Direct3D 10/11 Is Now Natively Implemented On Linux!

[Svartalf]

Because people have to eat, too, you know! Different time zones and all that. :P

Heh... It's all good. You've got a position that I believe we're going to probably agree to disagree upon- but, in the end, you'd started trying to back your position with something resembling facts (weak stuff mostly, though...if it were so great, perhaps you'd have better items to back up your position with? )

Regarding your remarks, all I can say is that my personal experience is that (a) OpenGL is easier to misuse and (b) its drivers blow up much easier compared to D3D, even when used correctly. The first is easy to fix, with experience and correct tools. The latter not so much.

Heh... I've had other experience telling me otherwise- and I pointed that out earlier too...

As for being easier to misuse... Not so sure about that. Most of the "misuse" is because there's no conformance suite for the drivers in question whereas there is with D3D stuff. For example, NVidia's handling of shaders is more tolerant of mistakes within the code and AMD is more tightly following the specs themselves (Which is actually where people come to think the AMD drivers are "buggier" on Windows- it "works" on NVidia for things, when in reality NVidia's stuff LET you cheat.). You can't misuse AMD's drivers, but they get blamed for NVidia's letting you do the wrong stuff in the first place.

If there was an explicit conformance suite that HAD to be implemented before they could claim it was "OpenGL", and they had more manpower on supporting the code they produced- there'd be a similar situation with OpenGL as with D3D, based on my professional experience. Yours may vary, but that's something to be argued over, no?

D3D has the advantage of more testing and faster response to bugs (all those games...) With OpenGL you are pretty much SOL, unless you happen to run on Nvidia Quadros. Great if you can afford to dictate the hardware, sucks otherwise.

That does not a "superior" API make. It's a more SUPPORTED one, but it doesn't lead that it's superior in use, etc. That's the argument you were making.

[Svartalf]

Problem being that the core profile kills about 50% of your target hardware. And let me tell you, that's going to fly really well with management.

And targeting DX9 doesn't do similar things?? :P

It's more fun this way.

Heh... Fair enough.

Plus, choice is good.

But D3D? Ugh... Couldn't the choice be something even better than the two we currently have??

Why am I doing here? Damn, this place is addictive.

Heh... I was about to ask myself that same question...

[Apopas]

Also, the fact that D3D isn't open is only important to "Freeness" lunatics. I couldn't care less.

LoL! And what anyone should care about what you care for?

[V!NCENT]

LoL! And what anyone should care about what you care for?

Graphics is the cancer area when it comes to Linux. All hail nVidia cards and MS tech. "Who gives a fsck about FLOSS when I don't have the money to buy a MacBook?"

[TemplarGR]

Some people here are shortsighted and stupid.

I find it hard to believe that there could be a professional who couldn't understand that the reason Windows dominate the desktop is games support.

People who are shortsighted will say that not everyone plays games. And it is true. I don't even play games myself. But games are important.

In order to dominate the market, you have to gain the mindshare of geeks. And all geeks, at least at their beginning stages gamed heavily.

Geeks influence other not tech suvvy people in their environment in various ways. They are highly influential to what other casual people use.

If Linux could game, it could win a much better share of power users, who would be able to convince more casual users to migrate.

This higher market share would warrant a better Linux support from hardware and software corps, which would lead to an even better Linux desktop experience, and an even better marketshare.

Some people here said that this is the stupidest thing ever wrote in Phoronix. I strongly advice those persons to check if their IQs are higher than the length of their tongue, Imperial or metric you decide...

[markg85]

Very interesting development on gallium again! And that in only a ~week after the ATI gallium surprises.

Anyway, while i understand those in this forum that are against it and are in favor of it this is changing things quite a bit for the Linux Desktop. Now i've always wanted to use OpenGL because it's cross platform. The major downside is the low OpenGL support from mainly ATI which makes it difficult (to say the least) to work with OpenGL, but hey, another option WAS not available.

Now this state tracker comes that effectively makes Direct3D (not DirectX!! that's more then just Direct3D) cross platform as well! Now some people say "why would you want the graphics stack in MS hands, use OpenGL!" but i now kinda disagree on it.. Both OpenGL and Direct3D (and all of DirectX) are, in terms of development, closed source! Just a few company's are making decisions in both API's and the users are just gonna have to live with it. So if you look at it that way there is NO difference between OpenGL and Direct3D.

This state tracker is making things a lot more interesting for linux gaming since there would be no more need to make an OpenGL renderer for game programmers thus way more likely for games to appear on linux as well since they can both use the same renderer.

The commiter also said Direct3D is far more superior then OpenGL.. I don't know if that's true, but if Direct3D is so easy to implement then be my guest! In the end it will only work in linux's favor so just do it!

On the gallium driver side this is also very interesting since this makes gallium drivers for windows more feasable since it has Direct3D support!

Oh and the advantage of this single state tracker is also going to be the case when OpenGL 4.x is finally implemented.. but judging from the code needed so for for opengl and the code needed for direct3d it might just take several more years before gallium had opengl 4.1 support whereas direct3d is already far!

So to sum it up. I see this as a good thing although i hate microsoft. It does fit in the linux filosofy of being able to choose.. right now there is no choice (only opengl) and you're gonna get direct3d in the future.

ATI, please come up with gallium drivers for you 6xxx series since this is getting very interesting!

[fernandoc1]

I'm discussing this topic on Wine's forum

http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=9697

[PsynoKhi0]

Native support is all fine and dandy (putting aside the Wine-like conundrum), though as far as practical aspects are concerned, I get the feeling games run through it will be labeled as "not officially supported" by pure MS game dev shops anyway.
Being able to theoretically push out shiny graphics is kinda pointless IMO if e.g. the launcher won't work because it requires some freakin dll... (Winetricks require a valid MS license unless I'm mistaken, so that doesn't count )
Impressive work still.

[ppc.addon]

Luca is a great italian coder and he was a great Gentoo PPC devel.

[d4ddi0]

Windows dominance really comes down to only two things:

Inertia.
Most people hate and fear computers. They need them though. The last thing they want is a new computer that is different from their old computer, which they hate, but which they have learned to live with.

OEM Exclusive distribution.
Most folk just take what they are given, and 95% of the time that is windows.

Legacy In-house or domain-specific applications is really a non issue (Some companies have a CNC machine in the corner running windows for workgroups, or a VAX Mainframe, but the rest of their stuff has moved on.

Its just the very simple fact that you have to work hard to buy or build a computer that doesn't have windows on it (MacOS notwithstanding)