OpenGL reality check

SDL Development
1

I teach a game programming class at the local community college. To save
time, effort, and confusion, I use SDL and OpenGL to teach with. I let
the students use anything they want to develop with, any OS and any
libraries, but I strongly encourage them to use SDL and OpenGL. I teach
this class during fall semester and have taught it for several years.

This approach has worked very well in the past, but this year, not so
good. In the past everyone was able to get a high performance version of
OpenGL working on there computers. This year, only a couple were able to
get OpenGL working on their computers. In several cases there just
weren’t any decent OpenGL libraries for their video cards and the
default MS drivers are terrible, when they work at all.

So I have a couple of questions for the groups.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?
o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)
o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Please, no flames, not even anti-Microsoft flames. We have all heard
them all before and no matter how mad you are about the state of the
world the state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help.
(You have no idea how hard it is for an old flamer like me to say
something like that :slight_smile:

I have cross posted this message to the SDL mailing list and to my own
mailing list to try to get different points of view. If you are on only
one mailing list and want to see both sides of the discussion please
join the other mailing list.

	Bob Pendleton--

±-------------------------------------+

2

o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)

There is always OGRE or Irrlicht, if they are the type of stuff you are looking
for. (though more for games) I guess you could say they are more 3D
engines… if that is what you are looking for at all.

3

Bob Pendleton wrote:

I teach a game programming class at the local community college. To save
time, effort, and confusion, I use SDL and OpenGL to teach with. I let
the students use anything they want to develop with, any OS and any
libraries, but I strongly encourage them to use SDL and OpenGL. I teach
this class during fall semester and have taught it for several years.

This approach has worked very well in the past, but this year, not so
good. In the past everyone was able to get a high performance version of
OpenGL working on there computers. This year, only a couple were able to
get OpenGL working on their computers. In several cases there just
weren’t any decent OpenGL libraries for their video cards and the
default MS drivers are terrible, when they work at all.

So I have a couple of questions for the groups.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?
o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)
o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Please, no flames, not even anti-Microsoft flames. We have all heard
them all before and no matter how mad you are about the state of the
world the state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help.
(You have no idea how hard it is for an old flamer like me to say
something like that :slight_smile:

I have cross posted this message to the SDL mailing list and to my own
mailing list to try to get different points of view. If you are on only
one mailing list and want to see both sides of the discussion please
join the other mailing list.

Bob Pendleton

Quake 4 tells me that OpenGL works great on windows.

4

Quick warning, I’m straying from the original questions very much here,
but I do answer the original questions at the bottom. I was already
writing a brain dump spawned by the XP64 thread the other day relating
to Windows Vista, and instead of starting a new thread for it, I’ve
decided to just barnacle myself to this one.

Inside Windows Vista, the display manager, input, and sound libraries
are under-the-covers going to be using a single DirectX context. While
this makes the OS itself look pretty, it also forces changes in both
DirectX and OpenGL – DirectX is changing so current DirectX programs
will still think they’re getting the real context, when in fact its
really a sort of sub-context from the global one. OpenGL on Vista is
changing into a wrapper around DirectX itself, and is in fact (according
to contacts I have inside the MSDN community, it may change before
release, but isn’t a major plan) limited to OpenGL v1.1 without
extensions (though, I’ve heard there may be some of the basic extensions
supported, I have not yet confirmed it). Since it is a wrapper, it will
affect performance, though at this time it is unknown how much of a hit
it will take at release.

Since the display itself is going to be DirectX, and I assume that the
other current ways to display thing on the screen (for SDL, this would
be the windib back end) are also going to be wrappers around DirectX.
Since almost all Windows applications at this time use these APIs, it is
quite likely that the wrappers for them will be highly optimized, so the
performance difference between using pure DirectX and using the wrappers
will be quite minimal. With the issues recently posted about with XP64
(and the obvious fact that most anyone that is playing SDL-based games
on XP64 is probably going to use Vista after its release), it may be
quite plausible to make the DirectX back end the least likely driver
choice when running on XP64 and Vista.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?

On current Windows platforms: Yes. On Vista: Not so much. Since it is
a wrapper, you will probably not see any performance increases over DirectX.

o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)

Others have already suggested Irrlicht and OGRE (which I personally
prefer, in that order). But out of my completest attitude, I’ll throw in
CrystalSpace, which also looks very nice (they probably have the best
looking results, but I personally have never successfully used it)

o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Technically, SDL is used for a lot of other things than just OpenGL, so
SDL itself should still be a viable library even in the complete absence
of OpenGL support in the OS (as can be seen in some of the X-Box and
Playstation 2 ports I remember seeing on this list at some point).
However, the glSDL back end may stop being a viable way to increase
performance in SDL applications on XP64 and Vista.

  • John Silicon
5

Hello !

This with OpenGL is some of these MS things.
There is no real technical need of not supporting
OpenGL under Windows Vista normally.
But MS tries everything to get their standards
into the market. Like the Windows Media Player Story
and so on.

CU

6

Actually, there is a very solid reason behind it.

Having a full screen DirectX context (as with the Vista desktop) as well
as an on-screen OpenGL context (as with a windowed OpenGL application)
is, to my (to those I talked to about this at this years TechEd)
knowledge, not actually supported by any video card currently on the
market. If a video card is produced that handles such a GL overlay
mode, they will most likely actually release (likely installed along
with the normal drivers) a custom OpenGL driver for it. Though, this
goes back to the original problem that Bob had that spawned the thread
(how many video card makers will actually take the time to support it,
when most people out there doing 3D development on Windows used/will use
DirectX?).

If you have ideas on how to support a ‘real’ OpenGL context on top of a
DirectX context, in a video card independent manner, please, feel free
to tell me – I’ll forward it to every Microsoft PM that I have contact
addressed for that I think might hold sway over such a thing.

Torsten Giebl wrote:> Hello !

This with OpenGL is some of these MS things.
There is no real technical need of not supporting
OpenGL under Windows Vista normally.
But MS tries everything to get their standards
into the market. Like the Windows Media Player Story
and so on.

CU

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

7

Are these products layered on top of SDL or OpenGL or do they have
some sort of direct access to the video card? If not won’t they just
compound the problem?

ChrisOn 12/14/05, John Silicon wrote:

Others have already suggested Irrlicht and OGRE (which I personally
prefer, in that order). But out of my completest attitude, I’ll throw in
CrystalSpace, which also looks very nice (they probably have the best
looking results, but I personally have never successfully used it)

–
E-Mail: Chris Nystrom
Business: http://www.shaklee.net/austin
Blog: http://conversazione.blogspot.com/
AIM: nystromchris

8

Hi. First off I’d like to say this (I’ll try to keep it as rant-free
as possible):

Ultimately it’s all part of Microsoft’s plan to kill OpenGL (and yes
this is not news to anyone here), but personally I think Intel is the
one who’s to blame in all of this. Right now in the PC video hardware
world there’s basically only nVidia, ATI and Intel (well also Matrox,
but not in the mainstream). nVidia and ATI, being very
gaming-oriented, need quality OpenGL support for all those OGL-only
games (sadly only id software engines nowadays). That leaves only
Intel. Yeah, I’m sure everyone here shares my opinion on Intel’s
graphics hardware, but the reality is they have a huge part of the
video market, and one cannot ignore almost half of all users because
"their hardware sucks".

Now this may be unrealistic, but I think what we need to do as game
developpers is let Intel know that OpenGL support is essential. Maybe
eventually Intel will understand (well I did say it would be
unrealistic huh?)

Now, with that said…

There’s not much one can do on the pure 3D side (as you said Bob, “the
state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help”), but to
answer your third question, if SDL hopes to stay a viable library, I
think SDL really needs a “DirectX version” of glSDL (ie. a
Direct3D-driven 2D backend). That alone would be a good asset for
SDL’s future.–

  • SR

PS. People should stop panicking about Vista. Do you honestly think
nVidia and ATI will allow OpenGL to run like shit on their hardware?
I’m sure they’ll both come up with some way to make it work well. As
for Intel, last I heard Vista will provide an emulated OpenGL context,
which most likely won’t be fantastic, but probably still better than
what Intel currently delivers (ie. virtually nothing). Hell, Vista may
actually be a good thing for OpenGL, if the emulated context is
decent (again, one can always hope…)

On 12/14/05, Bob Pendleton wrote:

I teach a game programming class at the local community college. To save
time, effort, and confusion, I use SDL and OpenGL to teach with. I let
the students use anything they want to develop with, any OS and any
libraries, but I strongly encourage them to use SDL and OpenGL. I teach
this class during fall semester and have taught it for several years.

This approach has worked very well in the past, but this year, not so
good. In the past everyone was able to get a high performance version of
OpenGL working on there computers. This year, only a couple were able to
get OpenGL working on their computers. In several cases there just
weren’t any decent OpenGL libraries for their video cards and the
default MS drivers are terrible, when they work at all.

So I have a couple of questions for the groups.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?
o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)
o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Please, no flames, not even anti-Microsoft flames. We have all heard
them all before and no matter how mad you are about the state of the
world the state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help.
(You have no idea how hard it is for an old flamer like me to say
something like that :slight_smile:

I have cross posted this message to the SDL mailing list and to my own
mailing list to try to get different points of view. If you are on only
one mailing list and want to see both sides of the discussion please
join the other mailing list.

            Bob Pendleton

–
±-------------------------------------+

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

9

wow that is way sucky

why would they make opengl a wrapper for directx?

amazing how MS started dx as a wrapper to OpenGL and because they just keep
throwing money and low blow tactics, it flip flops and OpenGL becomes a
wrapper to dx.

sucky!!> ----- Original Message -----

From: jsilicon@earthlink.net (John Silicon)
To: "A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)"

Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] OpenGL reality check.

Quick warning, I’m straying from the original questions very much here,
but I do answer the original questions at the bottom. I was already
writing a brain dump spawned by the XP64 thread the other day relating
to Windows Vista, and instead of starting a new thread for it, I’ve
decided to just barnacle myself to this one.

Inside Windows Vista, the display manager, input, and sound libraries
are under-the-covers going to be using a single DirectX context. While
this makes the OS itself look pretty, it also forces changes in both
DirectX and OpenGL – DirectX is changing so current DirectX programs
will still think they’re getting the real context, when in fact its
really a sort of sub-context from the global one. OpenGL on Vista is
changing into a wrapper around DirectX itself, and is in fact (according
to contacts I have inside the MSDN community, it may change before
release, but isn’t a major plan) limited to OpenGL v1.1 without
extensions (though, I’ve heard there may be some of the basic extensions
supported, I have not yet confirmed it). Since it is a wrapper, it will
affect performance, though at this time it is unknown how much of a hit
it will take at release.

Since the display itself is going to be DirectX, and I assume that the
other current ways to display thing on the screen (for SDL, this would
be the windib back end) are also going to be wrappers around DirectX.
Since almost all Windows applications at this time use these APIs, it is
quite likely that the wrappers for them will be highly optimized, so the
performance difference between using pure DirectX and using the wrappers
will be quite minimal. With the issues recently posted about with XP64
(and the obvious fact that most anyone that is playing SDL-based games
on XP64 is probably going to use Vista after its release), it may be
quite plausible to make the DirectX back end the least likely driver
choice when running on XP64 and Vista.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?

On current Windows platforms: Yes. On Vista: Not so much. Since it is
a wrapper, you will probably not see any performance increases over
DirectX.

o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)

Others have already suggested Irrlicht and OGRE (which I personally
prefer, in that order). But out of my completest attitude, I’ll throw in
CrystalSpace, which also looks very nice (they probably have the best
looking results, but I personally have never successfully used it)

o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Technically, SDL is used for a lot of other things than just OpenGL, so
SDL itself should still be a viable library even in the complete absence
of OpenGL support in the OS (as can be seen in some of the X-Box and
Playstation 2 ports I remember seeing on this list at some point).
However, the glSDL back end may stop being a viable way to increase
performance in SDL applications on XP64 and Vista.

  • John Silicon

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

10

[ RANT WARNING ]

Hardware vendors, not only nVidia and ATI, really need to start developing
drivers not only for windows in the PC market. The problem for linux and
other PC-OSs is driver support lagging behind at least 6 months. Just don’t
tell me how to convince them…

/OlofOn 12/15/05, Simon Roby <simon.roby at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi. First off I’d like to say this (I’ll try to keep it as rant-free
as possible):

Ultimately it’s all part of Microsoft’s plan to kill OpenGL (and yes
this is not news to anyone here), but personally I think Intel is the
one who’s to blame in all of this. Right now in the PC video hardware
world there’s basically only nVidia, ATI and Intel (well also Matrox,
but not in the mainstream). nVidia and ATI, being very
gaming-oriented, need quality OpenGL support for all those OGL-only
games (sadly only id software engines nowadays). That leaves only
Intel. Yeah, I’m sure everyone here shares my opinion on Intel’s
graphics hardware, but the reality is they have a huge part of the
video market, and one cannot ignore almost half of all users because
"their hardware sucks".

Now this may be unrealistic, but I think what we need to do as game
developpers is let Intel know that OpenGL support is essential. Maybe
eventually Intel will understand (well I did say it would be
unrealistic huh?)

Now, with that said…

There’s not much one can do on the pure 3D side (as you said Bob, “the
state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help”), but to
answer your third question, if SDL hopes to stay a viable library, I
think SDL really needs a “DirectX version” of glSDL (ie. a
Direct3D-driven 2D backend). That alone would be a good asset for
SDL’s future.

–

  • SR

PS. People should stop panicking about Vista. Do you honestly think
nVidia and ATI will allow OpenGL to run like shit on their hardware?
I’m sure they’ll both come up with some way to make it work well. As
for Intel, last I heard Vista will provide an emulated OpenGL context,
which most likely won’t be fantastic, but probably still better than
what Intel currently delivers (ie. virtually nothing). Hell, Vista may
actually be a good thing for OpenGL, if the emulated context is
decent (again, one can always hope…)

On 12/14/05, Bob Pendleton wrote:

I teach a game programming class at the local community college. To save
time, effort, and confusion, I use SDL and OpenGL to teach with. I let
the students use anything they want to develop with, any OS and any
libraries, but I strongly encourage them to use SDL and OpenGL. I teach
this class during fall semester and have taught it for several years.

This approach has worked very well in the past, but this year, not so
good. In the past everyone was able to get a high performance version of
OpenGL working on there computers. This year, only a couple were able to
get OpenGL working on their computers. In several cases there just
weren’t any decent OpenGL libraries for their video cards and the
default MS drivers are terrible, when they work at all.

So I have a couple of questions for the groups.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?
o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)
o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Please, no flames, not even anti-Microsoft flames. We have all heard
them all before and no matter how mad you are about the state of the
world the state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help.
(You have no idea how hard it is for an old flamer like me to say
something like that :slight_smile:

I have cross posted this message to the SDL mailing list and to my own
mailing list to try to get different points of view. If you are on only
one mailing list and want to see both sides of the discussion please
join the other mailing list.

            Bob Pendleton

–
±-------------------------------------+

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

11

Hello !

Hardware vendors, not only nVidia and ATI, really need to start
developing drivers not only for windows in the PC market. The problem for
linux and other PC-OSs is driver support lagging behind at least 6 months.
Just don’t
tell me how to convince them…

The ATI Linux drivers suck,
the NVIDIA Linux drivers are pretty good.
This is getting OT so we should stop this
discussion.

CU

12

Bob Pendleton wrote:

I teach a game programming class at the local community college. To save
time, effort, and confusion, I use SDL and OpenGL to teach with. I let
the students use anything they want to develop with, any OS and any
libraries, but I strongly encourage them to use SDL and OpenGL. I teach
this class during fall semester and have taught it for several years.

This approach has worked very well in the past, but this year, not so
good. In the past everyone was able to get a high performance version of
OpenGL working on there computers. This year, only a couple were able to
get OpenGL working on their computers. In several cases there just
weren’t any decent OpenGL libraries for their video cards and the
default MS drivers are terrible, when they work at all.

So I have a couple of questions for the groups.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?
o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)
o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Please, no flames, not even anti-Microsoft flames. We have all heard
them all before and no matter how mad you are about the state of the
world the state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help.
(You have no idea how hard it is for an old flamer like me to say
something like that :slight_smile:

I have cross posted this message to the SDL mailing list and to my own
mailing list to try to get different points of view. If you are on only
one mailing list and want to see both sides of the discussion please
join the other mailing list.

Bob Pendleton

Quake 4 tells me that OpenGL works great on windows.

That is the best answer I have had so far. What about on Vista?

	Bob PendletonOn Wed, 2005-12-14 at 23:20 +0100, Christophe Cavalaria wrote:

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

–
±-------------------------------------+

13

I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful answers to my questions. I
am aware of Crystalspace, Irrlicht, and Ogre, and I think they are all
fine systems. What I wish we had was a 3D api that is as simple to use
as the the SDL 2D api that was layered on top of OpenGL, DirectX, and
what ever other native graphics api exist so that it was as easy to
cross platform 3D on SDL as it is t do cross platform 2D. I haven’t seen
anything like that. I’m not even sure such a thing is possible.

	Bob PendletonOn Wed, 2005-12-14 at 14:24 -0600, Bob Pendleton wrote:

I teach a game programming class at the local community college. To save
time, effort, and confusion, I use SDL and OpenGL to teach with. I let
the students use anything they want to develop with, any OS and any
libraries, but I strongly encourage them to use SDL and OpenGL. I teach
this class during fall semester and have taught it for several years.

This approach has worked very well in the past, but this year, not so
good. In the past everyone was able to get a high performance version of
OpenGL working on there computers. This year, only a couple were able to
get OpenGL working on their computers. In several cases there just
weren’t any decent OpenGL libraries for their video cards and the
default MS drivers are terrible, when they work at all.

So I have a couple of questions for the groups.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?
o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)
o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Please, no flames, not even anti-Microsoft flames. We have all heard
them all before and no matter how mad you are about the state of the
world the state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help.
(You have no idea how hard it is for an old flamer like me to say
something like that :slight_smile:

I have cross posted this message to the SDL mailing list and to my own
mailing list to try to get different points of view. If you are on only
one mailing list and want to see both sides of the discussion please
join the other mailing list.

  Bob Pendleton

–
±-------------------------------------+

14

I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful answers to my questions. I
am aware of Crystalspace, Irrlicht, and Ogre, and I think they are all
fine systems. What I wish we had was a 3D api that is as simple to use
as the the SDL 2D api that was layered on top of OpenGL, DirectX, and
what ever other native graphics api exist so that it was as easy to
cross platform 3D on SDL as it is t do cross platform 2D. I haven’t seen
anything like that. I’m not even sure such a thing is possible.

            Bob Pendleton

I am not sure it’s really needed because it was what OpenGL use to be until
…On 12/15/05, Bob Pendleton wrote:

On Wed, 2005-12-14 at 14:24 -0600, Bob Pendleton wrote:

I teach a game programming class at the local community college. To save
time, effort, and confusion, I use SDL and OpenGL to teach with. I let
the students use anything they want to develop with, any OS and any
libraries, but I strongly encourage them to use SDL and OpenGL. I teach
this class during fall semester and have taught it for several years.

This approach has worked very well in the past, but this year, not so
good. In the past everyone was able to get a high performance version of
OpenGL working on there computers. This year, only a couple were able to
get OpenGL working on their computers. In several cases there just
weren’t any decent OpenGL libraries for their video cards and the
default MS drivers are terrible, when they work at all.

So I have a couple of questions for the groups.

o Is OpenGL still a viable graphics API for use on Windows?
o Is there an open source, C/C++, 3D graphics API that works on top of
OpenGL on the rest of the world and DirectX on Windows? (I know that
Java 3D does that but it isn’t much use to SDL programmers.)
o Can SDL stay a viable library if OpenGL support on Windows is really
as bad as it looks?

Please, no flames, not even anti-Microsoft flames. We have all heard
them all before and no matter how mad you are about the state of the
world the state of the world is what it is and flaming doesn’t help.
(You have no idea how hard it is for an old flamer like me to say
something like that :slight_smile:

I have cross posted this message to the SDL mailing list and to my own
mailing list to try to get different points of view. If you are on only
one mailing list and want to see both sides of the discussion please
join the other mailing list.

          Bob Pendleton

–
±-------------------------------------+

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

15

Sure is possible, it’s called OpenGL :wink:

Seriously, I’m beginning to think the real answer to current Windows
3D API issues would be to write an open source OpenGL wrapper for
DirectX. Think about it: it would be somewhat like Wine’s DirectX
wrapper, only the opposite. It’s not as crazy as it may sound! In
fact, wrapping OpenGL should be much easier than wrapping DirectX,
since it’s meant to be a portable API in the first place.

Anyone up to the task? :wink:

  • SROn 12/15/05, Bob Pendleton wrote:

I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful answers to my questions. I
am aware of Crystalspace, Irrlicht, and Ogre, and I think they are all
fine systems. What I wish we had was a 3D api that is as simple to use
as the the SDL 2D api that was layered on top of OpenGL, DirectX, and
what ever other native graphics api exist so that it was as easy to
cross platform 3D on SDL as it is t do cross platform 2D. I haven’t seen
anything like that. I’m not even sure such a thing is possible.

16

im sorry, but how is that different from the windows vista wrapper?On 12/15/05, Simon Roby <simon.roby at gmail.com> wrote:

On 12/15/05, Bob Pendleton wrote:

I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful answers to my questions. I
am aware of Crystalspace, Irrlicht, and Ogre, and I think they are all
fine systems. What I wish we had was a 3D api that is as simple to use
as the the SDL 2D api that was layered on top of OpenGL, DirectX, and
what ever other native graphics api exist so that it was as easy to
cross platform 3D on SDL as it is t do cross platform 2D. I haven’t seen
anything like that. I’m not even sure such a thing is possible.

Sure is possible, it’s called OpenGL :wink:

Seriously, I’m beginning to think the real answer to current Windows
3D API issues would be to write an open source OpenGL wrapper for
DirectX. Think about it: it would be somewhat like Wine’s DirectX
wrapper, only the opposite. It’s not as crazy as it may sound! In
fact, wrapping OpenGL should be much easier than wrapping DirectX,
since it’s meant to be a portable API in the first place.

Anyone up to the task? :wink:

  • SR

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The OpenGL wrapper in Vista will be crippled, that’s for sure. Last I
heard it’ll be limited to v1.4 without any extensions. Which, as I
said before, will be better than nothing, but come on, we could have
better :wink:

  • SROn 12/15/05, Brian Barrett <brian.ripoff at gmail.com> wrote:

im sorry, but how is that different from the windows vista wrapper?

18

I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful answers to my questions. I
am aware of Crystalspace, Irrlicht, and Ogre, and I think they are all
fine systems. What I wish we had was a 3D api that is as simple to use
as the the SDL 2D api that was layered on top of OpenGL, DirectX, and
what ever other native graphics api exist so that it was as easy to
cross platform 3D on SDL as it is t do cross platform 2D. I haven’t seen
anything like that. I’m not even sure such a thing is possible.

Sure is possible, it’s called OpenGL :wink:

Seriously, I’m beginning to think the real answer to current Windows
3D API issues would be to write an open source OpenGL wrapper for
DirectX. Think about it: it would be somewhat like Wine’s DirectX
wrapper, only the opposite. It’s not as crazy as it may sound! In
fact, wrapping OpenGL should be much easier than wrapping DirectX,
since it’s meant to be a portable API in the first place.

… such a wrapper will suffer from several months of lag (the delay until
the wrapper developers adds a certain new hw feature which is already
available in DirectX) / bugs etc. which will drive proffesssional developers
mad, thus favoring DirectX over the OpenGL-wrapper.

/Olof

Anyone up to the task? ;)On 12/16/05, Simon Roby <simon.roby at gmail.com> wrote:

On 12/15/05, Bob Pendleton wrote:

  • SR

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Chris Nystrom wrote:> On 12/14/05, John Silicon <@John_Silicon> wrote:

Others have already suggested Irrlicht and OGRE (which I personally
prefer, in that order). But out of my completest attitude, I’ll throw in
CrystalSpace, which also looks very nice (they probably have the best
looking results, but I personally have never successfully used it)

Are these products layered on top of SDL or OpenGL or do they have
some sort of direct access to the video card? If not won’t they just
compound the problem?

To my knowledge, none of these engines use SDL for either thier OpenGL
or Software drivers (though, I could be wrong – I’m no expert on their
underlying drivers). If you read the question that Bob asked and we
were answering, there was no requirement for SDL as part of the solution
to the problem. The engines listed all provide support for both OpenGL
and DirectX, and are cross-platform, and as such can be used with OpenGL
on non-Windows platforms and DirectX on Windows platforms.

20

Torsten Giebl wrote:

Hello !

Hardware vendors, not only nVidia and ATI, really need to start
developing drivers not only for windows in the PC market. The problem for
linux and other PC-OSs is driver support lagging behind at least 6 months.
Just don’t
tell me how to convince them…

The ATI Linux drivers suck,
the NVIDIA Linux drivers are pretty good.
This is getting OT so we should stop this
discussion.

In an attempt to get him out of hiding (he usually shows up on here when
I mention his book: Programming Linux Games,
http://www.nostarch.com/plg.htm – it has a really decent chapter (4) on
SDL):
I’m pretty sure John “Overcode” Hall told me he was doing some work for
the nVidia Linux drivers a couple years back. In my opinion, anything
he has something to do with turns out really good. Especially if it
involves Linux in some way.> CU

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