Former AMD Developer: OpenGL Is Broken

[sgtGarcia]

Here is response from Timothy Lottes

http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2014/05/re-joshua-barczaks-opengl-is-broken.html

[blackout23]

A very serious statement.

I don't know much about the topic, (I think EGL is a subset of OpenGL) maybe someone could explain if that could apply to EGL too.

EGL is just a way to create an OpenGL context on a windowing system much like what GLX is to OpenGL for the X windowing system.

[Azrael5]

Good reflection here: http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=154

It could be possible linux distros uses directX?

[Nille]

DirectX is under Microsoft's control.

Thats true.

They decide which OS that can use it, and they've decided only theirs should be able to.

Thats not true. Everyone can implement his own D3D or DX and the API is well documented. For Gallium3D there is a working D3D9 State Tracker and there is Code for D3D10 and D3D11.

[ddriver]

Phoronix: Former AMD Developer: OpenGL Is Broken

A former AMD software engineer that's now working at Firaxis Games -- including his role as working on the graphics for Civilization V -- has come out to say that "OpenGL is broken."..

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTcwNjQ

Civilization V is THE buggiest, most sluggish, lousy written, resource inefficient game I've played in my life. This guy sounds like he is making excuses about his own cr@ppy job. I've played it on a i7 [email protected] with 32 gigs of ram and a hasty SSD and it runs like a snail. He should find a better excuse not to get fired (and rightfully so)...

[DebianLinuxero]

EGL is just a way to create an OpenGL context on a windowing system much like what GLX is to OpenGL for the X windowing system.

I think I understand.
That means that in the end, if we have a device that use EGL, it still need OpenGL, right?

Thanks.

[BlackStar]

I think I understand.
That means that in the end, if we have a device that use EGL, it still need OpenGL, right?

Thanks.

They are orthogonal concepts. You use EGL to setup an OpenGL, OpenGL ES or OpenVG context, then use that context to render graphics with OpenGL, OpenGL ES or OpenVG.

[Ericg]

(Double post for some reason)

[Ericg]

A very serious statement.

I don't know much about the topic, (I think EGL is a subset of OpenGL) maybe someone could explain if that could apply to EGL too.

When you target OpenGL you still have some differences between Windows, Linux, OS X, etc. Most devs would abstract away the differences in their own custom-solutions. EGL is a Khronos-official abstraction for all the OS differences.*

*Greatly simplified, but you hopefully get the idea.

https://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/showthread.php/169932-Trying-to-understand-where-EGL-fits-in-the-stack

If EGL can be used on the desktop, is its window manager interface functionality intended to abstract the differences in GLX, WGL, and whatever the Mac OS equivalent is ? Or could it replace all 3 of those together?

Yes, that is the intent. EGL started with the GLX API and then was genericized to replace X Windows-specific concepts with (hopefully) portable equivalents. EGL has also been evolving into a more significant role as the resource manager when using multiple Khronos APIs together, especially through the EGLImage family of extensions. OpenGL / ES, OpenVG, and OpenWF all can interact with or make use of EGL already, and there is work underway to extend that to more of our APIs.

[Luke_Wolf]

Isn't openGL 5 supposed to fix some of his complaints, particularly the Mantle approach? While I don't code anything in 3D, I am curious as to what specifically openGL needs to do or is missing. I understand DX has always been easier to work with, but that doesn't mean its better. As Valve employees have shown, they got better performance out of openGL vs DirectX.

well it was *supposed* to happen with openGL 3, but that didn't happen. Also I don't remember who off the top of my head but I know that there have been blogs where other people have gotten the opposite results with their game. Civilization comes to mind but i don't think that was it.