Re:AMD says DirectX is hobbling PC graphics
by lloeki on Saturday March 19, 2011 @06:30PM
(#2344934)
"There was the OpenGL/DirectX debate, but even Carmack suggests that without an active SGI pushing it forward that DirectX has eclipsed OpenGL it in terms of capability."
Ironically it's the higher level of DirectX that Carmack praises nowadays, with its very high level tools, development process and general approach. In that regard I've always found OpenGL to be closer to the metal than DX while still being hardware independent, in the sense that C is hardware independent as opposed to assembly. DX always struck me as "more managed" in some way. I'm not a seasoned 3d developer though, and have been mostly hacking stuff around.
"So for a graphics architecture type at ATI(AMD) to get his or her cool feature in production, they have to design it, build it, convince Microsoft to add it to DirectX..."
In that regard OpenGL evolution works a bit more like the recent HTML and CSS history in that chip maker creates a driver which provides current standard OpenGL calls and a bunch of innovative proprietary extensions, readily available right now, just like -webkit-* and -moz-* CSS stuff.
Ironically it's the higher level of DirectX that Carmack praises nowadays, with its very high level tools, development process and general approach. In that regard I've always found OpenGL to be closer to the metal than DX while still being hardware independent, in the sense that C is hardware independent as opposed to assembly. DX always struck me as "more managed" in some way. I'm not a seasoned 3d developer though, and have been mostly hacking stuff around.
"So for a graphics architecture type at ATI(AMD) to get his or her cool feature in production, they have to design it, build it, convince Microsoft to add it to DirectX..."
In that regard OpenGL evolution works a bit more like the recent HTML and CSS history in that chip maker creates a driver which provides current standard OpenGL calls and a bunch of innovative proprietary extensions, readily available right now, just like -webkit-* and -moz-* CSS stuff.