Former AMD Developer: OpenGL Is Broken

[phoronix]

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

[DebianLinuxero]

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.

[ua=42]

His arguments made sense.

I guess the only question is will OpenGl 5 be a new clean implementation that fixes all of that.

[schmidtbag]

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.

[Azrael5]

at this point Linux has to abandon Opengl and use directX. Kronos is unable to make good job. Alternative is linux developers geneate other kind of soluution to opengl and directX.

[ua=42]

You mean like mantle? (If the spec were to actually be made open)

[xeekei]

at this point Linux has to abandon Opengl and use directX. Kronos is unable to make good job. Alternative is linux developers geneate other kind of soluution to opengl and directX.

That's not how it works. DirectX is under Microsoft's control. They decide which OS that can use it, and they've decided only theirs should be able to. Even if that wasn't the case, open standards are what we should advocate, especially in the Linux/BSD world.

[DMJC]

For a spec that's so "broken" it appears to work fine on all platforms with NVIDIA graphics cards. Maybe AMD just don't know howto implement OpenGL properly?

[d2kx]

Graham Sellers, AMD's OpenGL and also Linux guy, who invited Michael to talk about the Catalyst driver recently, had the following to say:

You know, when people _keep_ posting cr*p about what you work on every day...

I think I might have to write another blog post soon. It's been a while, and I have a few things to say. About stuff, you know.

Some criticisms may be valid if you compare c.2009 GL vs. DX11. Not valid for 4.4.

Much criticism is based on dated knowledge. Too much "GL doesn't have X" where X was added recently.

He also replied to some other questions from users, e.g.

Other guy: So you're saying the people who have been criticizing lately aren't experienced enough with GL to give criticism?

Graham Sellers: Yes.

[kaprikawn]

...Despite its advantages, it has played second fiddle to D3D for over a decade. The reason is that Microsoft has consistently and proactively improved on D3D, and is even now in the process of redesigning it from scratch, yet again. If Kronos and the OpenGL platform holders wish to become serious competitors in the high-end gaming space, they must be willing to do likewise...

Do they want to be competitors though? That's the thing. I don't know where I read it (probably Tom's Hardware), but I seem to remember that professionals who do a lot of stuff on OpenGL that is not gaming have a lot of sway over how OpenGL works (politically speaking). They want to maintain backwards compatibility. D3D is pretty much a gaming-focussed API, so MS has much more leeway to re-design from scratch, I'll drop ?300 on a new card to get another 50% performance over my current card, and this is the nature of the PC master race environment. Whereas it's a much tougher sell to get someone to drop ?3000 on a new Quadro card that is completely incompatible with anything you did on your old one. Breaking backwards compatibility is a tough sell for OpenGL.

When it comes to OpenGL, I'm reminded of the maxim about a camel being a horse designed by committee. Whereas MS is beholden to nobody, so it's designed a racehorse.