DirectX9 - For More Than Just Gamers?

Xev writes "HEXUS.net are showing a review of a new product called 3DEdit. This uses the DirectX 9 3D rendering engine; 3D transitions; DirectX 9 Shader-based filters, in order to give you a powerful home DV editing suite. This proves a lot more value to me as a Video editor than a card which just lets me play the latest games. Perhaps there is more use for these cards even at a consumer level?"

And?

[Darren Winsper]

Using DirectX to create a horribly non-standard and ugly interface? Meh, it's been done before.

Perhaps you will come to this conclusion?

[delta_avi_delta]

Perhaps there is more use for these cards even at a consumer level?"

Is it just me, or has almost every second story today had some kind of spurious leading comment tagged on to the end?

Give me facts dammit, I can make my own opinions from there!

Re:Typo

[Carthag]

If it were only a typo it wouldn't really be a problem. However, a and e aren't nearly close enough for this to be anything but ignorance. :)

OpenGL

[Glock27]

OpenGL stands for "Open Graphics Library". Microsoft did Direct3D as a way to lock 3D content into the Microsoft platform. Only id Software's stance on OpenGL for gaming saved the day. At the time, even Microsoft admitted that OpenGL was more appropriate for "professional" 3D apps like CAD. Now I'm sure they'd like to lure developers into using Direct3D for professional apps, just as this developer has done.

Developers should use OpenGL in preference to Direct3D if they want cross-platform compatibility, or simply to use a better API. One way to do this that provides a lot of flexibility is to choose a high-level scene graph library that uses OpenGL or Direct3D at a low level.

OpenGL apps run on Windows, MacOS and Linux. OpenGL has always been "For More Than Just Gamers".

Has it really gotten to the point

[the_skywise]

That it's faster to render the 3D controls than to do a 2D paint of them? Even the article points out that it restricts the user to specific hardware configurations and shuts out traditionally popular cards for video editing. All for a "purty" interface.

The underlying workings of 3D Edit mean that it is picky what platform it runs on. There's a long list of compatible graphics cards on Tenomichi's website at http://www.tenomichi.com/Compatible.htm. Essentially, a DirectX 9 adapter is required, which currently doesn't include any of Matrox's graphics cards.

consumer level?!

[Anita Coney]

Did the poster even read the review? The machine 3D Edit was tested on had dual Xeon CPUs running at 3.06GHz with 1MByte L3 cache, water cooling, 2 gigs of RAM, 15,000rpm SCSI hard drives, and a Radeon X800 XT.

Exactly how many CONSUMERS have THAT system?!

Re:Yeah, maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

The capacity checking in OpenGL is .. the API which checks for extensions being present. Surely.

Re:OpenGL

[robocrop]

Filtering through the "open source" - and therefore anything with the word "open" in it - fanatacism:

Microsoft did Direct3D as a way to lock 3D content into the Microsoft platform. Only id Software's stance on OpenGL for gaming saved the day.

First, while I certainly won't defend MS's business practices, it's more than a bit short-sighted to say MS only created D3D to "lock" developers onto Windows. MS wanted to grow Windows as a gaming platform (beyond crap like WinG) so they made their own accelerated API. One could certainly argue that the existence of D3D has pushed OpenGL to stay modern and competitive, so has been twofold beneficial.

Second, where does this nonsense about id saving OpenGL come from? OpenGL has always had plenty of users - as you mention it is consistently used in CAD tools. There is no valid reason, other than fanboyism, to believe that OpenGL would have died if Carmack hadn't used it in his games. And there are other people who have used OpenGL to make their games work on multiple platforms (which, by the way, is usually a very hard sell to your publisher).

Developers should use OpenGL in preference to Direct3D if they want cross-platform compatibility, or simply to use a better API

What a smooth, effortless transition from fact to propaganda.

As a person who has written numerous game engines, I can attest to the fact that OpenGL is - for me - not a better API. It is convoluted and over-complicated by the very fact that it is an "open" standard, decided upon by a committee of people who wouldn't know good design if it bit them in the rear.

Just the fact that most of the features easily found in D3D cannot be accessed in OpenGL, years after their invention, without the use of custom extensions is enough to throw me off the API.

If you want to use OpenGL that's your right. But it is not an objectively better API any more than Mac is objectively better than PC, Linux objectively better than Windows, or any of the other /. propaganda that we consistently read.

Re:OpenGL

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck finding a modern video card with OpenGL drivers in a world where gaming didn't make it profitable to produce an OpenGL implementation.