Microsoft's current plan for OpenGL on Windows Vista is to layer OpenGL over Direct3D in order to use OpenGL with a composited desktop to obtain the Aeroglass experience. This means that OpenGL performance will be significantly reduced - perhaps as much as 50%. It would be technically straightforward to provide an OpenGL ICD within the full Aeroglass experience without compromising the stability or the security of the operating system. Layering OpenGL over Direct3D is a policy more than a technical decision.
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I believe that this way they will not only kill OpenGL on windows, but also any app that is going to use opengl for 3d rendering to have cross compatibility. Since opengl won't have the desired performance/features ppl will just use ONLY d3d.. and this way we won't see games, apps ported to other platforms...
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This makes OpenGL the province of Mac and Linux/UNIX.
As Longhorn/Vista reaches critical mass:
It means there will never be any good drivers for OpenGL as there will not be millions of game players on Windows using OpenGL anymore.
It means the cost of supporting OpenGL just went up tremendously for every OpenGL software maker.
It means the cost and complexity of PlayStation development for Sony and PlayStation ISVs just went through the roof.
It means the pressure to evolve OpenGL and put interesting new features in the language is largely gone. OpenGL will become a backwater compared to D3D.
And at some point after LongHorn/Vista reaches critical mass, OpenGL is effectively dead. Game over.
RE: OpenGL just became GameOverGL
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Just don't switch to "Vista". Besides it will only rape more resources only to make the screen look cooler for the most part. That's what we have things like Talisman for:
http://www.lighttek.com/talisman.htm
Besides didn't they say they were not fixing the File System yet, and that is perhaps Microsloth's oldest and largest bug.
I'm sorry, you can not delete this file, it is in use clearly!!!
CRAP!!!
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... would use OpenGL ES 2.0.
so, PS3, MacOSX and Linux 'drivers' would still provide OpenGL in a form or another.
Game developpers already have to make a DirectX version and a PS2 version of their games. (+OpenGL for the few running on Mac) + crippled Dx like on X-Box 1
With the PS3 using OpenGL ES, a major platform would still use the OpenGL standard. (even if OGL ES is a bit different to classic OGL)
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i read somewhere that when a fullscreen game is launched in Vista, most desktop crap is unloaded so that only the game and basic services uses ressources.
this mode could exists too for full-screen OpenGL
the only problem with OpenGL and Vista would be for windowed mode apps (as the 2D interface would already use DirectX) => all 3D apps but games
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2005-07-06
If you can't beat your opponent... kill him
I think this is really ridiculous, MS knows better, they are like a little kid... pushing farther and farther till they get a slap on the hand. I hope they get another antitrust suit thrown at them and I hope they get a hell of a lot more then a slap on the hand...... more like cut the hand off.
one more thing.... generally I actually encounter better performance with OpenGl then I do with DirectX.
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Pathetic, predictable tactics from Microsoft. HOWEVER, developers that target multiple platforms should should perhaps be looking at things like RenderWare (http://www.csl.com/products.asp) which will abstract them from this kind of nonsense. With the console wars heating up and in some cases taking people away from PC-only gaming, most companies would (should) see the point in staying away from using D3D directly without a layer (no matter how thin it might need to be) in between. I write cross-platform apps in C++ and rarely hit Win32 directly (and when I do it's wrapped up in #ifdefs) for precisely the same reasons as this.
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And here comes johny without knowledge. Again ones again, no full screen games will be affected! Only running software in window will be affected and quite frankly it isn't such a big deal. I doubt you write games so i doubt you have any knowledge of porting them. It won't affect on porting games from console to other, so stop telling BS.
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The majority of computer users are stupid, mindless sheep.
They are the ones whose eyes will glaze over with delight when they fondle the next Wintendo offering in the stores.
They are the same who when asked what kind of computer they have respond "Windows".
These are the people who are nothing more than virtual nipples to be milked for money and spread the dark philosophies coming from the Electronic Mordor.
Chains fall upon us all by the rule of big corporate devils because of the permissiveness of the mass public.
In time if this idiocy continues, all open source will be illegal at the whim of corporation number one with the votes in the politicians pockets.
Lovers of open source need to make their voices heard peacefully before it's too late.
Open source hippies they call some of us, failing to realise that the hippy culture served to stir more action and thought than much of the current generations of pale skinned, overweight, ipod clutching couch lizards who whine if they're not in an air conditioned environment and forced to walk further than a block for anything.
Attack my spelling, grammar, abuse of the Enter key, what have you, but you know deep down in your soul that I am right, and because of this you will either ignore this post, or attack it.
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2005-07-06
Despite Microsoft claiming it is warming to open standards, this is another proof that they in fact want to impose more and more proprietary software. They want to increase switching costs to retain their users, which is understandable, expecially as more and more alternative to their solutions are now maturing on the market.
Micosoft also claims to be an innovator but if they really were they would introduce innovative software and solutions to stay ahead rather than trying to add more shackles to their existing user base.
Micosoft is like IBM in the 70's: 100% dominant and proprietary.
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"To you and to the others who think like you: so what? MS isn't a charity organization, it's there to make money, for their own use and pleasure. "
An often heard refrain. Much like "If your innocent, you shouldn't mind losing your freedoms". Let's keep in mind that Microsoft is a monopoly. The courts have already ruled on this point. When you're a monopoly the rules are a little different, than say a company that's not a monopoly.
"Why should they be forced to adopt technologies that mine their own reason to be in this business at all? If they think they have a better technology than OpenGL - regardless of whether this claim is accurate - why shouldn't they push it forward? "
"forced to adopt" is different than say "putting no obstacle in the way".
"If you don't like what MS does, just don't buy their SW, just do better than MS."
M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y
Member since:2005-07-06
>> An often heard refrain. Much like "If your innocent,
>> you shouldn't mind losing your freedoms".
>Freedom has got nothing to do with this.
Yes it has, it is completely relevant, this is the entire point, they're taking away choice.
>> "forced to adopt" is different than say "putting no
>> obstacle in the way".
>And what obstacles have they put in your way to
>implement your own OGL interface, if you so wish?
[sarcasm] Oh yes everyone has all the knowlege, skill and time in the entire world to make a OGL interface to compete with direct x, hey i'm going to go make one now!....[/sarcasm] Meanwhile back in the *real world* this doesn't happen which leads onto the next point...
>> M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y
>Totally irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Totally irrelevant? Are you reading some other article or what? Seriously i suggest you read the article at hand before replying.
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Because there are laws against joining an organization, (opengl foundation), looking at theire code and then implementing your competing product.
And MS is using their monopoly to make sure to kill off competition. Who can compete wit the richest software company in the world?
The problem is they haven't removed opengl and allowed card manufacturers to supply a fully functioning opengl driver themselves. They have filtered opengl through DirectX at a lower version hence, disallowing a manufacturer from doing what you said!
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2005-06-29
This almost sounds like something to make a class action suit of.
I'm not convinced it's the end of the world though. Games would have to ship with GL libs. Kill aero on startup, then load their own GL libs, and run.
And gamers thought Microsoft was finally warming up to treating them like what they are: The only crowd who won't leave them. Hah! They'll probably stick another Windows Key that can't be deactivated on the mouse, this time!
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I just didn't get it completely... Is it the "system (default) OpenGL", o nVidia/ATi/3DLabs won't be able to offer their OpenGL code as well without wrapping it to WGF2 code?
As far as I remember, Vista will have a WGF2.0 graphic mode (recomended) that will require graphic cards that allow the OS to control it's memory buffer. It's good as makes all these composition features more integrated to the system... But, maybe, it means that the card will be runing WGF2.0 all the time (and not switching to Direct3D or OpenGL and an app calls for it)... It's pretty technical to guess if OGL can run in the situation...
Does someone know about the technical implications and about Vista's graphic system?
(To make it clear, WGF 2.0, or Windows Graphic Fundation 2.0 is formely know as DirectX Next or DirectX 10.)
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because they can cut costs in producing opengl drivers. i think that no one will argue. maybe it's time to make opensource implementation of WGF 1.0. this is this controversial solution. Xorg and graphic card producers whould have to join in the development. games could be easily recompiled to linux and other systems.
what is the abbreviation of ES? is it embedded systems? if it is, it means that it is very truncated opengl.
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yes, ES stands for Embedded System
well, it's like OpenGL 2, in the way that it's a big clean-up of OpenGL 1.x
it is not so truncated in the sense that you'd expect PS3 games to look good, not like Sega Saturn - Virtua Fighter game (look at those big polygons)
So, you'll have same functionnalities compared to common OpenGL but a big API clean-up. (and perhaps performance improvement as API is less bloated)
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It is the card manufacturers who make OpenGL what it is, not Microsoft. Not many people here seem to know that Microsoft's default OpenGL implementation in Windows XP is frozen at version 1.1. nVidia and ATI are the ones who constantly supply updated versions of OpenGL libraries.
I don't think this is going to change any time soon. The vast majority of non-game 3D software is written against OpenGL. If MS really crippled OpenGL like the article implies, they would have a lot of unsatisfied customers.
I'm afraid the much overused word FUD applies here as well.
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It would be nice if you didn't copy slashdot articles right off.
That said, people that need to use OpenGL are not likely to rely on the OS builtin support. Or are you seriously suggesting that Microsoft support every single OGL capable graphics card out there instead of getting that support from the chip makers like ATI and nVidia?
It's very stupid to call this news and to bitch about it.
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If you have ever tried out an OpenGL over Direct3D application you know that it is extremely slow in comparison to real OpenGL. It seems like Microsoft just came up with another reason you don't want to use Vista. Thank God Linux uses OpenGL and NVIDIA and ATI are providing fast drivers.
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The original source for this story is http://www.opengl.org/ slashdot picked it up from there.
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the Windows Vista 2D/3D interace is running because the 3 D hardware would already be used by the Windows GUI.
Vista GUI would use 3D acceleration of the GPU, so, if you want to use OpenGL for anything, they cut the GUI acceleration.
Lets say you've got a slave, you can't ask him to both cut the grass and to do the laundery. He can't do both at the same time. (looks like in Vista, GPU ressource can't be shared between DirectX 10/Next and OpenGL)
As i said earlier, full screen GL app should be no problem (mostly games) but for windowed apps ...
Anyway, if it disables fancy UI shit (interface anti-aliasing and full-colors) while you want to use a professional API/application, it can't hurt
do you really want your graphic rendering to take much time because the GPU is busy rendering some useless effect in the back-ground (in windows interface) ?
RE: You can't have OpenGL app running while ...
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M$ is right to impose its views/products on the world.
M$ can do it, so why should it not crush competition?
Nobody can stop it (The laws are applied too little, too late, way after the market shares have been conquered).
Add to this that almost nobody wants to boycott Windows...
The fact is that if you want something to work on Windows you better NOT depend on Microsoft code. Build your own code base à la Java.
Don't beg support, take it!
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2005-08-07
Or is this just another piece of FUD?
As someone noted in an earlier post (the first sensible in this thread) it's not MS who is providing the high-performance OpenGL implementations. The OpenGL-over-D3D implementation will definitely have vastly better performance than the one which is currently shipped with Windows; there is already an OpenGL-over-D3D implementation from Scitech Software called GLDirect (or is it DirectGL?) and its performance (at least on a GF6600) is decent, but of course worse than the hardware manufacturer's implementation.
In addition MS has never hindered hardware producers from creating their own drivers for any purpose - that's why you can use USB sticks, bluetooth, Wi-Fi, SATA, PCI-Express and more on Windows 2000 - who heard about them when W2K was released in 1999?
To Thom: I'm really disappointed that OSNews is posting such stories, with an evidently misleading commentary.
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Trolling again Lumbergh? I think you'll find carmack said, and i quote:
"Direct-3D IM is a horribly broken API. It inflicts great pain and suffering on the programmers using it, without returning any significant advantages. I don't think there is ANY market segment that D3D is apropriate for, OpenGL seems to work just fine for everything from quake to softimage. There is no good technical reason for the existance of D3D.
I'm sure D3D will suck less with each forthcoming version, but this is an oportunity to just bypass dragging the entire development community through the messy evolution of an ill-birthed API."
Has it improved since? yes. Does he use direct x now its had a few improvements? no because if youve ever used it, it is still lacking compared to OGL.
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Heres a quote from the register taken from an article about Carmack on nvidia:
"Nvidia has garnered much industry support for its Cg language, but this could help swing critical opinion behind a vendor neutral approach. Carmack has enthused about the quality of NVidia's OpenGL drivers in the past."
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The main reason I stick with windows is the games. I tried dual/triple booting but it just wasn't worth the effort for me to maintain/update/keep-learning more than one OS.
I wish Apple/theLinuxCommunity/and anyone-else-who-cares could get together to improve and promote OpenGL. Both Apple and Linux need more games on their platforms and if they minimize the effort a developer would have to do to cross-compile a game app everyone would benefit (the developer would have a bigger market for their game for one).
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Who would want to use an OS that is doing OpenGL over Direct3D? If you've ever used OpenGL over Direct3D you know how slow it is. 50% performance loss is an overly optimistic estimate. From my experience it can be up to a magnitude depending on the application. Seriously, nobody in his right mind would ever use an OS that's that slow aside from the other Vista problems.
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"I believe that this way they will not only kill OpenGL on windows, but also any app that is going to use opengl for 3d rendering to have cross compatibility. Since opengl won't have the desired performance/features ppl will just use ONLY d3d.. and this way we won't see games, apps ported to other platforms..."
Given that microsoft has over 90% of the computing market, this move (as well as the move to kill pdf files) is cleary an abuse of their market share power.
For the life of me, I can't understand how a fair and intelligent judge could decide that microsoft is not a monopoly.
- Mark
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So game developers still write for OGL and instead of having it install to and run from windows they use Linux liveCD/DVD's. You stick the CD/DVD in and it autoruns bypassing the OS entirely, loading a linux/bsd/whatever enviroment and tehn the game. No fuss no muss. Let's see how MS likes that. If windows has the suspend/hibernate/instant on functions they claim it will have this shouldn't be an issue.
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I have thoug of that for well over a year nown...
I think they should start experimenting with that type of solution...
Imagin... No need to wory about what windows you got.. or what vercion of x softwere... any updates would be loaded to a jump/flash drive and presto... put the game CD and flash/jump drive in, and presto, got game, just like in a console... no need to relly on a monopolistic OS to boot all its corporational crap... no viruses
NO VIRUSES
-Big Moron
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The boot/livecd/livedvd solution is only doable for a game console, not for a general purpose computer, for several reasons :
- data storage => you still need a hard-disk
- driver coverage => you can't support every hardware on earth (aspecialy hardware newer than your CD/DVD)
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Ha... I already said that you can use a usb jump/flash drive... no need for a hard drive... etcept for sloppy patching... frankly I don get it whi there is so many sloppy PC games... asides from the well desing ones... there should be no need to have a pach for whatever game that needs a gig of space... (those are slppy programing skillz my friend and most are because os the OSs fault... taking it out of the ecuation and you can consentrate in the game not in fightin with an OS that you don'd realy know whats doing... or any other app intevinig for that matter)...
Drivers... HA... come on... it is posible to at least get the people with NVidias, ATI and even intel graphic cards a good performance... since they already support OpenGL... and most network cards and sound cards work with any of the live OSs there are (mostly LINUX... but there are more)... even modems work, althoug far less... But that wouldn't stop any game company from investing/working with hardware manufactures to include the neded drivers...
also they could do it both ways install and live...
and it is more than posible since there are some linuxes that are tailor for games (mostly demos of comercial games).... and if you take out the window manager and everithing that is not needed for the game you will have more than enough space in whatever media you use (cd, dvd, hdvd...)
so it is more than posible... and they can use the hardware to it fullest... like consoles do...
-Big Moron
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it seems you can't understand the driver point :
you buy a game using this LiveCD/DVD system on say 08/12
you buy a new graphic card which just went out
=> you're fucked because :
GFX card PCIids aren't known by your current drivers
If it is a new generation card, it needs a driver than isn't in your LiveCD/DVD
You can't have on your LiveCD/DVD drivers for hardware that is released AFTER the game.
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DUHHH... USB JUMP DRIVE... even from the game itself... update utilyty or the os... Get the driver to the usb drive and presto... if the draded OS can ... why not the game... drivers are like what... a few kilobites up to a few megabites big... even if it were 16MB (sloppy driver for windows mostly) it would fit inside a 128MB usb jump/flash drive... and you can get 512MB for reasonable prices...
and with clever programing an future thinking it is MORE THAN Posible!!!!!...
-Big Moron
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That's the question.
Heavy Handed decision from above, or, sheer Microsoft Developer LAZINESS. The problem with highly intelligent programmers is many of them are incredibly lazy. This could mearly be another example where some Genius at Microsoft fell in LOVE with Direct3D and Didn't want to write the low level code for OpenGL.
Anyway, this type of thing should be brought to the government's attention. Microsoft shouldn't be in a position to dictate an api.
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If they licence it to Apple for instance noone can claim antitrust against them...
same as MS office...
it would without doubt run better under windows making macs look like even poorer gaming machine BUT it would not be illigal as companies would have the 'option' of licencing it
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Also, let's not forget that the only reason Dx even exists is because OpenGL was stagnant for quite a while... until very recently.
I really don't see how this could try to lock people into DirectX. In the past, a lot of games have come with an option to run the game in OpenGL, Dx, or even GLIDE (way back when). So the work is already being done.
Now, would it be better if Microsoft submitted Dx as a standard so other platforms could support it, yeah, unfortunately this has not happened yet. But it would be a good faith effort to help them out of their PR hole. As there really is no reason to keep Dx to themselves.
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DirectX on the whole exists because Windows didn't have an abstract replacement for the video, audio, and input flexibility that existed on DOS. OpenGL doesn't try to offer these abstractions, and they were necessary for the production of multimedia applications on Windows. All Microsoft really had before was WinG (you might remember it being used for games like Wizardry Gold) and that didn't realize the above requirements either. When Direct3D was added to DirectX, the software OpenGL renderer shipped with Windows was sorely unusable for writing games, and the state of hardware acceleration for mainstream PCs was definitely not impressive, and even less so in the realm of OpenGL.
It wasn't about the stagnation of OpenGL. Microsoft for some time under the pretense of cooperation was working with SGI on the Fahrenheit project, which would act as a replacement for both technologies. As many companies will surely attest, partnering with Microsoft for a proposed standard is not unlike slamming your head into a brick wall.
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even if every opengl call is translated to a dx call, it will not be such a big speed problem as stuff like glVertex3f() etc. is not used very often anymore. today you just send an obscene amount of vertices off to the gfx card with very few actual functions calls, add some fancy shaders and let the hardware do most of the work...
(at least it was the preferred way when i did gfx coding last time - ~1 year ago)
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2005-07-06
This is a non-story, and I can't believe so many people are falling for this FUD.
It's already been stated, but it's being lost in the flood of idiots.
This only applies to the DEFAULT DRIVERS that MICROSOFT PROVIDES. Any drivers provided by the graphics card makers use their OWN implementation that will give MUCH better performance for OpenGL, since it won't be using OpenGL through D3D.
How often do people use the default MS drivers for their video cards? Anyone that does and expects to play games with good performance should be shot.
Please tell me WHY Microsoft should be expected to provide updated support for OpenGL, a competing product, in their default, fall-back drivers. It's ludicrious.
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I truely feel sorry for you... The reason why you dislike Linux is because your to stupid to know how to use a OS. You want the OS to use you, and in the near future when M$ puts the breaks on FREE MS OS's and upgrades you will pay for your stupidity.. And you will pay out of your pocket!
Liux = FREEDOM!
Microsoft = Modern day Communisiom!!
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Yes I am from India, You are a typical Windows user who is arrogant and also stupid. May I ask how many languages you can speak? I only know four at this time but im learning my fifth. after a google I see "eh" is a Canadian slang!
I did a spell check just for YOU!
I still say Microsoft = communism
Habib
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Well, that sure beats my two!
I am fluent in both Canadian and American :-P
Microsoft isn't communism. It's nothing so noble. It's a corporation, and many of it's actions piss me off too.
Be sure of one thing though, Linux isn't all that you're making it out to be. I've used it on and off for years, and I can't stand it much more than I can stomach Windows.
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I only made it out to be what it is!!!!!!
Free GPL and LGPL software, what have I made it out to be that it isn't? With a Linux OS/Distro we don't have or see this kind of stuff going on. Microsoft is against the GPL and FREE software so in a sense there against freedom of use. They want all the power and control and to dictate to there user what they can and can't do. I could give a crap less about Microsoft I use Gentoo a modern/open/free operating system.
And if you look at how the communist wanted power and control Microsoft is acting in the same ways.
Like it or not this is fact!
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"And if you look at how the communist wanted power and control"
It's not just the "Communists." Look at Bush, look anywhere. Human nature makes the monsters, and as long as there are people, there will be evil in this world, and people wanting control.
And as to your use of Gentoo, fair enough, but most people prefer to use their computers for more than just compiling the OS that they run on it.
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"I heard without ms the internet wouldnt exist so dont blame them for not making opengl good!!!"
Best...comment...evar!
You do realize that as late is in 1995 Gates pubicly said that the Internet would never be commercially viable and that the future was dedicated portal services like MSN and AOL.
Not to mention the simple fact that the Internet existed for some 10-15 years before MS as a company even existed. (back when Billy was busy abusing the schools computing facilities).
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It must be raining tons of tinfoil today for people to make hats out of. Look, this gl thing is only going to effect windowed gl apps not fullscreen games. These can shut off the aero looks for full gl speed. Plus, this aero problem can be circumvented by ihvs. Also, John Carmack had a problem with render to texture mechanism under gl I believe but that has been corrected since. I used both gl and d3d in my games and gl is less of the two evils so I use it now. However, if gl died suddenly then no big deal. I'll just move to d3d once again. It's not like the sky is falling. Actually since d3d9 it has been a good api. The problem was with ver.7 when MS didn't exposed nvidia's register combiner mechanism which made d3d7 sucky for per-pixel games. I should know I tried to fit it into d3d and that experience drove me to use gl instead. I don't like gl extensions that much and prefer to work with same set of features across all ihv cards. Ok folks, sky is not falling that's all.
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Folks, this isn’t the end of the world or OpenGL.
When you load an LDDM OpenGL ICD, the Desktop Window Manager (AKA the Display Composition Manager uxss.exe) shuts down. Once the OpenGL app and the ICD are unloaded, it turns back on. Yes, it means that certain high-end applications, when run, will cause the Aero Glass effects to disappear (drop shadows, transparencies); once unloaded, the effects will resume. This is also true for any applications that user overlay planes or front-buffer rendering. Anyone who is running Vista day-to-day has seen this behavior already. It's mildly annoying at worst (or in the case of full-screen games, unnoticeable).
Could Microsoft do it differently? At this point, not without major modification to the DXG kernel and LDDM driver model.
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So that means companies using GL in windowed mode (90% of gl users are not game developers) are stuck with these two options:
1. Go with GL and somehow try and explain to its users why it fucks up their desktop and why their app looks uglier than the competitors application (seriously, the average joe computer user cant tell the difference between a harddrive and a computer, much less the difference between GL and D3D)
2. Go with DirectX and ignore the fringe markets (linux/mac) that probably wont pay much compared to windows.
Which one do you think they will go with?
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Who would want Vista's effects running in the background anyway when using a Windowed OpenGL app? Would hog GPU resouces that you'd want for the app anyway.
Another thing. Anyone who wants to run the OS as a workstation OS will most likely turn off all the stupid effects anyway so that their computing resources are fully available for the applications they will work on.
This will not kill off OpenGL on the game front or for Workstations. It just means that MS will continue to not provide decent OpenGL support out of the box, something they haven't done for quite a long time.
Now for games, I find when possible, I will run my games in OpenGL because I get a much better image rendered and also I get better performance on my hardware. Nvidia excells with their OpenGL drivers. For ATI users the story is different. Stop getting your knickers in a knot people.
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That's the marketing terms for it yes. However, he's talking about people who use their computer as a 3d graphics workstation. They want every bit of their $2000 Quadro working on the application and not on all those other applications they don't have open anyway 
. In short: If you're only using one app then the glitzy effects get you nothing. And, they don't want their applications use of the gfx interrupted, slowed, or anything else. This is much like a video game except people pay you money for it and it's work .
On the other hand, the gpu off-load helps some people. Mostly: Laptop battery life. That is, if you can assume that your gpu and gfx RAM can do more in 1W than your CPU and system RAM with a gfx operation. I'd hope that on most mobile gfx it can: And it must at least be close or else Apple's notebooks shouldn't get good battery life.
For desktop users it's not much of an effect. Yea, your CPU does 10% less work; but you weren't tasking it anyway. Yes, you now have a tiny amount of RAM cleared up, but you could save three times more if your applications made better use of shared memory.
But, some of the usability things you can do with an accelerated desktop are awesome: Expose is a great example.
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but most people prefer to use their computers for more than just compiling the OS that they run on it.
As if gentoo-users only like to compile.I'm a gentoo user and compiling my apps from source has a good reason.It takes a little bit more time but i'm defenitely a lot more in control.Eg:emerge --pretend --verbose mplayer would show me all possible compile options that mplayer supports and thus i can give mplayer the functionality i want.
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If people do not understand why it will be a bad idea to buy an XBox 360 (or even a current XBox), then look no further than this news item.
If you buy an XBox 360, you will just give more power to Microsoft - and they, in return, will take away your freedoms of choice - or at least make it harder or less appealing to choose any solution other than their own.
I repeat - DO NOT BUY XBOX - or you will just see more of this sort of cr*p from Microsoft.
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This thing about OpenGL and 3D desktops, reminds me of the past: evolution of western art forms: in the baroque period, artists added features and 3D perspectives, but later they gave it up as the weight and effort in conceptual displacement became nauseating to the tastes of people born at later times.
Let us not forget that the more useless graphic stuff you add, it means that:
1. It wastes energy, real Watts and Joules are wasted with no justification.
2. It is frivolous, therefore useless and boring acording to some emerging ethical tendencies.
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in the baroque period, artists added features and 3D perspectives, but later they gave it up as the weight and effort in conceptual displacement became nauseating to the tastes of people born at later times.
The art decos didn't last forever either.Now and then those styles are reinvented and come along fine with others.
3D is useless
Tell that to a brain surgeon when he is trying to map the insicion watching a 3D perpective.
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Tell that to a brain surgeon when he is trying to map the incision watching a 3D perpective.
A robotic brain surgeon will have no problem mapping simple natural-language word commands into a 3D representation.
My issue was more about the frivolous use of 3D in command interfaces. The day when computers can understand human words, all these 3D gimmicks will become obsolete and replaced with a very simple device: a black box with a speaker, a microphone, and an atmospheric projector.
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Others have accurately addressed this issue. In Vista, both Direct3D and OpenGL acceleration is provided via a common pipeline using WGF 1.0. This provides out-of-the-box acceleration for OpenGL content and acceleration of OpenGL even for GPUs that only support Direct3D. This is similar to what is currently provided on Windows XP and, interestingly enough, the current uninformed, kneejerk, conspiratorial reactions echo the reactions about this same topic at the time before XP's release. In short, this, as it was with XP, is a non-issue. As stated, this provides acceleration for OpenGL where it would otherwise only run in software mode, and Vista continues to offer support for OpenGL Installable Client Drivers (ICDs) for both the XP Display Driver Model and the "Longhorn" Display Driver Model which allows hardware manufactures to provide the same level of acceleration tailored to their specific hardware architectures as they currently provide.
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I'm interested by some of the comments in those threads though.
There seems to be a large deliberate move with future version of Windows to make ordinary developers (anyone outside Microsoft) have to use .Net and target the CLR. It seems as though the possibilities of writing your own C or C++ code, compiling it and getting it to work are going to be more and more constrained. The question is, why?
Well, one interesting side effect of the CLR is that Microsoft can more readily control what code gets run on Windows, and they can better control the extent to what the applications people write get access to the lower levels of Windows.
Perhaps the most interesting is that .Net bytecode is ridiculously easy to reverse engineer - there's even tools for it included with Visual Studio! Even with obfuscation, it isn't going to work. If commercial developers of all kinds, especially those producing packaged products, have to use .Net exclusively then they are simply going to have to have some sort of DRM system to protect their software. That's what I think Microsoft hopes to push for. They want software developers to drive demand for DRM solutions, rather than them pushing it themselves.
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It doesnt make alot of sense to me as lets face it OpenGL is great for cross platform development but lags far behind DX10 capabilities. So why do something like this if it could be done with little effort inside dx10? Also why would they use it on their own OS if its gonna be degraded performance? None of this statement makes much sense and as obvious MS haters (I am also, but lets face it winblows is way better then linux, unless you are uber geek and have no use for apps that work.) This sounds like fanboy news if you ask me.
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As the ex-development lead for this project, I can tell you the following without breaking my NDA:
- The new Vista OpenGL driver is a single file "ogldrv.dll", code-named "MSOGL" which takes the place of the ICD.
- The intent here is two-fold: 1) reduce the work of driver developers and 2) reduce the security risk presented by the ICD driver model.
- This is not an overt attempt to kill OpenGL; far from it. By eliminating the need to write two different sets of drivers (ICD and DDI), Microsoft has taken a large burden off the likes of ATI, NVIDIA, 3D Labs, etc., while ensuring performance and expansibility continue.
- MSOGL sits between OpenGL32.dll and D3D. It translates OpenGL calls into D3D calls. This is done using MANY different techniques and at several different levels to ensure the highest possible performance. When I left the project, we were well over 80% performance on average compared to the native OpenGL driver.
- It is still possible to use an old ICD driver on Vista, but this disables D3D rendering of the desktop, which basically takes you back to XP theming of the desktop. This is because D3D cannot share the rendering context with OpenGL. Ideally, most games would run in full-screen OpenGL mode, so the intended audience for this driver is the content creation, CAD/CAM, etc. crowd (AutoCAD, Maya, 3DS Max, Pro Engineer, etc.)
- When I left, the driver supported over 80% of OpenGL 1.4, with plans to continue implementing support for extensions most used by the target applications. We were even able to run Doom 3 in some limited modes over 6 months ago (some functions were NULLed out for testing).
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Seperate the two terms: Aero Glass
Aero is a user experience and design philosophy for Windows Vista.
Glass is one of the tiers under Aero which makes use of shaders and other features offered via GPU acceleration.
See http://www.activewin.com/winvista/thestateofvista.shtml#Presentatio...
or
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/nextgen/aero.mspx
or
http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/experience/
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"Open source hippies they call some of us, failing to realise that the hippy culture served to stir more action and thought than much of the current generations of pale skinned, overweight, ipod clutching couch lizards who whine if they're not in an air conditioned environment and forced to walk further than a block for anything. "
Are you freak’n kidding me? It was cry arses like your self that raised all of us pale skinned, overweight, ipod clutching couch lizards.
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Lets say they layer OpenGL over "D3D", what can YOU do ?
No point in jumping up n down.
I've been using OpenGL for quite sometime, and I simply love this API. Its simple and FAST ! HATS off to SGI... and also to all the current members of OPENGL ARB.
As a developer, I prefer to develop applications using GL.
But think about making a living($), and also the ways in which your company can make money by selling the product.
Which API is better can be debated.
Instead of frowning upon Microsoft, we need to appreciate what D3D can offer and learn along the way.
- Some_one_who_wishes_this_does_not_happen
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You are obviously an idiot. Linux desktop use is over 5% now and server use is well above 20%; in the USA. Other contries are enjoying wider usage and not worrying about all the virus and malware and crappy OS code that you windows users are enjoying 
. Anyway, some friendly advice; check your facts before you start typing. It really makes you out to look really dumb...
