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There is more to games than just 3D graphics. They would have to be using cross platform libraries for everything if they want to "just release a linux binary". Now I'm no games programmer so I don't know what cross platform libraries exist or how good they are, but the simple fact is that DirectX provides a lot more than just 3D graphics. You'll have to provide a full games developing stack if you hope to lure people over.
IF this time they work closer with hardware manufacturers and do improve and drive hardware changes with official functions and not only depending of hardware manufacturer's semi-official extension... well, then maybe that'll be true... gradual increasing OGL minor versioning may be one way to do that and create some kind of hardware capable standard (as DirectX is, were versioning is very useful to know the capabilities of the hardware and what applications do support it)
But OGL is much more focused in professional work these days than games, were DirectX reigns... and we need more support from hardware vendors (better drivers) too.
...that said... these changes in the new version looks promising. I hope they get in our hands quickly (implemented I mean...)
The positive thing for the video game industry is that opengl is truly cross platform.
Most notably, it provides the same feature set under windows xp and vista, unlike directx, so it will become an attractive option for the gaming industry if they are uncertain whether they should target dx10 (new features but uncertainty about the vista market) or dx9 (no new features, risk of releasing technologically subpar games if the vista market does suddenly explode)






Member since:
2006-11-30
One can only hope that this version of OpenGL will catch people and developers attention and eventually see that it is a good option to Direct3D. That it will make games using it easier to get running under Wine is not a bad thing either.