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Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune HD, and the upcoming Windows Phone, all run Direct3D. If you've run Vista or Windows 7 lately with an Aero capable card, then muc

by ajg1977 16y ago

Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune HD, and the upcoming Windows Phone, all run Direct3D. If you've run Vista or Windows 7 lately with an Aero capable card, then much of your desktop experience was rendered by Direct3D. Finally, Firefox 3.7, Office 2010, Internet Explorer 9, and many more upcoming apps, all make use of the Direct3D rendering layer (via Direct2D) for hardware accelerated rendering. So yeah, these days it's used in more than a single OS and for a lot more than just games :)

malkia 16y ago
Yes, they all do run something called D3D, but it's not exactly the same across the board. Not only that (it's expected to be different), but you actually need to work in a different way for each platform. For PC you have to handle losing/restoring the device, reloading the assets, etc. Making multithreaded D3D renderer is pain in the ass (the MULTITHREADED FLAG is just going to ruin your performance). For the consoles, I can't comment as I'm under NDA, but it's just different. Granted, if OpenGL was on the consoles (it was in some form), it would've had the same differences - mainly - a console is a single-application that runs almost as a kernel - so you don't have handle certain stuff (on PC you have to handle fullscreen/losing/restoring the device, etc), but you have expectations for other (no visible slowdowns, jerking, etc. which are prevalent in the PC games) So let's not start a religious war here :)
rbanffy 16y ago
s/cross-platform/cross-vendor/ Did you notice you mentioned one desktop OS, one dead failed console, one successful console, one failed media player still on sale and an OS that hasn't hit the market and that has, consequently, no market share, all made by the same company? How does that remotely compare with the breadth of vendors, device formats, architectures and operating systems OpenGL covers? My phone runs it. My laptop runs it, as does every high-end visualization system I ever used.
- ajg1977 16y ago
  There's a pretty good chance (e.g. about 100%) that anything you would want to run on that high-end visualization system won't run on your laptop, and anything you would want to run on your laptop won't run on your phone. If your definition of success is to be running on the broadest spectrum of devices with no regard to marketshare, adoption, or interoperability, then you're right - OpenGL is far more attractive than Direct3D. Ditto Linux over OSX/Windows. My interests are driven more by market realities. Having a wide breadth of device vendors and formats is NOT attractive when considering what platforms to target. This is one reason why games on iPhone are far more prevalent than Android - there are basically three iPhone revisions to worry about, compared to a dozen Android handsets that all have slightly different specs, capabilities, and driver bugs. If OpenGL sees accelerated adoption over the next few years it will be because it's the chosen API of the wildly popular and relatively homogeneous iOS family of devices, not because it has the greatest breadth of hardware support.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > There's a pretty good chance (e.g. about 100%) that anything you would want to run on that high-end visualization system won't run on your laptop, and anything you would want to run on your laptop won't run on your phone. I agree I will not be able to view 3D medical images on my phone with the same ease I can with a visualization workstation, but that's beyond the point. The point is the same functions are being called by Google Earth on the cellphone and the medical imaging application. > your definition of success is to be running on the broadest spectrum of devices No. That's my definition of "cross-platform". Comparing OpenGL with Direct3D is an apples to oranges comparison.

by ajg1977 16y ago

malkia 16y ago

Yes, they all do run something called D3D, but it's not exactly the same across the board. Not only that (it's expected to be different), but you actually need to work in a different way for each platform. For PC you have to handle losing/restoring the device, reloading the assets, etc. Making multithreaded D3D renderer is pain in the ass (the MULTITHREADED FLAG is just going to ruin your performance). For the consoles, I can't comment as I'm under NDA, but it's just different. Granted, if OpenGL was on the consoles (it was in some form), it would've had the same differences - mainly - a console is a single-application that runs almost as a kernel - so you don't have handle certain stuff (on PC you have to handle fullscreen/losing/restoring the device, etc), but you have expectations for other (no visible slowdowns, jerking, etc. which are prevalent in the PC games) So let's not start a religious war here :)

rbanffy 16y ago

s/cross-platform/cross-vendor/ Did you notice you mentioned one desktop OS, one dead failed console, one successful console, one failed media player still on sale and an OS that hasn't hit the market and that has, consequently, no market share, all made by the same company? How does that remotely compare with the breadth of vendors, device formats, architectures and operating systems OpenGL covers? My phone runs it. My laptop runs it, as does every high-end visualization system I ever used.

ajg1977 16y ago
There's a pretty good chance (e.g. about 100%) that anything you would want to run on that high-end visualization system won't run on your laptop, and anything you would want to run on your laptop won't run on your phone. If your definition of success is to be running on the broadest spectrum of devices with no regard to marketshare, adoption, or interoperability, then you're right - OpenGL is far more attractive than Direct3D. Ditto Linux over OSX/Windows. My interests are driven more by market realities. Having a wide breadth of device vendors and formats is NOT attractive when considering what platforms to target. This is one reason why games on iPhone are far more prevalent than Android - there are basically three iPhone revisions to worry about, compared to a dozen Android handsets that all have slightly different specs, capabilities, and driver bugs. If OpenGL sees accelerated adoption over the next few years it will be because it's the chosen API of the wildly popular and relatively homogeneous iOS family of devices, not because it has the greatest breadth of hardware support.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > There's a pretty good chance (e.g. about 100%) that anything you would want to run on that high-end visualization system won't run on your laptop, and anything you would want to run on your laptop won't run on your phone. I agree I will not be able to view 3D medical images on my phone with the same ease I can with a visualization workstation, but that's beyond the point. The point is the same functions are being called by Google Earth on the cellphone and the medical imaging application. > your definition of success is to be running on the broadest spectrum of devices No. That's my definition of "cross-platform". Comparing OpenGL with Direct3D is an apples to oranges comparison.