OpenGL crippled under Windows Vista

General Discussions
#41

I had another poke around the internet to see what muck has been stirred up and found some tests on a beta copy.

http://www.organicvectory.nl

It looks like merely installing an OpenGL ICD will disable aeroglass, whether it is currently in use or not :o

A bit of an issue as your average punter is going to be upset if installing your game results in the permament loss of the fancy look and feel he/she shilled out for in the first place.

I also saw a post somewhere by an Vista team chap, who claimed the Open-GL to D3D interface was running more like 80% of direct OpenGL speed rather than 50%. Still no shader support though.

#42

Vista is still firmly in alpha (or prealpha, or whatever they’re calling it now). It’s not due out for how many years? Last estimate I saw was ~2007. You can’t tell anything by the current behaviour (especially when trying to install a random ICD written without any intention of running on that OS).

If i had the inclination, I’d dig though slashdot’s archive and find the near-identical FUD around XP’s OpenGL support. But I’d rather dig though a bucket of rusty nails.

#43

[quote]“ID software said that for new projects they possibly will swap to DirectX”
[/quote]
Seems like FUD, but if I would be ID, of course I would always keep the possibility open to support DX. But, since Vista still in early alpha, they probably won’t switch now just because of Vista.

Now as I understand it, for games nothing will really change. The problem is only that OpenGL programs can not run in an Aeroglass window, without using the windows OGL-DX bridge driver. Games usually run full screen, in which case Aeroglass will shut down anyway. There might be a problem with CAD software (or other OGL apps designed to run in a window), but I would be surprised if that wouldn’t be sorted somehow.

But again, it’s all mostly speculation as Vista is in early alpha…

#44

it actually has an official beta release (not alpha) and Microsoft has announced that the final is being released in 2006

#45

Seems like FUD, but if I would be ID, of course I would always keep the possibility open to support DX. But, since Vista still in early alpha, they probably won’t switch now just because of Vista.
[/quote]
ID is already using D3D, which is totally understandable (and irrelevant to the Vista issue).

[quote]John Carmack, id Software - “I’m happy working with D3D9 on the Xbox 360 platform. We did seriously consider going D3D only on the PC, but there are still some mitigating factors. OGL will probably still be slightly higher performance on the PC pre-longhorn. ATI and Nvidia both still like the idea of being able to do more focused optimization work in OGL. We also still care about the Mac and Linux platforms.”
[/quote]

#46

Seems like FUD
[/quote]
I don’t think so, taking into account Spasi’s latest quote!

[quote]Now as I understand it, for games nothing will really change.
[/quote]
Again, I don’t think so (I would hope so, still).
Onxy’ mentioned IT magainze usually is very accurate. So far for their ID message. They also said in another sentence of the article this:
“Currently it’s vaguely if ATI and Nvidia will just provide a Doom3-driver for Win-Vista, and provide a full OpenGL driver for the professional 3d cvard only (FireGL and QuadroFx).”

Oh well…

#47

That’s the same ridiculous state of affairs that happened when the OpenGL MCD infested machines across the world.

Micrsoft are not going to let this happen. If the main suppliers of graphics cards supply ICDs which bugger the Windows experience up, who’s going to look bad? Yes, that’s right - Microsoft. Not the card vendors. The ICDs will be fixed and fully integrated with Aeroglass and DirectX. Stop getting into such a froth over it folks!

Cas :slight_smile:

#48

Hi

Ok, I’ve gone and had a read of the opengl forums too. I’m trying to look at just the technical aspects here, rather than just being an anti MS rant.

From my understanding (which is limited) the main problem is that Aero uses hardware acceleration to do some if the fancy graphics work. It uses DX to do this. Whilst on XP you can have a DX app running in a window at the same time a GL one running in another window, you can’t have both using the same window. Aero with it’s fancy DX calls will be the DX app, so you can’t have GL inside it, hence either full screening your GL app (Aero DX app now doens’t have the rendering context), or you run a gl wrapper which is actually calling DX so you are able to share the context.

Thats my understanding of the issue.

Either MS need to change their implementation of the desktop, or people like NVidea et al need to figure out a way of having one app running both DX and GL on the same rendering context.

Endolf

#49

So what we have to ask ourself:

When do we get D3D in J2SE?

That would rule :stuck_out_tongue:

#50

Nah that wouldn’t really be a solution, cos what about linux and mac users? They would still be bound to use OGL, and I think nobody would make games for a linux and mac only market !! Even if it would rock if there would be a really good fun game that runs only at Linux and Mac, so more people would move away from Windows !! 8)

So this clears it up a bit… I think it will be in the end the Graphic vendors who will have to adopt, cause Aeroglas can’t adopt from design - so this OpenGL layer above is (sorry to say that) the best vendor-independent-way possible :frowning:

Arne

#51

Fk linux. Scw mac. All we need is windows :wink:

#52

…except that then the advantage of using java over C# narrows considerably, to the pint that many (myself included) would dump java and move permanently to C#. I don’t want to use C# (operator overloading?) but…

#53

True. If I ever decide to make a real game (highly unlikely), I’ll probably use c++. Until then I’ll be messing around with Java because it’s more fun.