This entire post is nonsense, I can tell you aren’t a programmer. Trust me, I’ve been programming on OpenGL since before you were sucking the Steve Jobs popsicle.
Saying there was “no need” for Direct3D and that Microsoft had to “foist” it on developers is nothing more than a lie. OpenGL and Direct3D were more-or-less developed at the same time in order to take advantage of different types of hardware coming out at the time.
If you’re actually a conservative, you should realize that competition (what Macunists call “fragmentation”) is good. OpenGL is no more supported on OSX or Linux than it is on Windows. The fact that Windows additionally has Direct3D for use is not a detriment to it, it’s a bonus.
“This entire post is nonsense, I can tell you aren’t a programmer. Trust me, I’ve been programming on OpenGL since before you were sucking the Steve Jobs popsicle.”
Very classy, and also incorrect. ;-)
“Saying there was “no need” for Direct3D and that Microsoft had to “foist” it on developers is nothing more than a lie. OpenGL and Direct3D were more-or-less developed at the same time in order to take advantage of different types of hardware coming out at the time.”
That’s BS, of course. First of all OpenGL wasn’t developed from scratch, it was a cleanup of Silicon Graphic’s GL library that had been in use for years, in the real world.
Microsoft never would have supported OpenGL in the first place, but it wanted ports of some professional applications (CAD etc.) and those developers wouldn’t consider a Direct3D port.
Microsoft at the time claimed OpenGL wasn’t suitable for games, but unsurprisingly when id Software developed titles using OpenGL they ran well. I say unsurprisingly since high end real time flight simulators had been using GL/OpenGL for years with great results.
“If you’re actually a conservative, you should realize that competition (what Macunists call “fragmentation”) is good. OpenGL is no more supported on OSX or Linux than it is on Windows. The fact that Windows additionally has Direct3D for use is not a detriment to it, it’s a bonus.”
In general, competition is good. This is not really an example of competition though, it’s an example of monopolistic behavior trying to extinguish competition. Direct3D has limited the porting of games to other platforms, thus limiting their competitiveness with Windows.
The real competition has been at the level of the 3D hardware manufacturers - who by the way are the entities actually supporting OpenGL on Windows. Microsoft has little to do with it these days other than giving permission.
OpenGLSo Microsoft actually only provides OpenGL v1.1...pretty sad. But wait, there's more! Here are Microsoft's very own RECOMMENDATIONS as to which graphics API to use for future work:Windows Vista and Windows 7 provide the same support as Windows XP for OpenGL, which allows video card manufactures to provide an installable client driver (ICD) for OpenGL that provides hardware-accelerated support. Note that newer versions of such ICDs are required to fully support Windows Vista or Windows 7. If no ICD is installed, the system will fall back to the OpenGL v1.1 software layer in most cases.
RecommendationsYeah, that's really supporting OpenGL eh? Somehow I'm having trouble seeing it in the "Recommendations" section....Consider the following recommendations when selecting an API for your graphical application:
* Use Direct3D 9 if your application must support Windows XP or an earlier version of Windows.
* Use Direct3D 9 if you want to support Windows Vista or Windows 7 running with XPDM drivers. For Windows Vista or Windows 7 systems that lack Direct3D 10 or better video hardware, you can either choose to use the existing Windows XP Direct3D 9 code path or use the 10level9 feature levels through the Direct3D 10.1 or Direct3D 11 API.
* Use Direct3D 11 to take advantage of the next generation of video hardware on Windows Vista and Windows 7.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee417756%28VS.85%29.aspx