3 ms·

Quake is just (a probably small (not wanting to dimish it, of course)) part of the history. SGI and the enormous effort to get compliant implementations on many

Quake is just (a probably small (not wanting to dimish it, of course)) part of the history. SGI and the enormous effort to get compliant implementations on many different systems and architectures are what made OpenGL what it eventually became.

JohnBooty 3y ago
I think both SGI and Quake were absolutely crucial. Without Quake, OpenGL would have remained an extremely niche thing for professional CAD and modeling software. And Microsoft would have completely owned the 3D gaming API space. Quake (and Quake 2, and Quake 3, and the many games that licensed those engines) really opened the floodgates in terms of mass market users demanding OpenGL capabilities (or at least a subset of them) from their hardware and drivers. I'm not sure how to measure this in an objective way, but if the mass market of PC gamers didn't dwarf the professional CAD/modeling market by several orders of magnitude, I will print out my HN posting history and eat it.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Microsoft never owned the 3D gaming API space, SEGA, Sony and Nintendo also have/had their own APIs.
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    I never heard about SEGA, Sony or Nintendo 3D APIs being used on a PC. I guess somebody somewhere did it, but it's so insignificant.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      I never heard about 3D gaming API space being something PC only, maybe in some fancy FOSS circles.
      - JohnBooty 3y ago
        You're having a different discussion than everybody else. Everybody else is this discussion is talking about the PC 3D API space. The place where OpenGL lives. It's right there in the title of the linked article.
        pjmlp 3y ago
        "Without Quake, OpenGL would have remained an extremely niche thing for professional CAD and modeling software. And Microsoft would have completely owned the 3D gaming API space." Ctrl+F "PC" => zero results found.
        rowanG077 3y ago
        Context matters. The context of the entire post is PC graphics APIs.
        JohnBooty 3y ago
        In this thread we're talking about the impact of Quake's OpenGL support in the early days of the Quake franchise (1996-1999). OpenGL was most definitely PC-only[1] during those days[2]. So to anybody who understands the subject matter... it's extremely obvious we're talking about PC graphics APIs. I am sorry you don't know the subject matter or the history, but that is a poor excuse for attempting to "correct" people who do. Very rude. --- [1] "PC" as in "personal computer", not "Windows PC". OpenGL has been supported on Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc. [2] OpenGL basically is still PC-only, although since Linux supports it, it can run in a lot of places. PS3 and mobile devices had OpenGL ES, a different and more stripped down API)
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    And yet the modern GPU features are pretty much the result of a close symbiosis between hardware vendors and the Direct3D team. For a while, GPUs were categorized by the D3D version they supported (today the focus has moved more towards raw compute performance I guess).
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      In the PC yes, many of those features were originally developed on arcades and game consoles. TMS34010 (1986), Renderman Shading Language(1990), Cell (2005),...

JohnBooty 3y ago

I think both SGI and Quake were absolutely crucial. Without Quake, OpenGL would have remained an extremely niche thing for professional CAD and modeling software. And Microsoft would have completely owned the 3D gaming API space. Quake (and Quake 2, and Quake 3, and the many games that licensed those engines) really opened the floodgates in terms of mass market users demanding OpenGL capabilities (or at least a subset of them) from their hardware and drivers. I'm not sure how to measure this in an objective way, but if the mass market of PC gamers didn't dwarf the professional CAD/modeling market by several orders of magnitude, I will print out my HN posting history and eat it.

pjmlp 3y ago
Microsoft never owned the 3D gaming API space, SEGA, Sony and Nintendo also have/had their own APIs.
- throwaway11460 3y ago
  I never heard about SEGA, Sony or Nintendo 3D APIs being used on a PC. I guess somebody somewhere did it, but it's so insignificant.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    I never heard about 3D gaming API space being something PC only, maybe in some fancy FOSS circles.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      You're having a different discussion than everybody else. Everybody else is this discussion is talking about the PC 3D API space. The place where OpenGL lives. It's right there in the title of the linked article.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        "Without Quake, OpenGL would have remained an extremely niche thing for professional CAD and modeling software. And Microsoft would have completely owned the 3D gaming API space." Ctrl+F "PC" => zero results found.
        rowanG077 3y ago
        Context matters. The context of the entire post is PC graphics APIs.
        JohnBooty 3y ago
        In this thread we're talking about the impact of Quake's OpenGL support in the early days of the Quake franchise (1996-1999). OpenGL was most definitely PC-only[1] during those days[2]. So to anybody who understands the subject matter... it's extremely obvious we're talking about PC graphics APIs. I am sorry you don't know the subject matter or the history, but that is a poor excuse for attempting to "correct" people who do. Very rude. --- [1] "PC" as in "personal computer", not "Windows PC". OpenGL has been supported on Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc. [2] OpenGL basically is still PC-only, although since Linux supports it, it can run in a lot of places. PS3 and mobile devices had OpenGL ES, a different and more stripped down API)
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  And yet the modern GPU features are pretty much the result of a close symbiosis between hardware vendors and the Direct3D team. For a while, GPUs were categorized by the D3D version they supported (today the focus has moved more towards raw compute performance I guess).
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    In the PC yes, many of those features were originally developed on arcades and game consoles. TMS34010 (1986), Renderman Shading Language(1990), Cell (2005),...