OpenGL sucks
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So over the last 2 days I took a deep dive into the world of OpenGL and cross-platform development. At first it was bliss with a 600kb exe file that ran on linux and windows alike with no other dependencies, but then I smashed head-first into the iceberg of OpenGL fail.
1: Its a screaming mess. A zillion extensions only a tiny percentage of which have been formalised by the ARB while the rest remain basically unusable as cards may choose to not support them or implement them in strange ways that don’t do what they should.
2: Tried to run shaders on my netbook (its sm2 compatable). Got a crash, something about lacking opengl 2. Well, it is a netbook and an early one at that, so its a nonissue on any half decent computer, right? Wrong.
Turns out that Intel, the guys whose video cards are in nearly 50% of all computers out there, don’t give a fuck about OpenGL and simply don’t write drivers beyond supporting GL 1.4. This is so bad that I can’t even use surfaces/rendertargets/FBOs on my netbook; a feature that’s nearly 10 years old. Needless to say, I’m rethinking about using XNA again.
It all boils down to this:
XNA:
+Xbox and Zune depoloyment paths
+Lots of plug-and-play code on CodePlex
+Decent framework included on top of low level stuff
-Users must download and install a ‘redistributable’ before playing a game. Size varies. Less of an issue on vista and win7 mahines as they auto meet most prereqs.
GL:
+Awesomely cross platform. At least by itself.
+Tiny footprint, exe will work without any extra downloads
-Tings like shaders and surfaces don’t work on nearly 50% of all computers even though the hardware and DX drivers support it
-Workload to rewrite things already provided by XNA
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Tags: Aziel
January 8th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
You can’t be serious, you mean that more than 50% of the computers in your audience uses a such n00bchip as an Intel one? It’s even worse than ATI!
I wish that microsoft never dropped their seat at the OGL ARB, if they hadn’t come up with the brilliant idea of making a product ( DX ) that not work at other systems than their own ( Win ) the world would probably be a better place.
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Quick google search turned up:
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/
Seems like there is OpenSource drivers for IntelChips on Linux.
You shouldn’t have any trouble on Win7 with OpenGL, if you can find the right file with the weirdest name to intall
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Don’t go for XNA – I beleve that in within a maximum of 7 years ( maybe 3 ) Windows will be out of the picture.
Cheers!
January 8th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
I don’t see windows going anywhere. It’s too costly for businesses to change an operating system, even in 7 years. Imagine the work the work involved in not only rebuilding their business’ software from scratch – but at the same time continuing to use the current model so that business doesn’t instantly die.
More to the point… linux is only a small market. It’s the windows users that would be more likely to have an intel chip (and use Aziel)
January 8th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
@Aybabtus:
Our (fairly obvious) goal is to make Aziel as simple to use as possible for as many people as possible. Making them jump through hoops on both linux and windows just to get it running is a bad idea. I’d rather have well supported windows and poor to none support on linux/mac, than poor support on all.
If windows starts losing its market share or OpenGL picks up, I’ll be happy to port the graphics system to support it.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Are you making an gm8 decompiler?
OT:
It probably doesn’t matter if your program supports cross platform operative systems for the most of your typical visitors, as long as you can use vista.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I meant the windows operating systems, sorry for doubble posting.