Genuinely looking forward to WP8 here, WP7 was a bit of a disappointment for me
Why are they still clinging to Direct X?
I feel like it's a slowly sinking ship.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36416700]Why are they still clinging to Direct X?
I feel like it's a slowly sinking ship.[/QUOTE]
Let me guess, OpenGL is far more superior?
I'm an Android user, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on these W8 phones.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36416700]Why are they still clinging to Direct X?
I feel like it's a slowly sinking ship.[/QUOTE]
uh, no it's not?
As someone who [i]actually does some graphics programming[/i], there's really no sense in having an API that's only used in Microsoft products.
No sane person wants to write the same code twice.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36416700]Why are they still clinging to Direct X?
I feel like it's a slowly sinking ship.[/QUOTE]
Pffafhafhahfahfa.
Just because OpenGL is better doesn't mean Directx is in any way dying. OpenGL has always been better, but DirectX has a much bigger commercial success and of course marketing.
It simply won't die as long as Microsoft is around.
[editline]21st June 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36417898]As someone who [i]actually does some graphics programming[/i], there's really no sense in having an API that's only used in Microsoft products.
No sane person wants to write the same code twice.[/QUOTE]
I think they mean that you can have your PC-coded game working on the phone as well.
I still can't look at the WP7 interface, it makes my eyes bleed
I like the idea of metro on a phone or tablet, but they somehow managed to make an ultra-simplistic UI look cluttered and messy.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36417898]As someone who [I]actually does some graphics programming[/I], there's really no sense in having an API that's only used in Microsoft products.
No sane person wants to write the same code twice.[/QUOTE]
This is a big problem. For a platform that has less than 5% of the smartphone market, using a different graphics API than what the other 97% of the market uses is a great way to not get anything developed for your platform.
I'd be surprised if Angry Birds comes out for WP8
[editline]21st June 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=dgg;36418150]
I think they mean that you can have your PC-coded game working on the phone as well.[/QUOTE]
We're not quite at the point where you can run modern DX (Skyrim, Crysis, etc) games on a phone, so Windows/Xbox compatibility is moot for WP8.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36417898]As someone who [i]actually does some graphics programming[/i], there's really no sense in having an API that's only used in Microsoft products.
No sane person wants to write the same code twice.[/QUOTE]
This exactly.
With all these devices out there, iOS, Android, Linux, Mac, Windows and more, only one of these use DirectX, and everyone of them supports OpenGL. Using DirectX is incredibly stupid if you want to support any other device than the Windows Phone 8.
and yet companies have been doing exactly that for like 10 years so i seriously doubt directx is anywhere near a "sinking ship"
DirectX isn't a sinking ship, but at the same time companies have used the argument that the majority of the market uses DirectX so using OpenGL is too much effort.
Now flip the situation, the majority of the tablet market uses OpenGL, and a brand new competitor device doesn't support it, will companies decide to re-write their rendering code to support such a minority of the market? (The answer is they probably won't have to since most of them use middleware which already supports OpenGL/DirectX, like Unity)
Edit: I could see OEMs adding OpenGL support, while Microsoft hates it (They don't support WebGL for that reason) it is the best supported graphics API.
[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;36421021]We're not quite at the point where you can run modern DX (Skyrim, Crysis, etc) games on a phone, so Windows/Xbox compatibility is moot for WP8.[/QUOTE]
Because AAA productions are the only games ever coded in DirectX...
[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;36421021]This is a big problem. For a platform that has less than 5% of the smartphone market, using a different graphics API than what the other 97% of the market uses is a great way to not get anything developed for your platform.
I'd be surprised if Angry Birds comes out for WP8
[editline]21st June 2012[/editline]
We're not quite at the point where you can run modern DX (Skyrim, Crysis, etc) games on a phone, so Windows/Xbox compatibility is moot for WP8.[/QUOTE]
right because directx is a modern invention and skyrim and crysis are some of the only games to use it right
[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;36421021]This is a big problem. For a platform that has less than 5% of the smartphone market, using a different graphics API than what the other 97% of the market uses is a great way to not get anything developed for your platform.
I'd be surprised if Angry Birds comes out for WP8[/QUOTE]
It said it would support DirectX, that doesn't necessarily mean it won't support OpenGL. You're also completely dodging the mention of supporting C/C++ development - because that's important as well. I've honestly been really annoyed developing for Android in Java, and the NDK is almost more of a disaster. I mean it's still worlds ahead of developing using the nightmarish spawn of hell that is "objective c" though.
This update can only be a good thing - they didn't say they were removing support for anything, just adding support for another language and API.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36416700]Why are they still clinging to Direct X?
[b]I feel like it's a slowly sinking ship.[/b][/QUOTE]
I always knew that OpenGL is superior to DirectX, but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
As someone who doesn't really know anything too much about this, what makes OpenGL better than DirectX?
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;36422134]As someone who doesn't really know anything too much about this, what makes OpenGL better than DirectX?[/QUOTE]
If anything it's not a property of Microsoft and isn't limited to Microsoft products. Technically I don't really know.
opengl has always been superior and way ahead of directx. Opengl had tesselation for like, years before DX11 made it available.
But since Windows is the most popular family/personal os for some reason directx became the most popular graphics base as well and we ended up with bad support for opengl on ATI's side for a long time untill they finally decided to shake their ass not so long ago.
You just have to see the shit it was with RAGE and all the errors we had at launch because nvidia/ati did not keep up with opengl.
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;36422134]As someone who doesn't really know anything too much about this, what makes OpenGL better than DirectX?[/QUOTE]
Well, first of all, lets just be clear on this. When people write DirectX in this context, it's actually Direct3D and/or Direct2D being talked about, and not the actual DirectX (which includes input and audio functions too).
It's completely free, and not developed by a for-profit organization. Those are my reasons to use OpenGL, even if it's not as great as it's proprietary competitor.
But if you take a look at RAGE today, you can see that it's pretty much as great as Direct2D/3D.
RAGE does have some graphical issues even today, for instance with pop-in textures, but that's no fault of OpenGL, but rather the id Tech 5 engine powering RAGE (or to be more precise, the configuration used by default, since it can be circumvented by changing these).
So from a developers viewpoint, especially if you're not stuck with Windows, is to use OpenGL or OpenGL ES, without question. Plus, there's several libraries out there that make OpenGL easy (so you don't have to worry about things like window and context creation, but only drawing pretty pixels), such as SFML or SDL (both of which contain DirectX-competitive support for input, audio, networking and stuff like that), and many more.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;36417898]As someone who [i]actually does some graphics programming[/i], there's really no sense in having an API that's only used in Microsoft products.
No sane person wants to write the same code twice.[/QUOTE]
Opengl can't be used on everything though, so if you're really concerned about getting on a lot of platforms there's going to be a lot of rewriting going on. I think direct3d11 across windows, windows rt and wp8 is not such a bad thing.
[QUOTE=Philly c;36422885]Opengl can't be used on everything though, so if you're really concerned about getting on a lot of platforms there's going to be a lot of rewriting going on. I think direct3d11 across windows, windows rt and wp8 is not such a bad thing.[/QUOTE]
What device does not support OpenGL or at least OpenGL ES?
Consoles.
[QUOTE=LEETNOOB;36421977]I always knew that OpenGL is superior to DirectX, but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=T3hGamerDK;36422510]Those are my reasons to use OpenGL, even if it's not as great as it's proprietary competitor[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;36422134]As someone who doesn't really know anything too much about this, what makes OpenGL better than DirectX?[/QUOTE]
This is what bugs me when people talk about graphics APIs. Neither one is 'better' than the other. They are both exceptional APIs (in their current iteration, that is) and, in terms of functionality, they are nearly [i]equivalent[/i].
There are certainly differences between the two, but it would be pointless to list them here, since very few of them are clear-cut 'advantages' or 'disadvantages'.
The thing that matters is that OpenGL is an open standard that runs on many platforms, and D3D is a proprietary system that runs on Microsoft devices. That alone is enough for developers to choose OpenGL over D3D.
If many AAA games today are using D3D, it's a combination of two things; extensive marketing and poor OpenGL support from ATI/Intel over the years. This is all changing, though. Mobile devices and WebGL are big wins for the API, OpenGL is being streamlined with each iteration to ease things on hardware manufacturers a tad, and ATI/Intel have been making major strides in their support.
There is very little reason for anyone to choose D3D over OpenGL today, and I suspect many new releases will start switching, with the exception being studios which are already so heavily invested in D3D that they are simply [i]unable[/i] to switch.
[QUOTE=Philly c;36424338]Consoles.[/QUOTE]
If by 'consoles' you mean 'only the XBox'.
IIRC, both the Wii and PS3 use some kind of bastardized proprietary API based [i]loosely[/i] on OpenGL. This is third-hand information here because they don't make it easy to get the SDKs and it seems like nobody who has it wants to talk about it.
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