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OpenGL 3.2
Saturday, August 8, 2009 | Permalink
Having been on vacation I'm a bit late to the party, but OpenGL 3.2 has been released and the specs are available
here.
I like the progress OpenGL has made lately and it looks like the API is fully recovering from the years where it was falling behind. If Khronos can keep up this pace OpenGL will remain a relevant API. I hope the people behind GLEW and GLEE get up to speed though because neither have implemented OpenGL 3.1 yet. In the past I rolled my own extension loading code, but was hoping to not have to do that and use libraries like the above. Looks like I might have to do my own in the future as well just to be able to use the latest and greatest.
blah
Saturday, August 8, 2009
That's what I hate most about GL. You need to query extensions to use any GPU innovation from the last decade. So lame.
Eosie
Saturday, August 8, 2009
And you even need to turn on your computer to be able to use it. So lame.
I mean, the extension queries don't matter...
Sopyer
Saturday, August 8, 2009
I am not so sure that OpenGL is moving in right direction. They excluded functionality from core which does not have any substitutes(DisplayLists). They removed immediate mode - one of the most usefull feature, especially for quick prototyping and low performance code like fullscreen quads. And more to say immediate rendering mode is the first feature that beginers start to use. OpenGL was always beginers friendly, but it seems in future this will be fixed. This decisions are strange for me. OpenGL is losing it distict features, only to get on par with DirectX. Well we will have one more DirectX, only cross-platform...
Wheret
Saturday, August 8, 2009
"Well we will have one more DirectX, only cross-platform..."
Well isn't that great?
Sopyer
Sunday, August 9, 2009
But who said that DirectX is great API? Especially for simple tasks. And by the way DirectX does has DisplayList - this is so called deffered contexts in DX11. Why OpenGL should mimic some API that was inferior to it in underlying concepts(not features)? Another example is flexability of buffer objects in OpenGL does not have any match in DX, though DX improved this a bit in DX10.0 and later versions. Of course OpenGL is not without flaw. I think that many will agree that it does need some unified object system. And well we still do not have one, if I remember correctly.
Humus
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Extension querying is not much of an issue if you start by requiring a base OpenGL version. Then you only have to check any extensions you need on top of what the core API provides.
Sopyer, I can see someone missing display lists (although I don't), but immediate mode is quite a burden for the driver without providing any functionality that can't be done using other means. I say good riddance. Yes, for some quick prototyping it can be convenient, but there's nothing preventing you from creating a small class that builds a vertex buffer from immediate mode calls. It's like an hour of work.
Sopyer
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Humus, I know that it is possible to create small class to immitate immediate mode, but
1) this should do 99% of all programmers
2) this affects learning curve - which I think is essential for API to succeed without heavy marketing support of some monopolic corporation.
3) well I agree that we do pay for simplicity by increased driver complexity, but if this functionality is implemented in user space and shared between different drivers version why not? Who said that every driver version should reimplement all the parts?
By the way don't you immitate display list in your game engine? For example to implement some sort of effect system? When you first record states, textures, samplers for some techniques? I think is quite common too.
Overlord
Sunday, August 9, 2009
@Sopyer: with everything that has been happening in glsl (especially 1.40) and the removal of immediate mode i think we are heading towards having a "unified object system", as the only big thing left to change is texturing.
And seeing as it was less than one year ago version 3.0 was released, i think they have a plan and sticking to it, so things are moving pretty fast now, so fast that i would even presume to guess that in about two years everything will end up in one beautiful graphics crescendo that is openGL 4.0
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