Bye DirectX?

[artivision]

The Truth

When you program with direct hardware access, your game can be universal if you not compile for one processor, and instead you use OpenCL for example. That kind of language can utilise even the asic or fixed or special functions of modern hardware, even if that is a FPGA. If you have the special functions the you can run the specific FX, if not you have not rain for example. NVidia 8000+ and ATI HD2000+ can run ok. Then PS3 CellBE, many core ARM or X86 and others even at the same time at the same game. Finally 2Teraflops CPU = 1-1.5Teraflops ASIC (prove: 2Teraflops Larabee software render mode tested equal Geforce 9800 1Teraflop hardware render ACIC).

[deanjo]

(prove: 2Teraflops Larabee software render mode tested equal Geforce 9800 1Teraflop hardware render ACIC).

Only in specific areas did it prove to be equal other areas it fell far behind. Don't forget by that time GPU's moved on to far greater capabilities and were more efficient. Brute forcing a general purpose cpu into doing a function is nothing new, to do it efficiently is another entirely different matter.

[accumulator]

We need an API that's cross-platform so that it'll make it easier to write games for more than one platform...be it Windows, Linux, BSD, MacOSX for example. DirectX is just a Windows only API that time surely has passed.

Thank god for smartphones! This will push many to OpenGL. Just don't buy any phone with a MS OS on it

[BlackStar]

2) I fail to see how OpenGL is harder to code in than DirectX.

It is harder for two reasons: (a) needless reuse of functions (e.g. a glDrawElements() calls can behave in several different ways depending on the code leading to it); (b) it has bind-to-edit/retained-mode semantics which make 3rd-party libraries difficult to integrate:

glUseProgram(foo);
DrawStuff();
DrawOtherStuff(); // what program (shader) does this use?

Do you guys have any idea how horrifically difficult and completely un-sensible programming games "direct-to-metal" would be? Thats the reason we have api's like directx today. This article is absurd.

Did you have any idea that game developers are the ones who keep asking AMD for "direct-to-metal" access? Horrifically difficult - yes. Senseless? No.

[BlackStar]

Did you have any idea that game developers are the ones who keep asking AMD for "direct-to-metal" access? Horrifically difficult - yes. Senseless? No.

(fake edit) Although, to be honest, I believe what gamedevs really want is a faster API with fewer performance pitfalls. (DX11 is closer to that ideal than DX9, but still slower than what you get on PS3/XBox360).

[Remco]

Would the Gallium API be low-level enough for game developers? I can't say I'm really looking forward to having GPU-specific games.

[frantaylor]

Absolutely

Why not just have a standard hardware API. There is plenty of horsepower on both sides of the API, so you can just pick a convenient API. Why not just say "OpenGL IS the hardware API" Put all of OpenGL on the graphics card.

I'm pretty sure this was the original intention of the SGI engineers when they first wrote Iris GL, that someday the whole thing would reside on dedicated hardware.

If they also add hardware support for virtualization then it will be trivial to have a direct-to-the-hardware OpenGL display on a guest operating system.

They are doing the same kind of thing with network cards.

If you're going to go to the trouble to redo it, think BIG.

[frantaylor]

In Addition...

I forgot to mention the best part of putting the entire OpenGL stack in hardware:

No more software OpenGL drivers!

Can you imagine!

It's worth doing for that reason alone.

[curaga]

GL-on-HW: they tried that with Glide. And that went well: cards that couldn't get any new functionality nor bugfixes.

Right now we have new GL extensions whenever the manufacturer feels like it, or GL 3 for GL 2 devices.

[frantaylor]

GL-on-HW: they tried that with Glide. And that went well: cards that couldn't get any new functionality nor bugfixes.

Right now we have new GL extensions whenever the manufacturer feels like it, or GL 3 for GL 2 devices.

It doesn't have to be that way. I've upgraded the firmware on motherboards and network cards and raid controllers, why not graphics cards?

If the manufacturer wants to stay competitive then they will upgrade their drivers.

With Intel entering the field of serious graphics, we will have three contenders and real competition.