Why OpenGL?

[Canardia]

Despite what you OpenGL fanboys say, most game engines that use both OpenGL and DirectX perform much better

Actually it's just the opposite. The Ogre3D demos run much faster in OpenGL mode than in DirectX mode

 

if your two target platforms are XBOX and Windows

I see in the long run that both won't exist anymore, so I'd rather start preparing for PS6 (which was already announced last year) and Linux.

[Pixel Perfect]

So you could say Windows 95 and DirectX was just an emergency hack (because Windows NT had problems running DOS programs)

You are probably the only person I know that would say that! The game developers at the time couldn't wait to get away from DOS as a game development platform and into DirectX and Windows that offered hardware abstraction! OpenGL would have done just as well but it didn't turn out that way... this is all a completely pointless argument!

[Marcus]

Actually it's just the opposite. The Ogre3D demos run much faster in OpenGL mode than in DirectX mode

 

I see in the long run that both won't exist anymore, so I'd rather start preparing for PS6 (which was already announced last year) and Linux.

 

Ogre3D is one example. Unreal, Unigine and Torque both perform better on DirectX.

 

Unigine Comparison

 

Look out Windows, Linux is going to replace you in the near future. So says Lumooja, so it must be true.

[Canardia]

They tested OpenGL vs DirectX performance under Windows 7 64-bit, which is known to run OpenGL apps 15% slower than on XP 32-bit. Run the same test under XP, and OpenGL will be faster.

[VeTaL]

i will say most of the reason LE does not work on older hardware is not to do with Opengl but the lvl of glsh it using.

so it like trying to run directx 10 games on you card you find it be slow on a go7300 unless you turn off everything.

you can do the same with opengl but it engine need to be design for that low lvl spec

 

Yes-yes... in my last post i talked about that

I just wondered if its possible to increase compatibility of Leadwerks with old computers, so they would get better picture, but engine would work.

[carlb]

need josh to put in more option for lower spec hardware, think he did say he will later on

so it be nice like a few people want to run on lower spec

 

but am not worry as if i get a game done it be a few years time and most of the low spec will be dead and the high spec hardware.

will be entry level lol

[Canardia]

I'm actually more worried that there will be soon a OpenGL 3.2 engine out, and I think I would seriously consider it since it runs even on my 3 years old GeForce 8800 GTS. I just want a game and engine which utilizes my hardware fully. I paid big money years ago for my graphics card, and even today maybe only 80% of its hardware features are used

[Mumbles]

Look out Windows, Linux is going to replace you in the near future. So says Lumooja, so it must be true.

 

What's so wrong with that idea? I remember when I first got a quad-core processor, XP just ignored the third and fourth cores. The Linux version I was using didn't support quad cores either, so it just advanced 2 system seconds for every real second... An old system got full usage out of a quad core whereas in windows, I had to pay for a new operating system (that I didn't really want) or run at half speed.

[carlb]

Guys and girls we moving off the topic

windows or linux is not the question

 

I love linux but it will never replace windows, windows will be around for a long time

 

now let get back tot eh opengl question

[Marleys Ghost]

Surely if you wanted to use DirectX .. then you'd simply choose an engine that uses it?

[Josh]

If this is where you and Josh as coming from, then I get your point, but the new version just need time for the users to catch up OS wise.

We're not in a normal cycle. DX10 came and went, and no one ever used it. There is nothing that indicates DX11 will be used any more than DX10 ever was.

 

How is this even a relative point to your argument? You are planning on expanding to the XBOX 360 and LE ONLY works on Windows. You would have been much better off to have used DirectX 9.

 

The Wii will never be able to support LE. Mac and Linux are extremely small markets.

I am not able at this time to talk about what future platforms we are going to pursue.

 

but am not worry as if i get a game done it be a few years time and most of the low spec will be dead and the high spec hardware.

will be entry level lol

Actually, what we've seen is the "gaming" hardware gets better and better, and "non-gaming" PCs continue to be sold with the same crappy integrated chips, year after year. I don't think your typical office PC is getting any faster. However, the Steam hardware survey indicates most users have good hardware now, and they are your target market.

[Mumbles]

"now let get back tot eh opengl question"

 

In that case I'll tell a little story about me and OpenGL...

 

OpenGL > D3D

 

But more seriously. Cast your eyes back to 1999 two hit multiplayer games have just been released. Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena. UT only provided OpenGL as a fallback option, and running the game in OpenGL resulted in a message box along the lines of "Really, use DirectX or 3dfx Glide, they're better". Graphically, the game was pretty horrible, even on top settings, although you can't necessarily pin the blame on the underpinning rendering API for that.

 

Quake 3 though was leaps and bounds ahead of its time. Viewing through teleport gates in high quality, nobody had tried it to that extent before. The quality of the player models and weapons were much higher, and it didn't support DirectX at all, but yet you could make that run on Windows 2000 without any sevice packs (whereas DirectX required that SP3 be installed). I dare say it would even run on Windows NT 4. UT certainly would not (unless you were using the OpenGL fallback option).

 

You can play both games with fraps today on top settings and actually see the graphically superior Q3 running 20% faster (average of 600 fps over UT's 500 - both way above what they need to be playable). Back in 1999, it may not have been the same story. I wasn't playing either back then and certainly not benchmarking.

 

Now come forward to UT 2004. Only now is the graphic quality starting to match Quake 3, but I found the D3D renderer in windows to be slow and sluggish to respond. Fraps would say the game was playing at 60 fps, but it sure didn't feel like it (and under 40 I would find the reaction delay to be too slow to be playable). Various tweak guides would suggest different settings, but none were working it still felt slow and horrible. I would finally tweak my ini files manually. OpenGL was not available as a renderer on windows, only D3D or Software. But the game did work on Linux, and the ini files contained quite a lot of OpenGL settings. SO I would manually edit the default renderer line from DirectX to OpenGL - worst case scenario, it would not load, or continue to use DX, so I tried it. Much longer to set up the window, but then frame rates skyrocketed to almost double, 110.

 

...And indeed most games I've played with the option to choose between OpenGL or DirectX, I've always felt OGL to be much faster and usually with no loss to graphical quality. And although I can't confirm because I don't have first hand knowledge, I'm sure I've read somewhere that DirectX is quite messy in terms of coding, whereas OpenGL is much cleaner (Josh would be the best person here to confirm that - or not). But if that's true, there's just no real reason to use DirectX these days. It doesn't seem to offer much better performance (if any at all) and you can't deploy it on even half as many systems as you can with OpenGL.

 

By the way Carl, have you been drinking tonight? I've never seen your spelling so bad as in this thread...

 

Actually, maybe I have - those spellings I swear were wrong have just disappeared completely...

[Canardia]

Actually, what we've seen is the "gaming" hardware gets better and better, and "non-gaming" PCs continue to be sold with the same crappy integrated chips, year after year. I don't think your typical office PC is getting any faster. However, the Steam hardware survey indicates most users have good hardware now, and they are your target market.

Old high-end hardware is still better today than new low-end hardware, and I don't think this will change in the next 5 years.

 

Office laptops, there can only be one, lenovo T-500 has actually finally a better GPU than my old lenovo T61p. Mine has a GeForce FX 570M (better than GeForce 8600M, but worse than a real 8800), and the new T-500 has a Quadro NVS 3100M (runs Crysis with 11 FPS in Very High mode (which is quite good!) ).

[carlb]

To Mumbles

 

No lol i dont drink

i have Dyslexia so find spelling very hard

which is why i find it hard to say what i want on here.

 

and am a EU techincal manager so it funny reading my old emails lol

[Canardia]

I'm sure I've read somewhere that DirectX is quite messy in terms of coding, whereas OpenGL is much cleaner

I remember reading something like in average for each 10 DirectX commands you need only 1 OpenGL command (reminds me of the Intel vs Motorola command set, where Intel needs 16-32 commands to represent 1 Motorola command (due to its superscalarity (2 commands at once) and vector mnemonics).

 

That makes the speed difference, since OpenGL has 10 times less code to execute to give the same result as DirectX. But of course the fact that OpenGL can access the hardware directly, while DirectX needs to go through a software layer first, make also some additional difference.

[Josh]

In terms of features and speed, they are about the same.

[Mumbles]

To Mumbles

 

No lol i dont drink

i have Dyslexia so find spelling very hard

which is why i find it hard to say what i want on here.

 

and am a EU techincal manager so it funny reading my old emails lol

 

I think you missed an even more recent edit to that message. Probably edited whilst typing yours

[VeTaL]

Surely if you wanted to use DirectX .. then you'd simply choose an engine that uses it?

In my first post i noted, that i like Leadwerks, and have nothing against OpenGL. I didnt want to make this thread a bug-reports with screenshots, full configurations of tested computers and so on. I just wanted to know, why Josh use OpenGL, because i have some capability problems on tested videocards.

 

PS: question to Josh is still actual: would you add support of some old videocards(if it isnt hard... for my point of view, its only adding another shaders, but i'm not the creator of this engine, so i dont know)? Or you think that its step back?

Again, i have nothing against Josh's beautiful engine or his desigions, just interested.

[wh1sp3r]

SM 3.0 is just minimal .. why ? because he's using pixel shader's commands in vertex shader, which is allowed only in 3.0+ .. These commands are used to render terrain .. so it will be harder to remake it. ... so i think, It's possible to make it for SM2.0+ cards, but terrain and perhaps some posteffect won't work.

[VeTaL]

Yes, so i'm interested, if its possible (or if its actual) to make "weak" configuration, wich would at least run on the old computers.

 

For example, with auto-detection: if videocard supports SM 3.0, then Leadwerks loads as usual, if lower - then load version for SM 2.0 shaders.

Another variant is to add function, that would disable differed shading or shaders, that used for terrain render... I'm just interesting in nearest plans.

[Chiblue]

I still think DirectX 9 was the most prolific graphics API to date and still used a TON.

 

personally I agree, I have developed in both directx (9) and now open gl and both have thier own skeletons. In my experience OpenGL appears to be more hardware intensive when I play games using dx my system will run at a high fps with all graphics option and a resolution of 1920 x 1200 but the only OpenGL games I have tried start struggling when you use high end graphic options even when running dual GTX 8800 oc in an SLi config.

 

This is only my personal impression.

[wh1sp3r]

but why need to run LE on 2.0 SM cards ? i think .. 70%+ have SM3.0+ today, perhaps more .. It's a waste of time to develop engine for older systems

[Rick]

I would agree it's a waste of time to develop for older system, but what I would do is when upgrading the engine for newer features in the future, to make it so we can pick and choose the features we wish to support. In other words, keep the existing stuff so it works on todays/yesterdays hardware, but also develop the new stuff for tomorrows hardware. That way, 5 years from now we still would have the option to have it run on the hardware of today so we can hit even more people. What would be considered "casual" 5 years from now.

[Naughty Alien]

..in my understanding of topic discussed here, option to use OGL as an API for LE is a very good choice..also, having experience with PS3 development system, I can say with confidence that native way for LE to grow is to spread on to PS3/4 console system..its naturally connected trough same API(OGL) and rendering system LE performing is just fine on PS3...also by learning entire Phyre API, i couldnt miss huge similarity with LE and class structure (both are deferred renderers)..also, financially, LE will spread way more easy on to PS3 than any other console(5 times cheaper than Wii and Xbox360), while at same time, completely same features list LE has on PC, will remain on PS3..Mac, even smaller market than PC(windows), still representing about 35 million units able to run LE just fine(if not better) than PC(win) with same GPU..also, having in mind that Mac users are actually folks who buy things for their machines, I cant see any valid reason why not spread on to Mac..just my 2 cents..

[Rick]

I cant see any valid reason why not spread on to Mac

 

A small market share is one valid reason. This is the reason why almost nobody makes games that run on "pure" mac. I realize this sucks for the mac users, but supply/demand rules all.