5 ms·

WebGL is so compelling and well-designed that it's only a matter of time. With Firefox plus Chrome having something like 50% penetration, and WebGL enabling the

WebGL is so compelling and well-designed that it's only a matter of time. With Firefox plus Chrome having something like 50% penetration, and WebGL enabling the web to do things it simply couldn't before, Microsoft can't ignore it forever. This will also put pressure on driver vendors to fix the desktop 3D situation too. Firefox an Chrome both have draconian rules that limit WebGL to "known safe" drivers. In a couple years I truly believe that everyone will want to play in the WebGL ecosystem.

etherealG 16y ago
sorry to say, but MS have been ignoring openGL from day one, instead creating the competing direct3D and the resulting mess of double standards in the 3D gaming graphics market. I don't see this as any different, and I don't think they are going to "give it up". MS are adamant about holding the keys to the graphics kingdom. I would love it if this weren't the case, but it looks to me like they're trying to convince people to put webGL and webSockets into the same logical group of "non complete" standards, when they just plain aren't. It's marketing bullshit, webGL is done and working.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  I wouldn't say "from day one..." OpenGL performance was actually quite good in Windows NT 4 with my ATI Xpert@Play video card (at least for the included screensavers). The OpenGL screensavers ran smoothly at the monitor's refresh rate. The Windows 9x equivalents seemed to chunk along at ~15fps on the same hardware.
  - marshray 16y ago
    What I've read is that there have been times where 3D hardware vendors were able to expose newer features in OpenGL sooner than in DirectX. OpenGL has an extensible "GetProcAddress" facility which goes direct to the vendor's code.
  - pmjordan 16y ago
    I think OpenGL and Direct3D performance was roughly equivalent (given appropriate driver support) until Vista came along with its new compositing system. Also note that Windows NT 4.0 only ever had the (highly embryonic) Direct3D 3.0, whereas 95 went up to DirectX 8.0.

etherealG 16y ago

sorry to say, but MS have been ignoring openGL from day one, instead creating the competing direct3D and the resulting mess of double standards in the 3D gaming graphics market. I don't see this as any different, and I don't think they are going to "give it up". MS are adamant about holding the keys to the graphics kingdom. I would love it if this weren't the case, but it looks to me like they're trying to convince people to put webGL and webSockets into the same logical group of "non complete" standards, when they just plain aren't. It's marketing bullshit, webGL is done and working.

nitrogen 16y ago
I wouldn't say "from day one..." OpenGL performance was actually quite good in Windows NT 4 with my ATI Xpert@Play video card (at least for the included screensavers). The OpenGL screensavers ran smoothly at the monitor's refresh rate. The Windows 9x equivalents seemed to chunk along at ~15fps on the same hardware.
- marshray 16y ago
  What I've read is that there have been times where 3D hardware vendors were able to expose newer features in OpenGL sooner than in DirectX. OpenGL has an extensible "GetProcAddress" facility which goes direct to the vendor's code.
- pmjordan 16y ago
  I think OpenGL and Direct3D performance was roughly equivalent (given appropriate driver support) until Vista came along with its new compositing system. Also note that Windows NT 4.0 only ever had the (highly embryonic) Direct3D 3.0, whereas 95 went up to DirectX 8.0.