[MSDN Blogs] Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics - Page 3

Originally Posted by danewfie 

OpenGL has been on windows platform since 95 as far as I can remember. Microsoft makes software ... not hardware.

Originally Posted by tompsonn 

Maybe Microsoft should do an OpenGL wrapper over the top of DirectX (for ARM that is) - so it keeps everything API compatible for those who want to use OpenGL, but everything really just ends up still going to DirectX.
I'm pretty sure WINE does this, but the other way round so it could be possible. Might not be practical but.
Although that's probably going to perform like crap.

Originally Posted by drbaltazar 

sadly a lot of accelerated stuff is bugged,check html5 in youtube or ms or other ms accelerated stuff .full of artifact so bad i have to disable acceleration ,same for fla*****hey will have to find a failsafe way to make this work if i have to go back to flash to view a tube nicelly why would i bother !

Originally Posted by lordikon 

DirectX is not far superior, but it does have some advantages. As I already said, developers will have to weigh if those advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Food for thought, most games are multiplatform these days, which means many are utilizing OpenGL already for other platforms. Do they utilize DirectX just on PC when the OpenGL they have working for various other platforms will work fine? Let's say you're making a game for the following platforms:
Android (OpenGL ES 1, 2)
iOS (OpenGL ES 1, 2)
Mac (OpenGL)
Linux (OpenGL)
PC (DirectX, OpenGL)
Why use DirectX? Many developers may not. And if DirectX is all that Windows Phone accepts, I can see developers passing on that. If that does indeed become a trend, DirectX would start to fade (more than it already is).
Just Googled this, apparently I'm not alone in this thought:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Game-Makers-Seek-Death-of-DirectX-AMD-Says-190632.shtml
http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX
http://themacgamer.com/2011/03/29/opengl-vs-directx-huddy-vs-carmack/
http://www.tested.com/news/news/483-opengl-vs-directx-the-graphics-api-wars-begin-anew/
Anyhow, the change I'm talking about is still 5-10 years off, but all I know is that many games these days aren't PC-only, so most developers are already using OpenGL. And honestly I wouldn't care which graphics API wins out the war, I just want one graphics API on as many platforms as possible.
Only if the OS allows it. I don't believe Windows Phone will allow OpenGL, it would affect hardware/software cost for the phone itself, and make debugging tools more difficult for MS to create and support for developers.
There are plenty more OpenGL games out there than there are DirectX, Microsoft has an advantage only in the more hardware of markets right now with PC-only games.

Originally Posted by BizzareRide 


I would love to see a chart where game revenue is concerned regarding each API. I wager the market revenue generated by DirectX-powered titles would mirror Microsoft's PC stronghold versus competing operating systems.

Mobile is not really a threat to DirectX simply because investing isn't up to par with the PC counterparts and I don't see mobile investment ever reaching PC/Console levels because the mobile market is far more price-sensitive than we are when it comes to games. We, console and PC gamers alike, spend more on hardware [for gaming] thus we spend more on gaming software which, in turn, drives hardware and software development... With mobile, you're paying for a service and that service will cost you $1200 a year + the initial price of the hardware.

OGL supporting cross-platform doesn't guarantee compatibly, either. There are different OGL implementations all of which can vary, even on Android hardware due to hardware fragmentation. If you write a game in Objective-C for iOS, then later decide to release it to Android, it would be no easier than porting it from a DX library.

I want DX to remain the de facto standard for games because it forces consistency, coherency, and compatibility that you don't get with OGL. Not to mention I feel Microsoft takes better care of their developers because of the tools. I've used Eclipse, Netbeans, and Wing(Python) and none of them compare to the ease of use, productivity, and power of Visual Studio.

Originally Posted by BizzareRide 

I would love to see a chart where game revenue is concerned regarding each API. I wager the market revenue generated by DirectX-powered titles would mirror Microsoft's PC stronghold versus competing operating systems.
Mobile is not really a threat to DirectX simply because investing isn't up to par with the PC counterparts and I don't see mobile investment ever reaching PC/Console levels because the mobile market is far more price-sensitive than we are when it comes to games. We, console and PC gamers alike, spend more on hardware [for gaming] thus we spend more on gaming software which, in turn, drives hardware and software development... With mobile, you're paying for a service and that service will cost you $1200 a year + the initial price of the hardware.
OGL supporting cross-platform doesn't guarantee compatibly, either. There are different OGL implementations all of which can vary, even on Android hardware due to hardware fragmentation. If you write a game in Objective-C for iOS, then later decide to release it to Android, it would be no easier than porting it from a DX library.
I want DX to remain the de facto standard for games because it forces consistency, coherency, and compatibility that you don't get with OGL. Not to mention I feel Microsoft takes better care of their developers because of the tools. I've used Eclipse, Netbeans, and Wing(Python) and none of them compare to the ease of use, productivity, and power of Visual Studio.

Originally Posted by mushroomboy 

You think porting DX to different platforms would be easy as well? The ONLY reason it's easy to "port" from an xbox to a win box is because MS runs both hosts. They can make it unique, across what two platforms? Could you imagine OSX, Linux, Android, or any other company deciding to follow exact specifications so that MS has full control? Even when they have full control, you get games that have 0day patches on PC because one GFX card doesn't do something the same way as another card. Guess what, both cards are from the same brand running the same drivers (for simplicity 480/580). How does that work if it's so easy to port things? You would think the OS handles all that, easy peasy. Well it isn't, the only thing is DX has had more people deciding to work on it. OGL is relatively easy to port across platforms, just so happens we have multiple developer opsys doing things their own way with their own code. You can't expect the games to be made the same, they can't be. Honestly, if the people were forced to use DX like OGL is used it would be hacked up and just as messy. People would create their own pieces to fill in gaps, or hack parts together to do what they want. Next thing you know is you'll have complaints about porting DX versions off different platforms because they don't do things the same. That's life, that'll always be there unless you decide to force people do to things by a single set of standards across the board.

Originally Posted by lordikon 

I'd like to see the same chart.
The only platforms currently using DirectX are:
Windows desktop
Windows Phone 8
Xbox 360 (XNA), and Xbox 360 full SDK uses something close to DirectX
Windows Phone 8 isn't making any money yet. So it's basically DirectX PC games and Xbox 360 versus almost every other platform out there. The Wii and PS3 combined easily outweigh the Xbox 360 in terms of sales. So you have DirectX PC games vs Mac/Linux/iOS/Android/OpenGL PC games. I'm not so sure PC games are doing well enough to outweigh all of those markets, and many PC games aren't using DirectX, or not using it exclusively.

Originally Posted by lordikon 

Good effort on Microsoft's part, but I really wish they'd start to phase out DirectX for OpenGL. With so many developers moving towards mobile development, Microsoft is hurting itself by having the only hardware in the market that doesn't support OpenGL. It costs developers extra time and money to abstract their rendering system so that their apps will run on both DX and OpenGL, and seeing as Windows Phone isn't nearly the most profitable, there is little reason for developers to make that effort. If MS allowed OpenGL then you could have almost the same set of code for an iOS, Android, and Windows Phone application. This is less of an issue with the desktop OS, as it can run OpenGL, but what happens is that if the developer is sticking with OpenGL to make development easier for them, they will not see the benefits of these improvements Microsoft is making regarding DirectX. This even extends out into the console market with next-gen consoles, IMO. There's a reason why companies like iD have made their engine use OpenGL, because they're developing for multiple platforms, mobile, desktop, and not just Windows. I'll admit that DirectX is easier to use, and has good performance, but I'm not sure if that's enough of a reason these days in an industry that is shifting away from platform specific IDEs and APIs.

Originally Posted by Mygaffer 


OpenGL as a graphical API is lagging behind DirectX in terms of functionality.

Originally Posted by lordikon 

Not really, or at least not enough to matter. How many games are even using the latest DirectX features anyway? Considering that a large segment of the market couldn't even use those features, many devs are still targeting DX9/10.
Also, OpenGL 4.x supports everything that DX 11.1 supports.
Don't get me wrong guys, if I had to choose one API to rule them all, it would be DirectX. However, DirectX is limited to only a couple of platforms, OpenGL is not. And as I've already said a few times in this thread, devs are having to use OpenGL anyway, so why would they also use DirectX when OpenGL will work on Windows and all of the other platforms they're aiming for (except Xbox and WP8)?