Things that drive me nuts about OpenGL

[LtMatt]

Rich Geldreich's Blog - Game and open source developer, graphics programmer, lossless data and texture compression specialist

Here's a brain dump of the things that sometimes drive me crazy about OpenGL. (Note these are strictly my own opinions, not those of Valve or my coworkers. I'm also in a ranty-type mood today after grappling with OpenGL for several years now..) My major motivation to posting this: the GL API needs a reboot because IMO Mantle/D3D12 are going to most likely eat it for lunch soon, so we should start talking and thinking about this stuff now.

Source
http://richg42.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/things-that-drive-me-nuts-about-opengl.html
https://twitter.com/aras_p/status/465882281035313153



Why we can’t have nice things: Valve programmer discusses wretched state of OpenGL

Joel Hruska's take on the blog.

Let’s be clear — nobody “wins” this comparison. You’ve got one vendor deeply hostile to open source code and actively disinterested in contributing code that might help any other vendor, one vendor with good intentions, bad code, and limited resources, and one vendor for whom GL development is a strictly secondary interest. This explains in no small part why OpenGL continues to be so fragmented and erratic in the PC space — it’s extremely difficult for even a company with Valve’s resources to chase down three separate vendor drivers and integrate solutions that satisfy all three companies. Doing something that works on one Vendor’s hardware could easily break two others, which means implementing and testing three separate solutions.

The chances that this situation improves in the near term seem dim at best. One point that multiple commenters made on Geldereich’s blog is that if the desktop space is bad, the smartphone and tablet vendors are even worse. Meanwhile, one of the vendors discussed here has already launched its own new API, which likely reduces their interest in developing OpenGL support in parallel. That’s not automatically a bad thing, but it means fewer resources to devote to any single API — and the other vendors have obvious problems of their own.

Full Article
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1...programmer-discusses-wretched-state-of-opengl

 

[LtMatt]

Why we can’t have nice things: Valve programmer discusses wretched state of OpenGL

Joel Hruska's take on the blog.

Let’s be clear — nobody “wins” this comparison. You’ve got one vendor deeply hostile to open source code and actively disinterested in contributing code that might help any other vendor, one vendor with good intentions, bad code, and limited resources, and one vendor for whom GL development is a strictly secondary interest. This explains in no small part why OpenGL continues to be so fragmented and erratic in the PC space — it’s extremely difficult for even a company with Valve’s resources to chase down three separate vendor drivers and integrate solutions that satisfy all three companies. Doing something that works on one Vendor’s hardware could easily break two others, which means implementing and testing three separate solutions.

The chances that this situation improves in the near term seem dim at best. One point that multiple commenters made on Geldereich’s blog is that if the desktop space is bad, the smartphone and tablet vendors are even worse. Meanwhile, one of the vendors discussed here has already launched its own new API, which likely reduces their interest in developing OpenGL support in parallel. That’s not automatically a bad thing, but it means fewer resources to devote to any single API — and the other vendors have obvious problems of their own.

Full Article
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1...programmer-discusses-wretched-state-of-opengl

 

[LtMatt]

This is an interesting point and is someting I wonder about Mantle too. In 5 years time will AMD still be nursing the same code base they're doing now or will they throw it away and start again?

Mantle will continue to be updated. They're aiming to keep improving it, making it able to perform more draw calls etc. I'm looking for the slides, but can't find it atm.

 

[LtMatt]

Might as well link this: http://richg42.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-truth-on-opengl-driver-quality.html

Instead of the twisted copy-paste that Hruska writes.

And of course,

That's already in the OP.