Understanding More Of AMD's Open-Source HSA Plans

[artivision]

You still can't blame AMD for that, getting rid of d3d and/or ogl won't make publishers suddenly port their games to Linux, a state-tracker won't suddenly make wine the perfect gaming platform (It'd help, but there are other Windows APIs which need to be implemented...correctly, or else games will continue to break when run through wine).

If you absolutely must have the latest-greatest MMO, for now Windows is your best bet. That may change soon, with Valve promoting their Steam Machines, but not everyone is buying it (the idea) yet and publishers (EA, looking at you) are still targeting Windows as a primary platform. You could still install Linux in a VM with hardware accel., or install Windows in a VM the same way, or dual-boot (they each have their own benefits)...nothing wrong with that. But expecting AMD to control game publishers, or cater to gamers by writing a d3d state-tracker, is asking a lot. We are not their primary audience, and they don't make a lot of money from our purchases (if you consider the sheer number of servers out there, and how much the processors for those cost, the gaming market is minuscule in comparison...even including the Windows side).

Cool, but you have it wrong. The truth is that a corporation cannot design an API for another's proprietary ASIC by their own and just run it, in the first place. So we all know the two evil graphics vendors (ATI, NV), that instead of having only OGL they co-develop a closed standard (d3d) with MS and they did keep OGL for professional graphics that are completely their own propriety. In return they got the d3d monopoly for years and no one else survived there (like Matrox). NV tho didn't get all the goods from the cartel (like a x86 license). Any one that blames those corporations for enforcing standards than only they are compatible and for monopoly reasons, is right. And if there was a copy of those conversations, they would be in jail by now.

[smitty3268]

Cool, but you have it wrong. The truth is that a corporation cannot design an API for another's proprietary ASIC by their own and just run it, in the first place. So we all know the two evil graphics vendors (ATI, NV), that instead of having only OGL they co-develop a closed standard (d3d) with MS and they did keep OGL for professional graphics that are completely their own propriety. In return they got the d3d monopoly for years and no one else survived there (like Matrox). NV tho didn't get all the goods from the cartel (like a x86 license). Any one that blames those corporations for enforcing standards than only they are compatible and for monopoly reasons, is right. And if there was a copy of those conversations, they would be in jail by now.

You make it sound like there was some kind of conspiracy to force people to use D3D.

There wasn't. It was simply a far better API, which meant all the developers willingly chose to use it.

You can blame Khronos for being incompetent and sucking at creating an alternative. But you can't reasonably expect the hardware manufacturers or MS to intentionally gimp their own systems.

[curaga]

You make it sound like there was some kind of conspiracy to force people to use D3D.

What do you call the Vista GL driver fiasco if not that?

[artivision]

You make it sound like there was some kind of conspiracy to force people to use D3D.

There wasn't. It was simply a far better API, which meant all the developers willingly chose to use it.

You can blame Khronos for being incompetent and sucking at creating an alternative. But you can't reasonably expect the hardware manufacturers or MS to intentionally gimp their own systems.

No no no friend. An API is a programing language and a shader converter, doesn't produce graphics. Graphics are produced by the low level shader model driver (sm3, sm4, sm5 graphics). There is not such a thing as a better API and an API can be made that way to not be needed at runtime, only at development time. If they wanted to do something they could do it wit OGL, they shouldn't do it with D3D together with MS.

[smitty3268]

What do you call the Vista GL driver fiasco if not that?

That was a decision made by Microsoft, not ATI or NVidia. In fact both those companies provided GL drivers for Vista.

Further, exactly what apps did you want to use in Vista that did use GL? We always give MS shit for keeping old API's around until the end of time for backwards compatibility purposes - dumping OpenGL there is actually what a lot of people always say MS should do. Dump old crap that nobody uses so it doesn't waste space and add security holes in the system.

[smitty3268]

No no no friend. An API is a programing language and a shader converter, doesn't produce graphics. Graphics are produced by the low level shader model driver (sm3, sm4, sm5 graphics). There is not such a thing as a better API and an API can be made that way to not be needed at runtime, only at development time. If they wanted to do something they could do it wit OGL, they shouldn't do it with D3D together with MS.

What in the world are you trying to say? Direct3D and OpenGL are both APIs. I'm not sure i get your point beyond that.