the Windows Vista OpenGL Debate


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Microsoft is not going to support True OpenGL in windows Vista which is not surprising really, It is a good way to regain control in the graphics market, Since OpenGL 2.0 MS has had a true competitor against its own DirectX graphics system.

I have more info on my site

http://www.visentinel.com/

What do you guys rekon ?

please try to read some of the posts in some of the various forum pages on the links provided before u reply ;)

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I think you need to read more about why they are doing it that way...and how it is wrong to say that you can't play OpenGL games with latest OpenGL

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FUD.

Microsoft is supporting OpenGL through DirectX because they have too, because of how Avalon (WPF) works.

However, third-party drivers will still come with their own openGL implementations that will still be the same as they are currently. Any decent graphics card will require you to install these drives.

It's pretty much a non-issue.

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Also, if you run a fullscreen OpenGL app, the window manager will turn off and your OpenGL application will work natively. OpenGL will only wrap to Direct X if you run a windowed application with the window manager enabled.

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if only this was true...

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If only what were true?

You clearly have some pretty big misconceptions about OpenGL in Vista.

Windows has very limited native OpenGL support to begin with. It's the video card drivers that implement OpenGL ICDs... And that's not going to change.

Right now Windows 2000 and XP ship with very limited non-hardware OpenGL support. But when you install Nvidia or ATI's video drivers, you get full OpenGL acceleration. Vista works the same way.

In fact, my understanding is that Vista will implement more OpenGL support out of the box than XP, because it will have an OpenGL mini-driver that will render through Direct3D (using hardware acceleration), without the GPU designers doing any special work.

Because the window manager, under LDDM, will be a Direct3D application - it's not possible to share the screen DC between Direct3D and OpenGL. Therefore in order to support you need an OpenGL driver that can draw to a Direct3D surface... and that's when things get tricky.

Still, games will continue to use the ICD provided by the GPU driver, and nothing will change.

It remains to be seen exactly how things will work out for windowed mode apps like Maya, 3D Studio, etc which leverage OpenGL on the desktop. I expect there's no way Vista can launch without a very good story for these programs.

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You say all that as if it where a good thing ?

you misunderstand the devs and gamers and people who dev for opengl don't want things to change !

MS implements a opengl minidriver yeah that'd be fine if it was OpenGL2.0 with Extension support but no its some old crappy out of date OpenGL 1.4 without extension support of any kind.

And if thats not all it renders via d3d which kills performance aswell.

and MS is withholding the information needed for the Graphics card Makers on how to overide this and use their own OpenGL implimentations in the drivers so that things can get back to normal for OpenGL and Vista.

Windows XP doesnt support OpenGL and nobody wants it to nativly, Nvidia and ATI have it all under control... and now that control has been taken away and replaced with a POS nobody wants.

At this point the answer is simple, Stick with XP

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Why do I need OpenGL anyway?

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there are other people who use it you know. Games and programs like Blender (free 3d program) use it.

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At this point the answer is simple, Stick with XP

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Oh fush :rolleyes:...

Even in Beta 1 windowed OpenGL applications run as normal when you turn off the window manager (ctrl+shift+f9) or if the application shortcut is set to turn off the window manager. When I run Quake 3 the window manager turns off automatically and I get Quake 3 running as it would under XP. No need to continue with the FUD...

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You say all that as if it where a good thing ?

you misunderstand the devs and gamers and people who dev for opengl don't want things to change !

MS implements a opengl minidriver yeah that'd be fine if it was OpenGL2.0 with Extension support but no its some old crappy out of date OpenGL 1.4 without extension support of any kind.

And if thats not all it renders via d3d which kills performance aswell.

and MS is withholding the information needed for the Graphics card Makers on how to overide this and use their own OpenGL implimentations in the drivers so that things can get back to normal for OpenGL and Vista.

Windows XP doesnt support OpenGL and nobody wants it to nativly, Nvidia and ATI have it all under control... and now that control has been taken away and replaced with a POS nobody wants.

At this point the answer is simple, Stick with XP

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I was under the impression that the built-in OpenGL provider, at this early stage, supports OpenGL 1.4 with some extensions at 95% performance. Of course this is a BETA with ALPHA quality drivers on a brand-new driver model. You can't really expect it all to work perfectly at this point.

So what information are we withholding? The LDDM specs have been published for a long long time, and in basically final form since WinHEC. It's easy to shout "You're not telling those other guys everything you should be" when you're not a developer, have no clue how this stuff works, and haven't looked at the published documentation.

The answer isn't stick with XP... The answer is wait til you have Vista in your hands to start complaining about a problem that doesn't exist.

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Yeah thats well known, but hardly a fix... its a workarround

What happens to the Joe Simple users that dont know that ? and their kids just wanna play doom3 on their new Dell ?

Edit- Or new games on the Doom3 Engine

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Yeah thats well known, but hardly a fix... its a workarround

What happens to the Joe Simple users that dont know that ? and their kids just wanna play doom3 on their new Dell ?

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As I said, Doom 3 will load exactly the same as it does on XP. It will fire up the OpenGL ICD included with your video driver. What part of that has not been made clear?

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As I said, Doom 3 will load exactly the same as it does on XP.? It will fire up the OpenGL ICD included with your video driver.? What part of that has not been made clear?

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As of rite now the drivers wont be able to support that.

Offcourse if you actually went to my site youd know that, i did mention " please try to read some of the posts in some of the various forum pages on the links provided before u reply " in the op post .. " I wanted to Avoid this "

The 3rd Quote contains what u need to know on this area.

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As of rite now the drivers wont be able to support that.

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Why wouldn't they?

You don't really believe this non-sense that somehow breaking OpenGL support is in our best interest...

Do you know how many applications rely on OpenGL functionality?

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As i said " please try to read some of the posts in some of the various forum pages on the links provided "

I know it is ridicules but it is happening.

you just need to go read some and youll see why.

Can you just go please read some threads man ? their on the post on my site -.-

And Again your not reading things or not clearly !?!?! I didn't say its in OUR BEST INTEREST it says in MS's Best interest ...

WTF... !?

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As i said " please try to read some of the posts in some of the various forum pages on the links provided "

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I did, when this topic was first brought up weeks ago... It was FUD then and it's the same now.

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Well you mustof read wrong like when u said its in our best interests, coz your saying things that have been answered for days now... your not reading or understanding anything, seriously mate get informed wtf.

Even sadder is you don't even need to click any links on my news post, your contradicting things on the news post itself =\ wich is all correct as of the date it was posted.

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Well you mustof read wrong like when u said its in our best interests, coz your saying things that have been answered for days now... your not reading or understanding anything, seriously mate get informed wtf.

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What I meant was that your conspiracy theories suggesting that it would be in Microsoft's interests to hurt OpenGL don't make any sense to me.

If Vista were to break Maya, 3D Studio, etc... that would be terrible. If Doom 3 ran poorly on Vista it would be terrible. I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen.

There are technical hurdles, as I described before... Running a Direct3D app and having an OpenGL app render inside of it isn't exactly trivial... But a lot of that responsibility falls on the hardware vendors.

The full-screen ICD should "just work." Running games should be no different than on XP or without the compositor running... since the compositor (and the rest of the window manager) is hidden when you run a full-screen app automatically, just like on XP. I bet you'll never notice the difference.

The tricky part is when you have windowed-mode apps running inside the compositor. But believe me, one way or another they will be overcome.

I hate having to put this here (since I've been a Neowinian for ages and it feels weird), but I feel obliged...

Everything I post here is personal opinion and is not read or approved by my employer before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.

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OH for cryig out loud !!!

YOU STILL dont read LOL LOL

" Here then OMG ! "

If this isn't enough MS Can actually support OpenGL

A reply on the GameDev discussion states...

"Sure. As Barthold mentioned, 3DLabs don't see a problem with making their OpenGL drivers work on Aeroglass without any wrapper at all, at full speed and full feature set. They only need MS to give them the details of the internal driver/Aeroglass interface. Should this become available to them, then both 3DLabs and Nvidia would create a compatible driver in no time. ATI won't have a choice, and will have to join.

The problem is that MS doesn't want to give them that info, because they want to see GL dead. So either 3DLabs & co manage to put enough pressure on MS, or this issue is sorted out by an anti-competitivity lawsuit against MS. At least in the EU, a new directive forces software manufacturers to open file formats, protocols, and interfaces to the competition under certain circumstances. This might come in handy."

We cant let this Happen.

RITE of my site ...

Confirmed by 3dlabs also and you can find that confirmation in the Gamedev link on my site.

Is it really not Obvious why MS would want GL dead ? GL 2.0 and GL future development is a serius competitor now to D3D !!!!

MS always buys out company's that threaten it but they cant with OpenGL coz its " Open " ! and even if it weren't they'd prolly not sell it to them.

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Sigh... This is obviously going no where.

If you can come up with a list, or even just one thing... that Nvidia and ATI need from Microsoft in order to implement their OpenGL drivers to their satisfaction, please feel free to send them to me. I'll make sure your feedback is passed to the right people. Though I'm sure the developers at ATI and Nvidia know how to get their concerns heard and dealt with. Beyond that, I don't know what to say.

You're screaming that the house is burning down before we've even finished buliding the foundation. So I don't really know what it is you want.

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Well since you didint read what i just quoted in the last post...

They need MS to give them the details of the internal driver/Aeroglass interface

Good Luck getting it Threedaysdwn, 3dlabs obviusly couldnt.

Please Email me if you do.

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