Former AMD Developer: OpenGL Is Broken

[zanny]

There is nothing else and Apple doesn't has the adoption to force her own 3D API.

Of course they do. They would just have to invest a buttload of their reserve capital in making it happen. The same way they took Objective C from rank ~50 in the most popular languages to rank 3. They hopefully just don't see reinventing the graphics API with some proprietary in house BS as particularly advantageous a move.

[lostdistance]

The problem is not what OGL 4.4 is capable of, but that nobody supports it. ..., Linux is at 3.3, ...

Not true; the proprietary OpenGL drivers for Linux from both AMD and Nvidia are currently at 4.4.

AMD Catalyst 14.4:

GL_VERSION=4.4.12874 Core Profile Context 14.10.1006
GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION=4.30

Nvidia 337.25:

GL_VERSION=4.4.0 NVIDIA 337.25
GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION=4.40 NVIDIA via Cg compiler

[peppercats]

You can thank all the major corporations that campaigned against longpeaks because they were scared of deprecation to khronos for as to why openGL sucks now. The API is a mess.

[vadix]

nVidia blob drivers are OK, problem is with AMD ( bad drivers ) & Intel ( only OpenGL 3.3 on Linux )

Because open source drivers use Mesa, I would argue that Intel is doing us a favor by increasing its quality and allowing even the oldest of drivers to support the newest OpenGL standards in due time. Right now it is 3.3, but it wont be long before it catches up.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

The problem is not what OGL 4.4 is capable of, but that nobody supports it. OSX is stuck at 4.2, Linux is at 3.3, Windows usually doesn't work at all because everyone is using DirectX anyway. Mobile is in just as a bad a spot, except most GLES3 features on Android don't work at all because those drivers are concentrated shit.

People like DirectX because they can ship two versions of a game - DirectX9 for old hardware, DirectX11 for new. Or just ignore old stuff and ship 11 alone. For OpenGL, there is a sliding scale of hardware support from 2.1 to 4.4 (and I'm talking about parts from the last 5 years!), every version in between, plus vendor extensions.

I'm wondering if there would be a way to mix llvmpipe and legacy hardware to provide 3.3 compliance with software codepaths for unsupported extensions? There would of course be huge performance penalties when code touched software rendering paths, but it seems like a compromise to just say "target 3.3, use 4 branch extensions where you can, don't worry about the rest" or even GLES3 + extensions so you can have a portable mobile engine.

OS X isn't `stuck' at 4.2. OS X 10.9 was updated to 4.2 system-wide. No other OS in the world has OpenGL throughout, as OS X.

When OS X 10.10 arrives you can expect OpenGL 4.5/5.0 to be system-wide.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

Of course they do. They would just have to invest a buttload of their reserve capital in making it happen. The same way they took Objective C from rank ~50 in the most popular languages to rank 3. They hopefully just don't see reinventing the graphics API with some proprietary in house BS as particularly advantageous a move.

What planet do you live on to think a corporation with > $150 billion in the bank would require that capital to raise OpenGL coverage to most current revision?

People just need more patience. OpenGL current in OS X, throughout, is coming.

[log0]

There's also this AMD vs Nvidia benchmark: http://www.gamingonlinux.com/article...benchmark.3806

That benchmark was done by a Michael A. Marks the technical director for Aspyr Media who are porting games to Linux.

Holy crap, so all the stuff they have been presenting at GDC to "approach zero driver overhead" only really works on nvidia hardware.

[zanny]

Not true; the proprietary OpenGL drivers for Linux from both AMD and Nvidia are currently at 4.4.

Well, one, I would not call the proprietary drivers "Linux" ones because they integrate like ass with the OS and are just slightly modified Windows drivers. I like my software freedoms, thanks. I have graphics cards I can program however I want, and have open documentation on their ISAs and how to do so, and open drivers to do most of the grunt work.

Two, it does not even matter the classification, because the most shipped GPU in desktop and laptop computers in the last several years has not been from AMD or Nvidia, but from Intel. Whichever of the big three in that regard is furthest behind indicates the minimum support required, and I have an Iris Pro laptop that can run Metro Last Light at 60fps on low-medium settings (or whatever 8 bars of their only video slider option is) at 1080p right now, so there also is not an argument that Intel graphics are too slow for gaming and you should ignore them.

[clementl]

OS X isn't `stuck' at 4.2. OS X 10.9 was updated to 4.2 system-wide. No other OS in the world has OpenGL throughout, as OS X.

Not exactly:

http://www.g-truc.net/doc/OpenGL%204%20Hardware%20Matrix%202014-05.pdf

Even their OpenGL 4.1 implementation isn't complete.

[zanny]

Not exactly:

http://www.g-truc.net/doc/OpenGL%204%20Hardware%20Matrix%202014-05.pdf

Even their OpenGL 4.1 implementation isn't complete.

That chart makes me so hopeful for Mesa in the next few years. Every other driver has some support cutoff and then a cliff, but Mesa has 40 - 80% support for every OpenGL version up to the latest.