Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX

blog.wolfire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–187 of 187 posts

Re: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX

#181

Post by EpicEng »

nl wrote: post #178
EpicEng wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would. It's simply not practical to play games on mobile devices that require more complex input devices which allow for many discrete inputs and more precise control. I don't know, perhaps someone much smarter than I will figure something amazing out, but I doubt it. And I shouldn't have used the term "real". I'm talking about games like WoW. Many (many) buttons that need to be pressed quickly in response to your…

You don't think you are taking your experience of the current control scheme of WoW and projecting it as a limitation of the platform? I'd note that it's pretty hard to do tilt-control on a PC... And there are already plenty of actions games on iOS that work well (and need to be more responsive than WoW).

Who needs tilt control? WoW is just an example. Any game that has a complex control scheme and requires quick reactions is simply not suitable to mobile devices. I'm not sure you actually play any of the games I am talking about.

Re: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX

#182

Post by EpicEng »

kazagistar wrote: post #170
EpicEng wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would. It's simply not practical to play games on mobile devices that require more complex input devices which allow for many discrete inputs and more precise control. I don't know, perhaps someone much smarter than I will figure something amazing out, but I doubt it. And I shouldn't have used the term "real". I'm talking about games like WoW. Many (many) buttons that need to be pressed quickly in response to your…

WoW is a terrible example due to the latency mitigation factors built into the game: you can only cast spells every so often, and then you have a global cool down between spells. You could totally do it on an ipad or some such if the control scheme was a bit better optimized for it.

Those aren't latency mitigation factors, but ok...

So, essentially, your argument is that control schemes should be dumbed down so that they play on mobile? Yeah, that will go over well.

Re: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX

#183

Post by Erwin »

Tmmrn wrote: post #176
Erwin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to be happy to let you pay $30 for the Alpha version though, despite it being in Alpha since at least 2009 (based on the date on the FAQ). I'm surprised PayPal will let you pre-order something that has been more than 4 years in development and has no release date.

On the one hand you keep reading "developers need to eat" and on the other hand you keep reading comments like yours. Buying the alpha means paying for continuous development... Also, you get a new download of the current state every time they have some significant changes.

I've backed around 40 KS projects. I'm happy to microfund projects that have a realistic timeplan. I think if you're selling alpha access to something that has been in development for 4+ years and doesn't seem to have a clear time plan for completion, maybe you need a disclaimer -- especially when dealing with PayPal, which is infamous for being strict about what you can sell through it.

Re: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX

#184

Post by nl »

EpicEng wrote: post #181
nl wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think you are taking your experience of the current control scheme of WoW and projecting it as a limitation of the platform? I'd note that it's pretty hard to do tilt-control on a PC... And there are already plenty of actions games on iOS that work well (and need to be more responsive than WoW).

Who needs tilt control? WoW is just an example. Any game that has a complex control scheme and requires quick reactions is simply not suitable to mobile devices. I'm not sure you actually play any of the games I am talking about.

Mobile (or rather touch screens) actually enable richer control schemes than a keyboard. You may not be happy with anything available as yet, but that doesn't make it impossible.

Anyway, iOS controller support means the touch screen isn't the only input device.

Re: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX

#185

Post by info128 »

Shish2k wrote: post #173

A series of relevant tweets from https://twitter.com/wolfire : My old OpenGL vs Direct3D post is #1 on hacker news! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6852961 Maybe time for a 2013 update -- a lot has changed since then. 1. D3D 11.1+ only supports Windows 8, which only 20% of Steam users have. OpenGL 4.4 works on all versions of Windows. 2. NVIDIA and ATI both now have good profiling and debugging tools for OpenGL…

These are all good points, however, another very important point is driver quality / vendor support. For non-hardcore gamers, it is not uncommon to run Windows default drivers, which often have very poor OpenGL support and/or performance. I would love to see the Steam hardware survey list vendor provided vs driver support for OpenGL.

I think developers may be driven away from using OpenGL at least partially based on worry about driver support. Using Windows this is a non-issue if you stay within DX10 and Windows 7/8. According to Steam Survey, this accounts for 81.61% of users. This drops down to 56.2% for DX11.

In short, until vendor OpenGL driver support is a given, many developers will stick with Windows and Direct3D.

Another note, this one on cross platform compatibility - the limitations of OpenGL ES2.0 are problematic for anything beyond rudimentary shaders. The primary limitation right now in my mind is a shortage of uniform vectors, and the wide variance in size for different android hardware. For instance, a smooth skinning (matrix pallet) shader for skeleton-based deformation will be limited to 5 or 6 joints per mesh on most android/OpenGL ES devices, whereas most x86/OpenGL systems allow for hundreds of joints. Similar limitations apply to pixel shaders as well - post processing such as blur, bloom, dof, and SSAO are not feasible on current generations of android devices for production use.

Of course android device GPUs are getting much more powerful with each iteration, and eventually will provide a good hardware base for advanced graphics engines.

For now, though, the idea of porting a full OpenGL graphics engine with advanced shaders to OpenGL ES2.0 is pretty much a re-write of the engine. This, combined with limited CPU and memory performance, is the primary reason we don't see AAA titles showing up on Android devices yet.

A lot is coming down the pipe in terms of hardware advances, though - I'm excited to see OpenGL support grow in parallel.

Re: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX

#187

Post by Kungpaoshizi »

OpenGL stems from the same people who brought about Linux. And they're still arguing about OS variants.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is a much more fluid experience for the gamers and developers. Also this is the difference between DirectX and OpenGL.

Microsoft has revised DirectX numerous times in the amount of time it took your "awesome" community to argue their way up from OpenGL 2.0 to 2.1. (sorry, might be incorrect in that versioning, I categorize OpenGL in the same poo pool as Linux; snobby home-coders that can't agree on anything)

Post reply on HN