it seems rather smart: why would one want to buy windows+game while you can take free os+buy game (valid for killer games only of course).

 

[Schadenfroh]

GLIDE ownz you all

hehehehehhe

just kiddin, i am an OGL fan myself. becuase of its crosscompatability between PCs/MACs/Linux

 

[Deeko]

As long as Carmack is still programming, OGL isn't going anywhere.

 

[Auric]

Carmack is prolly more comfortable sticking with what he knows too. He stuck with DOS longer than he should have as well. Anyhoo, Id isn't all that and a bag of crisps. Epic's 'ginny is available (witness RS3 and AA) and prefers DirectX. It is nice to see all the BF1942 Mods being developed even without support (DICE likewise uses DirectX). Variety is nice. I hate how all those Quake based games look and play the same.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Auric
He stuck with DOS longer than he should have as well.

OpenGL != DOS

While OpenGL development may go somewhat slower than DirectX (though OpenGL 2 should be coming before too long), it does have advantages, including that of being very cross platform. Porting an OpenGL application from Windows to Linux or Mac OS X hardly requires as much work as porting a DirectX application (which would entail porting it to OpenGL first since DirectX doesn't work on Linux or Mac OS X, well, not at least without proprietary extensions). Of course, part of MS's strategy certainly includes getting as many people hooked on DirectX as possible, so once they have the hook firmly implanted in their mouths, it will be too late (cost wise) to consider OpenGL if they would want to port to another platform.