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Microsoft has joined Khronos, WebGL working group
- higherpurpose 12y agoI wonder if Microsoft will adopt OpenGL ES for Windows Phone (and desktop Windows), too.
- wildpeaks 12y agoIt does look like a Windows Phone in that slide: https://twitter.com/Web3DConsortium/status/498533036711886850/photo/1 https://twitter.com/Web3DConsortium/status/49853303671188685...
- cobalt 12y agoWell in IE on the desktop, it uses DX to render WebGL
- daeken 12y agoSo do Chrome and Firefox, via ANGLE.
- higherpurpose 12y agoOnly because Microsoft doesn't support OpenGL in Windows, obviously.
- kevingadd 12y agoOpenGL is supported in Windows, through installable drivers. Recent (Vista+) versions also ship with GL1.4 support via a GL->D3D translation layer, for users whose driver vendors do not ship an actual GL driver. The main reason ANGLE is preferred is that in general, on Windows GL drivers are dramatically inferior to D3D drivers. They are slower, less stable, and sometimes omit key features. D3D historically has a much better story for preventing shaders from hanging/crashing video drivers, and for recovering from failures that do occur (lost surfaces, driver TDR, etc) - something that GL has now in modern implementations, but didn't have consistently when WebGL was introduced. Between the more widespread availability of good D3D drivers and the stability advantages, I suspect you might not see ANGLE vanish anytime soon - despite the fact that GL drivers for Windows keep improving.
- rescendent 12y agoThey already did: http://msopentech.com/blog/2013/12/20/msopentechcontributestoangle/ http://msopentech.com/blog/2013/12/20/msopentechcontributest...
- double051 12y agoThis one of the many reasons why I ignore Windows Phone as a viable development platform.
- twotwotwo 12y agoThey implemented WebGL in IE, so sitting this out would just leave them having to implement a standard without input into the process. Also, for old monopolist Microsoft, standards were a bane because they meant smaller players could interoperate with its software, and even sometimes influence its future via standards committees. For new underdog-in-certain-markets Microsoft, standards are a blessing because it means they can interoperate with larger players' software, and even sometimes influence its future via standards committees. I'm not sure how much that's taken hold culturally within MS, though. (And, of course, there are many places they're still not the underdog.)
- dlitz 12y agoI doubt there's really a "new" Microsoft. They're just in the "Embrace" phase of their usual 3-step process.
- CmonDev 12y agoIt is a new Microsoft, unfortunately. They are pushing stupid HTML5 everywhere :(. Might even make Dynamics AX use it.
- JonoW 12y agoThis seems such an old fashioned outlook now. MS doesn't have, and probably will never again have, a monopoly on the browser environment; they have no choice but to be good web citizens.
- pjmlp 12y agoJust like the old Apple before they got "acquired" by NeXT.
- shmerl 12y agoThat's good to see. Now if they could support OpenGL on Xbox and WP / Windows RT, that could be even more useful.
- kevingadd 12y agoNobody wants OpenGL on XBox. If anything, we'd want a PS4/Mantle style hardware level API. In practice since the hardware is so similar between XBox and PS4, the APIs would probably be pretty similar too... On the other hand, the use of Direct3D is a competitive advantage for them. It made ports easier with the XBox 360 and it probably still makes them easier for the XBox One.
- shmerl 12y ago> Nobody wants OpenGL on XBox You mean MS doesn't want it. MS is not everybody though. Xbox is one of the ways they can keep DirectX around in the face of potential competition as you said yourself: > Direct3D is a competitive advantage for them Though I'd call it an anti-competitive advantage.
- maccard 12y ago> You mean MS doesn't want it. MS is not everybody though. Xbox is one of the ways they can keep DirectX around in the face of potential competition as you said yourself: As far as I'm aware, devs aren't too keen on it. No other maor consoles are using it anyway, so the X-platform argument doesn't really apply.
- Pxl_Buzzard 12y agoOverall I would say devs aren't keen on either OpenGL or DirectX 11, but between the two DX11 seems to be more well regarded. DirectX 12 looks like a good step forward, but many eyes are following Mantle[1] and Metal[2] to see if they can bring new innovations to market. 1. http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/mantle http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/m... 2. https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Miscellaneous/Conceptual/MTLProgGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documenta...
- sliken 12y agoSo are they going to join, sabotage, and abandon WebGL like they did with OpenGL?
- randomfool 12y agoMicrosoft is a minority here and does not have the influence to pull those shenanigans. If IE were to diverge WRT WebGL functionality then it would be the outlier and ignored. Microsoft needed to join to have an opinion at all.
- CmonDev 12y agoUnlikely, but that would've been cool. The monopoly of HTML etc. on the web has to be stopped somehow.
- erikj 12y agoThe monopoly of an open standard? What's wrong with you?
- CmonDev 12y agoCall it what you want but the end result is obvious: I cannot use anything but HTML to build a browser-based GUI. It already killed the Flash and Silverlight. It is slowly spreading the metastases into mobile and desktop as well.
- vetinari 12y ago> It already killed the Flash and Silverlight. Most people consider that a good thing, considering that both of these technologies were abominations that required proprietary plugins full of security holes, that didn't even run everywhere you needed them.
- kibibu 12y ago> both of these technologies were abominations I'll give you that they were buggy, but Flash enabled a LOT of cool stuff to be delivered on the web that HTML still can't do. Go visit Newgrounds or Kongregate and see what people have been doing, basically unchanged, since the late 90s. I'm not sad that it's gone, but it was pretty great at what it did.
- jra101 12y agoKhronos, not Kronos.
- dang 12y agoThanks. Fixed.
- ksk 12y agoIt's interesting to see so many people supporting webGL. Other than the "same X, but now X runs inside a browser" novelty aspect, I have yet to see any evidence that webGL does anything useful. To be fair, in this respect, it's no different from flash or javascript or any of the other technologies that people use to produce inferior replacements of native applications.
- pjc50 12y agoRunning in a browser offers an (imperfect) security sandbox on a desktop PC, so people don't have to download and run untrusted executables. It also offers portability, and a certain amount of "copy protection". If your application is inherently networked, it works just fine in the browser.
- ksk 12y agoThe sandbox is a feature afforded by the underlying OS and CPU architecture. I didn't quite understand your point. With regards to game distribution, I don't see any particular advantage that a browser has over something like Steam. You don't need to download multiple gigabytes either. You could design a game to stream levels/assets/etc on-demand. In any case, even with webGL, a game would need to do that.
- lobo_tuerto 12y agoThe thing is, it is in your browser. A machine without an internet browser is unheard of, the internet browser is everywhere. You can't say the same for Steam. It is convenient. What is it not understandable about that?
- ksk 12y ago>The thing is, it is in your browser. I already excluded this part from my criticism. Please read my original comment. >You can't say the same for Steam. So, the solution to that is to create something like Steam, but better. Choosing an inferior technology is the opposite of a solution. I predict that advertisers are going to overuse webGL just like flash. We're going to see webGL blockers crop up the minute it gets any kind of traction. Certainly, I am not going to subject my machine to another malware vector.