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Things that drive me nuts about OpenGL

Marine-RX179 said:
The current dx whilst it works, its limitation is some areas is quite apparent and is far from as efficient as can be.

Why do you think Intel scrapped Pentium 4 and start over again with the Core2? Why do you think AMD is going to abandoning the FX series originated from Bulldozer and work toward a new architecture? It is the simple reason is because their options, performance increase and freedom would be limited if they insisting on hanging onto things that's not perform well enough.

With MS going to make dx12 an API for Xbox and mobiles as well, you honestly think it is a idea to build it on top of existing codes that already has limitations, struggling with just PC hardware alone?

Stop deflecting the subject and keep dragging Mantle into this saying "but Mantle is x years would have the same problem bah bah bah...". If that happen in x years time, we will worry about it then (if Mantle is still around that is...it might be gone by then who knows?). For now it's not something we have to concern about right now, but dx is.

Your comparison of Mantle vs dx is invalid anyway. Mantle is a API for PC and PC alone, but dx is going to be a API for multiple platforms. dx has always been just a PC API, but they are now moving into unknown territory with Xbox and mobiles being added to the equation as well. You honestly think it wouldn't be better for them design the dx12 from scratch than build it on top of existing dx blocks that has not been designed with support for anything but PC hardware in mind?

If MS is going to introduce a Tug of war situation for API performance between the Xbox, mobile and PC platform, at least they should give them more room or space to do it.
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It's not totally deflecting the subject, I'm basically saying that I hope Mantle does end up like OpenGL (OpenGL being what the thread is about). Every one saying that Mantle is new because AMD started from scratch, what choice did they have? What API code base do they have they could've built it on top of? It's not like it was a choice to start from scratch rather than bolt a few new things on some old stuff that didn't work too well (like OpenGL).

Also, just because Microsoft call the API DirectX 12 on each platform doesn't mean it'll be the same code on each platform. They could write 3 completely different APIs from the ground up and call them all DirectX 12 for brand recognition purposes. Now I'm not saying that's what they're doing, Windows8 suggest they're not afraid to blur the lines between what could easily be separate products. However, there are people that that, once they've made it almost identical to Windows7, seem to quite like Windows8.

As I said before, OpenGL probably didn't set out with the goal that in X years time the API would be a mess. I'm sure being owned by a group/consortium didn't help OpenGL either, sometimes it's better to have 1 clear voice, even if that voice isn't always right. At least DirectX has that. Mantle too for now, but I seem to recall mention of it being handed off at some point. I think AMD should keep control of it and give up on multi-vendor support. Keep it AMD, keep it focused, even if it hits take-up long term.

Also Final@y, has a point, no point worrying about the future, nothing we can do about it now. But at the same time, nothing we can do about DX12, Mantle, G-Sync, FreeSync, OpenGL, PhysX, GameWorks or anything else either. So let's stop worrying about all of those as well.
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
Also Final@y, has a point, no point worrying about the future, nothing we can do about it now. But at the same time, nothing we can do about DX12, Mantle, G-Sync, FreeSync, OpenGL, PhysX, GameWorks or anything else either. So let's stop worrying about all of those as well.
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Again taking what i said out of context and generalizing it to everything yet again (when i was specifically talking about Mantle) and as if everything in the future effects us in the same way with the same importance and whether we can have any influence on them or not, everything (DX12, Mantle, G-Sync, FreeSync, OpenGL, PhysX, GameWorks) has to be judged on there own merit, your comment serves no point besides being sarcastic.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
The current dx whilst it works, its limitation is some areas is quite apparent and is far from as efficient as can be.

Why do you think Intel scrapped Pentium 4 and start over again with the Core2? Why do you think AMD is going to abandoning the FX series originated from Bulldozer and work toward a new architecture? It is the simple reason is because their options, performance increase and freedom would be limited if they insisting on hanging onto things that's not perform well enough.

With MS going to make dx12 an API for Xbox and mobiles as well, you honestly think it is a idea to build it on top of existing codes that already has limitations, struggling with just PC hardware alone?

Stop deflecting the subject and keep dragging Mantle into this saying "but Mantle is x years would have the same problem bah bah bah...". If that happen in x years time, we will worry about it then (if Mantle is still around that is...it might be gone by then who knows?). For now it's not something we have to concern about right now, but dx is.

Your comparison of Mantle vs dx is invalid anyway. Mantle is a API for PC and PC alone, but dx is going to be a API for multiple platforms. dx has always been just a PC API, but they are now moving into unknown territory with Xbox and mobiles being added to the equation as well. You honestly think it wouldn't be better for them design the dx12 from scratch than build it on top of existing dx blocks that has not been designed with support for anything but PC hardware in mind?

If MS is going to introduce a Tug of war situation for API performance between the Xbox, mobile and PC platform, at least they should give them more room or space to do it.
Click to expand...

Indeed and Mantle may even be replace by something better by someone else.
 
LtMatt said:
That's already in the OP.
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I can only see a twitter link, a link to the other blog post and a link to an extremetech article in the OP...

There are two blog posts:
-Things that drive me nuts about OpenGL
-The Truth on OpenGL Driver Quality

The 2nd one is not included in the OP

The one I linked is the one where the valve dev talks about the differences between different companies and their driver support. Unfortunately Hruska's article on it is quite bad compared to the blog post itself.
 
Final8y said:
Again taking what i said out of context and generalizing it to everything yet again (when i was specifically talking about Mantle) and as if everything in the future effects us in the same way with the same importance and whether we can have any influence on them or not, everything (DX12, Mantle, G-Sync, FreeSync, OpenGL, PhysX, GameWorks) has to be judged on there own merit, your comment serves no point besides being sarcastic.
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It wasn't really out of context, you said "So we should all start worrying about that right now and do what exactly, nothing that's what.", talking about Mantle.
I agreed that there's nothing we can do about it.
I didn't then go on to judge anything individually or as a group. Not sure where you got that from?
I was just saying that in the same way we can't do anything about Mantle, we can't do anything about the other technologies either (unless you're involved in developing any of them). So if we can't do anything about them, why worry about them?
Why worry about DX12? What are we gonna do about that?
What about G-Sync, what can we do about that?
Or 'FreeSync' anything we can do about that?
We can't do anything about OpenGL either, so why worry about it?

Why is worrying about what Mantle might become and different to worrying about what DX12 might become?
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
It wasn't really out of context, you said "So we should all start worrying about that right now and do what exactly, nothing that's what.", talking about Mantle.
I agreed that there's nothing we can do about it.
I didn't then go on to judge anything individually or as a group. Not sure where you got that from?
I was just saying that in the same way we can't do anything about Mantle, we can't do anything about the other technologies either (unless you're involved in developing any of them). So if we can't do anything about them, why worry about them?
Why worry about DX12? What are we gonna do about that?
What about G-Sync, what can we do about that?
Or 'FreeSync' anything we can do about that?
We can't do anything about OpenGL either, so why worry about it?

Why is worrying about what Mantle might become and different to worrying about what DX12 might become?
Click to expand...

Well i took at as being sarcastic so im at fault there.

Some technologies can be directly influenced by the user when they are not inherently included in the main product, like NV 3D, AMD 3D which require separate payments by the user.

As worrying is a matter of priority and Mantle is like a new born 6 month old baby compared to the other APIs and the particular aspect of what you were saying is like worrying that will He/she put enough money aside for He/she own coffin when He/she gets older, while valid, its just seems a bit premature when there will be more immediate things to worry about.

Trying to save mantle from the possible fate as DX/OpenGL is like saying dont clean the house because it will only get dirty again, just let the dirt keep building up and do our best to hide it, sometimes someone has to try to start clean a slate again regardless, even if does not totally do the job and there are stains remaining, its still progress.

Its seems that both DX and OpenGL have become a mess from different angles, Mantle in time has a right to make its own mess.
 
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Final8y said:
Well i took at as being sarcastic so im at fault there.

Some technologies can be directly influenced by the user when they are not inherently included in the main product, like NV 3D, AMD 3D which require separate payments by the user.

As worrying is a matter of priority and Mantle is like a new born 6 month old baby compared to the other APIs and the particular aspect of what you were saying is like worrying that will He/she put enough money aside for He/she own coffin when He/she gets older, while valid, its just seems a bit premature when there will be more immediate things to worry about.

Trying to save mantle from the possible fate as DX/OpenGL is like saying dont clean the house because it will only get dirty again, just let the dirt keep building up and do our best to hide it, sometimes someone has to try to start clean a slate again regardless, even if does not totally do the job and there are stains remaining, its still progress.

Its seems that both DX and OpenGL have become a mess from different angles, Mantle in time has a right to make its own mess.
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Yep, all seems fair.
I still think they should learn a lesson from OpenGL (and to some degree DX) and try to avoid the mistake rather than make the same mistake and say "Well everyone else got to make this mistake so we thought we should be allowed to too".
Also, being in it's infancy doesn't stop people moaning and worrying about DX12 which is even younger. And a lot of it seems to be because there are also APIs with the same name coming out for the WB1 and tablet PCs. Even though I doubt any of these people have any proof that they will share any code (well there may be some code sharing between the XB1 and PC as the XB1 is a subset of a PC really).


OpenGL is an interesting one really. I think a lot of people agree that in theory a cross-vendor cross-platform API is a great idea. But the current implementation of OpenGL is not ideal. So what you really want is a complete re-write of OpenGL, from scratch. But then it wouldn't be compatible with any existing OpenGL games (probably). Given the issues they've had with the way it's run I think it would struggle even if written from scratch and would take even longer than DirectX 12. On the plus side it could really help platforms such as Linux if there was a decent API for it so I'm sure Valve would be behind it. It's reputation probably wouldn't help it any though!
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
Yep, all seems fair.
I still think they should learn a lesson from OpenGL (and to some degree DX) and try to avoid the mistake rather than make the same mistake and say "Well everyone else got to make this mistake so we thought we should be allowed to too".
Also, being in it's infancy doesn't stop people moaning and worrying about DX12 which is even younger. And a lot of it seems to be because there are also APIs with the same name coming out for the WB1 and tablet PCs. Even though I doubt any of these people have any proof that they will share any code (well there may be some code sharing between the XB1 and PC as the XB1 is a subset of a PC really).


OpenGL is an interesting one really. I think a lot of people agree that in theory a cross-vendor cross-platform API is a great idea. But the current implementation of OpenGL is not ideal. So what you really want is a complete re-write of OpenGL, from scratch. But then it wouldn't be compatible with any existing OpenGL games (probably). Given the issues they've had with the way it's run I think it would struggle even if written from scratch and would take even longer than DirectX 12. On the plus side it could really help platforms such as Linux if there was a decent API for it so I'm sure Valve would be behind it. It's reputation probably wouldn't help it any though!
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Lessons are learned but new mistakes are made, 2 steps forward one step back.

A new APi does have to have backwards compatibility, just keep the old one around as well for the older games.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
Wait...I'm not up to speed regarding Windows 9...so M$ is making it subscription based rather then selling it as a one off product!? Damn...I guess they really want to avoid the situation of people using a decent enough OS for a decade+ like the XP :rolleyes:
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Just like Adobe has done with their Creative Suite products. All the new versions (Creative Cloud) are a subscription service. It seems to be the future.
 
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