5 ms·

Wine is a bit different, I'm not 100% sure but it's more like a reimplementation of native calls than anything. But yeah, this is awesome. As a side note, deve

by Morgawr 13y ago

Wine is a bit different, I'm not 100% sure but it's more like a reimplementation of native calls than anything. But yeah, this is awesome. As a side note, developers who want to make games run on OSX and Linux should just stop targeting DirectX. This is good for already-existing games and port them over, but in 2014 if you're still writing games in DirectX, you're most likely doing it wrong.

lucian1900 13y ago
Wine does provide the D3D calls and translates them to GL, which works reasonably well. It is better if the game does GL directly, which is why something the game can link in works better.
sharpneli 13y ago
In addition with OpenGL you can access the latest features even on Windows XP. Saving you from writing separate DX9/10/11 renderpaths. But this lib is for those countless DX9 games already in existence. Valve is making SteamOS ports as easy as possible.
- zanny 13y ago
  You still have to write an absurd amount of spaghetti code around testing GL extensions that are available. Especially when you consider the Intel IGPUs from the last 5 years - the first gen is only 2.1, second gen 3.1, and Ivy Bridge and above is 4.3. But besides those the Nvidia / AMD parts have supported 3.3 and above since 2006. Of course, if you are targeting Windows XP... you got to think back a lot further than that. In some ways theres some elegance in how you can write GLES2 shader code and have it run everywhere, including on mobile, and just check extensions for everything else you use.
  - sharpneli 13y ago
    That's true if you want to support older OGL versions. Personally I use the ES3 subset of 4.3 right now. Same code works perfectly on ES3 mobile HW and 4.3 desktop HW. The only features it lacks are geometry and tesselation shaders. I'm also using compute shaders right now, even though they are not supported in ES3 they are going to be supported in the ES next update. And that gives me effectively everything geometry shaders etc can ever bring. By using those I'm saved from checking any extensions. And there is not much they could even bring to the table.
    - tubs 13y ago
      > The only features it lacks are geometry and tesselation shaders. fp64, draw_indirect, multi_draw_indirect, shader_buffer_load, bindless_texture. These are all killer features in writing fast renderers.
maaaats 13y ago
>> but in 2014 if you're still writing games in DirectX, you're most likely doing it wrong. No, you are not. There is no wrong and right, it's just a stupid statement. OpenGL is years behind D3D (not DirectX, it's not comparable!) in many areas, and writing using the whole DX stack can be much nicer than setting up a GL stack with a lot of different libraries.
- gambiting 13y ago
  >>OpenGL is years behind D3D (not DirectX, it's not comparable!) in many areas, Explain please?
  - dimillian 13y ago
    I think it's not years behind, for example the latest AAA game I've played on OSX (Elder Scrolls Online) run natively on it, and it's in OpenGL. It look as good as on PC where it run with D3D.
    - kevingadd 13y ago
      The gap between GL and D3D has nothing to do with visual quality and everything to do with framerate and load times.
  - maaaats 13y ago
    Note that I said in many areas. Not all. A history lesson of why many actually prefer the Windows stack can be read here: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/88055/51669 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/88055/51669
    - outworlder 13y ago
      And you did not say which areas and why it is behind in them. I see multicore support in another comment, and maybe things related to geometry shaders. What else am I missing?
w0rm 13y ago
Yeah but this does not help if you want to port older games.
lost_name 13y ago
I'm afraid I don't know exactly what comment to leave this under but it feels very relevant to this discussion. This user's answer to the question goes through quite a bit of history of Direct3D and OpenGL. http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows#88055 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-...
jkrems 13y ago
If nothing major has changed, I'd rather use the nice API DirectX offers than the general weirdness that is OpenGL. Any project that makes DirectX (as an interface) available for all platforms is great news in my book.
kevingadd 13y ago
OpenGL drivers on Windows are still pretty far behind DirectX drivers, especially on the kind of low-spec hardware (read: Intel GPUs) average customers have. If you use OpenGL instead of Direct3D you might be paying as much as a 50% performance penalty (we certainly see about that when comparing our GL and D3D renderers for the same scenes)

by Morgawr 13y ago

lucian1900 13y ago

Wine does provide the D3D calls and translates them to GL, which works reasonably well. It is better if the game does GL directly, which is why something the game can link in works better.

sharpneli 13y ago

In addition with OpenGL you can access the latest features even on Windows XP. Saving you from writing separate DX9/10/11 renderpaths. But this lib is for those countless DX9 games already in existence. Valve is making SteamOS ports as easy as possible.

zanny 13y ago
You still have to write an absurd amount of spaghetti code around testing GL extensions that are available. Especially when you consider the Intel IGPUs from the last 5 years - the first gen is only 2.1, second gen 3.1, and Ivy Bridge and above is 4.3. But besides those the Nvidia / AMD parts have supported 3.3 and above since 2006. Of course, if you are targeting Windows XP... you got to think back a lot further than that. In some ways theres some elegance in how you can write GLES2 shader code and have it run everywhere, including on mobile, and just check extensions for everything else you use.
- sharpneli 13y ago
  That's true if you want to support older OGL versions. Personally I use the ES3 subset of 4.3 right now. Same code works perfectly on ES3 mobile HW and 4.3 desktop HW. The only features it lacks are geometry and tesselation shaders. I'm also using compute shaders right now, even though they are not supported in ES3 they are going to be supported in the ES next update. And that gives me effectively everything geometry shaders etc can ever bring. By using those I'm saved from checking any extensions. And there is not much they could even bring to the table.
  - tubs 13y ago
    > The only features it lacks are geometry and tesselation shaders. fp64, draw_indirect, multi_draw_indirect, shader_buffer_load, bindless_texture. These are all killer features in writing fast renderers.

maaaats 13y ago

>> but in 2014 if you're still writing games in DirectX, you're most likely doing it wrong. No, you are not. There is no wrong and right, it's just a stupid statement. OpenGL is years behind D3D (not DirectX, it's not comparable!) in many areas, and writing using the whole DX stack can be much nicer than setting up a GL stack with a lot of different libraries.

gambiting 13y ago
>>OpenGL is years behind D3D (not DirectX, it's not comparable!) in many areas, Explain please?
- dimillian 13y ago
  I think it's not years behind, for example the latest AAA game I've played on OSX (Elder Scrolls Online) run natively on it, and it's in OpenGL. It look as good as on PC where it run with D3D.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    The gap between GL and D3D has nothing to do with visual quality and everything to do with framerate and load times.
- maaaats 13y ago
  Note that I said in many areas. Not all. A history lesson of why many actually prefer the Windows stack can be read here: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/88055/51669 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/88055/51669
  - outworlder 13y ago
    And you did not say which areas and why it is behind in them. I see multicore support in another comment, and maybe things related to geometry shaders. What else am I missing?

w0rm 13y ago

Yeah but this does not help if you want to port older games.

lost_name 13y ago

I'm afraid I don't know exactly what comment to leave this under but it feels very relevant to this discussion. This user's answer to the question goes through quite a bit of history of Direct3D and OpenGL. http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows#88055 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-...

jkrems 13y ago

If nothing major has changed, I'd rather use the nice API DirectX offers than the general weirdness that is OpenGL. Any project that makes DirectX (as an interface) available for all platforms is great news in my book.

kevingadd 13y ago

OpenGL drivers on Windows are still pretty far behind DirectX drivers, especially on the kind of low-spec hardware (read: Intel GPUs) average customers have. If you use OpenGL instead of Direct3D you might be paying as much as a 50% performance penalty (we certainly see about that when comparing our GL and D3D renderers for the same scenes)