Valve releases "ToGL" thing that translates directX to openGL

Dahak

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2000
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From what I read, this is more aimed at developers and will be part of the binaries/executable

Whereas wine tries it after the fact, through a different layer after the game/emulation
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
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they are more or less just revealing what they do.

programmers may be able to take that and start porting over software that they want to also
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
30,741
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they are more or less just revealing what they do.

programmers may be able to take that and start porting over software that they want to also

bingo

If Valve wants SteamOS to catch on they need developers to make Linux compatible games, so it makes sense for Valve to give them everything they can to encourage devs to make things compatible.
 

brandonb

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2006
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DirectX 9 subset. No thanks. DirectX11 isn't that hard to program. I'd rather stick with that and windows.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
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From what I understand, it's not like Wine in a sense it doesn't directly port games. It's just a set of developer tools to assist in porting. Valve was using it to port their older titles over to Linux.

With new games it shouldn't be too much of an issue. The PS4 uses OpenGL 4.2 and is built on a Unix-like OS. So porting in theory shouldn't be too complicated. In theory.
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
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With new games it shouldn't be too much of an issue. The PS4 uses OpenGL 4.2 and is built on a Unix-like OS. So porting in theory shouldn't be too complicated. In theory.

so ps4 uses open gl? this is good. great for cross platform ps4 and steam os games. remembered reading somewhere than the ps4 used dx 11.2 and i was wondering how that would work. does the ps4 have support for linux?
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
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so ps4 uses open gl? this is good. great for cross platform ps4 and steam os games. remembered reading somewhere than the ps4 used dx 11.2 and i was wondering how that would work. does the ps4 have support for linux?

The PS4 barely supports the PS4 with its current system software. Sony hasn't supported Linux since Geohot used it as a vector to jailbreak the PS3. Orbis OS is based on FreeBSD.

There's a rumour that the PS4 supports DirectX 11.2 but I don't think it's ever been confirmed. If it's there, it's probably more to aid third party developers who used the Xbox One as their primary platform.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
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As we can see its still very early days for getting games working on Linux. Most games have no native support and tools like this will at least help a few more olde games get onto Linux with a bit of developer intervention. But this isn't going to change anything really, maybe a couple of games will be able to benefit from this but by and large for linux to take off for gamers it needs real tested support from the developers themselves and developing direct to openGL. Valve aren't really in a position to influence that decision.
 

Elixer

Lifer
May 7, 2002
10,371
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There's a rumour that the PS4 supports DirectX 11.2 but I don't think it's ever been confirmed. If it's there, it's probably more to aid third party developers who used the Xbox One as their primary platform.
Since the AMD chipset they are using supports that on windows OS, then yeah, it 'supports' it.
However, actually running it is very different, since there is no windows OS to allow DX on the PS4.
 

Jodell88

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2007
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Valve releasing ToGL isn't Valve's trump card IMO. To me the promotion of SDL and OpenGL to devs by saying "Hey, If you use these you can get Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Android, iOS, and even the Windows store all in one go!" is the real draw if game devs really go cross platform.
 

Red Hawk

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2011
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Valve releasing ToGL isn't Valve's trump card IMO. To me the promotion of SDL and OpenGL to devs by saying "Hey, If you use these you can get Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Android, iOS, and even the Windows store all in one go!" is the real draw if game devs really go cross platform.

Let's be real. Valve's trump card would be to announce that Half-Life 3 is SteamOS exclusive. But they're not going to do that.
 

Anarchist420

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Feb 13, 2010
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openGL was always better than DX in my opinion, because openGL could use all the hardware features and because it was more difficult to program for. i just wish everything was rendered in software though because it is more versatile... a 64 bit graphics-biased ISA with 64 bit or more precision for all data with GK's display logic and GK's texture units would be pretty damn awesome. it would get rid of the forced balance between accuracy/image quality and performance inherently in hardware blending and hardware depth. the only three possible issues:

1. there would be a definite dip in values with existing apps and first gen apps, but that would improve and even surpass the old hardware in short time.
2. more than one processing die would might be necessary for decent performance, but it would be worthit if 2 GP dies were as fast with better accuracy (and if there was no errata due to more than one die being used) compared to one hardware die. and finally, 3. more RAM would might be necessary. but get rid of patents then someone could make it all happen and even profit from it, especially if they used fluxless solder for the processing die(s). they could even reverse engineer so that existing physx and CUDA apps could run on their non-CUDA hardware via a wrapper.