An Open Source Direct3D 8.0 Wrapper for Open GL 247
Jason writes: "RealTech-VR, creators of the V3X 3D engine, also developed a Direct3D-to-OpenGL wrapper and they have now open sourced their work. They are seeking for more hackers to help porting the wrapper to Linux and MacOS. A lot of the functionality of Direct3D is already ported but it still needs quite some work. Get the scoop at OSNews."
Interview with RealTech-VR (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interview with RealTech-VR (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nice... (Score:1)
Re:Nice... (Score:1)
I don't know about this wrapper - but Transgaming's wrapper provides great speed for D3D->OpenGL conversion. Sure it isn't 100%, but with my decent system (1.2GHz TBird GF3TI500)games like Tony Hawk2 run Great!
I would say that this thing has great promise - it provides some competition to Transgaming/Winex and competition is always good.
Derek
Re:Nice... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is similar to what VMWare does for the Win32 API, isn't it? Performance there is a bit slower, but it's perfectly acceptable. As a mac guy, this is absolutely fantastic.
Re:Nice... (Score:1)
Re:Nice... (Score:2, Informative)
I believe that immediate mode is mostly a rasterizer for your polys. You (the programmer) are responsible for maintaining all of your model information, view parameters, and so forth. Whereas retained mode maintains more persistant scene information, making for a more general library.
Anyway, the relevance is that, if retained mode functionality is required, it may take more of a performance hit because there is not a 1:1 correspondance of D3D to OpenGL calls. Keeping in mind, of course, that D3D Retained mode does this in software also, so I would imagine that a well-implemented wrapper could actually improve performance.
I guess the question is, does anyone use retained mode?
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
the point is that the nice thing about D3D is that it is supported by most vendors now look on a box that a game came in you will find that they require Direct X version 99.8 (-;
the point is that although the API changes it can do the old api's in emulation
much like OpenGL 2.0 will do
all I hope is that ATI's String based extensions to OpenGL get in 2.0 rather than NVidia's so we aren't tied to their hardware
D3D is crap(ish) what make Direct X so good is all the other API's like sound and input (OpenIL and OpenAL be damned as they just dont have the people leading them)
so I have high hopes for the OpenGL ARB to produce something nice that IBM/SONY/APPLE/SUN/HP/3Dlabs can rock Microsoft's little world
try haveing a look at
http://www.3dlabs.com/support/developer/ogl2/inde
regards
john jones
Re:Nice... (Score:2, Informative)
And as to your question about it being comparable to Wine (you mean Wine, and not VMWare right?), the answer is no, it isn't. It is source-code compatibility rather than binary compatibility. The code will need to be natively compiled to run on that platform. The only benefit is that you don't have to rewrite the 3D code because doesn't support Direct3D (only version 8). Wine uses the native Windows application.
Greg
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
because Direct3D doesn't support the platform of your choice?
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
Another poster has already commented on the speed issue (this meaning that Win32 remains the gaming platform of choice, and giving people erroneous reasons to believe why), but y'know what? This really solidifies the standard. No point pushing for that nasty OpenGL just to get the cross-platform stuff, use D3D. Which MS can control and push around however they want, to the detriment of this.
I know that the ship has pretty much sailed on D3D as the standard, I know that cross-platform development at the moment essentially means making sure that the PC stuff can be ported to the X-Box. So I know my objections are essentially irrelevant, but it still makes me sad to see a development that can only help entrench a proprietary standard at the expense of an (apparently adequate and earlier, I'm not a 3D coder) open standard. This is a cool development and a useful development, but so much of what it signifies and what it has the power to create blows.
(Why oh why oh why did the computing world let themselves become enslaved to the morons from Redmond? Oh well, back to trying to pull down their mountain with a toothpick...)
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
In the interview it was said that hopefully somebody will port over other stuff besides Direct3d. I certainly hope so. DirectX makes everything so nice and seamless for the end user.
Re:Nice... (Score:2, Insightful)
It just. . . . rocks.
For the end user at least.
It is uber-sweet to have everything working together.
The ZSNES team went over to DirectX just because it made so much of their life easier. The controllers for starters. . . .
A game that does a -good- job implementing DirectX control does not care how many buttons your joystick has, or how many joysticks you are using at once to control things.
I have seen games where I can switch over dynamically from one controller to another with no problems. Sheeps is nice in this regard.
But that is not what DirectX is all about.
It is about having a -standardized- set of APIs that people can latch on to.
Linux currently has the problem that there are a gazzilion different ways to access damn nearly everything. Sound cards, monitors, and so forth. Sure on the system level they (tend) to have the same way of doing things, but the game programmers cannot just say "heya, latch on to monitor 1 if that is all that is available, but if the person has two monitors latch on to monitor one for the primary view and pop up a dialog box asking the player if they want to have monitor two used for their rearview mirror."
Nor is there just -one- way for a game to ask
"Heya, I notice you have two separate sound cards installed, which one would you like to use for playing this game?"
Of course there ARE game programing APIs to be had, and in fact there are plenty of them.
Which makes it an absolute bitch for game developers to make requests for new features.
Nvidia and ATI were recently able to strong arm Microsoft into including each companies choosen features into DirectX8. (ah, there are also now four pixel shaders versions, ugh. ATI's 1.4 card came out before Nvidia's faster 1.3 card,
still though, all in all having one central target to direct feature requests to is nice. This means that over time ALL of the necessary features will hopefully be added.
But if you have multitudes of API standards, you can either get one that just fits you right with no extra baggage (yah for you) or more likely you will find that some of them have some of the features that you want but none of them have all of the features that you want. (yes sure you can add those features on, open source and all, but shit, then your company is learning a new API, adding to that API, and programming a game for that API, ouch.)
DirectX streamlines stuff. Or at least the complaint and request part of 'stuff'.
It may not be profound, and hell it may be full of bugs (heh, Nvidia cards have had some rather. . . odd. . . issues with DirectX from time to time.
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
One API to bind them all...?
One of Linux's strengths is that there is always more than one way to do something. What if you (as a developer) don't like the way DirectX does something? Tough luck--wait for the next version.
Having only one way to do something is not an advantage, if that way sucks.
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
Having more than one proper way to do something leads to code bloat.
The part I really like about having multiple interfaces is that one of them gets upgraded faster and becomes more robust, and I've usually chosen the other one because it was simpler. So my code gets out of date fast.
One of the worst things Microsoft ever did to Windows was to have multiple, redundant APIs that each did roughly the same thing. You can accomplish the same task with WIN32, MFC, ATL, .NET, and so on down the line. The part that really bothered me was the scatterbrained implementation of multimedia. There were WINMM libraries, media player interfaces, text parsing launchers, direct function calls, and eventually COM wrappers.
If you have one interface, and it's obnoxious and complicated, at least everyone knows what function they have to call.
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
Okay, I'm just tossing this one out to chew on for a second. Other than soundcards, there is a standardized system in Unix to handle input and graphical output. It's called X. X also has incredible extendablity built into it - the most common API people use right now was intended to be a reference implementation. Right now, the RENDER extension is bringing nice 2D effects in.
Well, why not just build DirectX into X? (Yeah, yeah, I know - "Well, get started then", "It's not easy", "MS controls the API"). But I am serious - if DirectX *has* become a working standard, then it should be supported on *nix. And the logical place to support it would be the system that handles all I/O, including graphics and pointing devices, etc. In otherwords, X.
Even add sound to X - sound and video network transparancy is being built into many apps now (KDE's aRts and mcop, VideoLAN, etc), but it really should be at a lower level so all X apps get it.
--
Evan
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
Also X seriously blows when even new input devices are considered, and these are things that were well known even when X was being designed (back then most graphics workstations had a bunch of dials and toggle switches and joysticks). The XDevice interface is a typical "extension" with enormously complex controls that NOBODY uses (this should be apparent as we were forced to make the mouse wheel pretend to click buttons 4 & 5 on the mouse, this interface was better and easier to program for than XDevice and without it I doubt you would see any mousewheel support on Linux).
GL (not OpenGL) had it pretty much right. There should be a call that is "tell me what all the devices are". Each device can produce a single value that is either a number or 0-1 true/false (ie a typical mouse is 5 devices: x, y, and three on/off buttons). Each device has a string name, and it is up to the program to figure out if a device is interesting (ending horizontal things with x and vertical things with y and other pseudo-standards would make this almost transparent to the user). The program can then say "I am interested in this device" and it now gets an X event every time that device changes value. SIMPLE!
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
X is complicated. Hell we all know X is complicated. What is needed is a BeOS like system, or whatever else you may choose.
X is nice, but, uh, isn't it time for Y? Or Z? Or something? I mean standards have to be updated sooner or latter. There is a reason why nobody is using B any more, it was supplanted (rather quickly
Ah, what the computing world REALLY needs though is some sort of cross platform driver set though.
Of course getting ANYBODY to agree to this would be a MAJOR pain.
Microsoft benefits from devices only working on their platform, and a good part of the rest of the computer community is highly unwilling to subscribe to any standard that The Beast Of Redmond also agrees to.
But still, it would make like SO much simplier, and FINALLY allow for TRUE plug and play. (drivers? What drivers? Your video card, sound card, modem, NIC, etc, would all work once plugged in with no fuss what so ever.)
The way such a driver system would most likely work is that it would provide an abstraction layer for the drivers to work on (thus allowing for the platform independency)and then interpret (yes I used a bad bad word.
(basically I am saying write drivers in Java, C#, whatever. ^_^ Not likely Java, can Java even DO things like that??? I mean one device all platform type of a thing, heh. Obviously a custom language would need to be developed, since compatibility would come first.)
Now each platform would THEN be dependent upon providing the driver interface panel and such.
The driver would say
"Give them a Gamma Adjustment option with Settings Such And Such, This and That, and So on And So On." and the individual OS, err, GUI, would be responsible for providing the controls.
Hell even a text based console interface would work, it would just pop up a message saying "heya, buddy, edit this text file here, when your done run this script file and your setting will be loaded".
The idea would be that I could plug in ANY device to ANY computer and have it work, just so long as the connectors matched up.
No more printer issues, no more scanner issues, no more d*mn friggin driver CDs (heh).
Anyways, just an idea, it would be hard to implement and performance would likely take a significant drop (serious limits would be put on hardware based optimizations, since even just putting in flags saying that such and such section of the code is for the Windows plateform and what not would in itself start to cause driver developers to once again start writing for that one platform. . .
(and the desire to keep the additional cost of the ROM chips down would also hopefully encourage companies to stop writing TWENTY FRIGGIN MEGABYTE driver files! What the HELL is up with that????? SHIT. That sucks. A lot. Nobody should not have to wait an hour to download drivers. . . ever. . . . Grrr.
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
Wise installers shove everything under ALL users (uh, BAD) and if any one user tries to remove it from their start menu, it is removed from everybodies start menu. . . .
Suffice to say, leads to clutter.
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
Big Step (Score:2)
Implementation into Wine? (Score:2)
Amen to that! (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if it's a good thing for Wine or not, though, because I couldn't find any details of the license. Wine is released under an artistic style license, so if this thing is GPL (or similar) it couldn't get merged directly into Wine.
However, they seem like nice enough people, so hopefully the Wine folks will check into it... Otherwise, we'll end up with a forked, GPL-compatible version of Wine for gaming, which wouldn't be so bad, but would be less than ideal.
Re:Amen to that! (Score:2)
DirectX wrapping of OpenGL -- too slow? (Score:4, Informative)
Extra layers obviously have that property in general, but I see it as the wrong place to create that cross compatability. The nevrax team has said in the past that they have designed the system to be able to replace the OpenGL bindings with DirectX or gamecube api (what is gc api like?)
I hope that more developers will build games based on Opensource engines as our company is (in-orbit.net)- it has saved us a lot of money and allowed us to focus on gameplay and uniqueness.
Re:DirectX wrapping of OpenGL -- too slow? (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't really matter if that goes down through DrawPrimitive (D3D) or glDrawElements (GL): if that's your bottleneck, the cost is pretty much the same either way.
-dair
Re:DirectX wrapping of OpenGL -- too slow? (Score:2)
SDL integration (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:SDL integration (Score:4, Informative)
Just to provide one example (there are many others): In DirectDraw when you're blitting a sprite, you have the option of flipping it horizontally. There's no way to do that with SDL - you have to store two copies of your sprites if you think you'll want to blit it facing the other way. Or do it by hand each blit, but then you're not geting HW accel.
Now this may be a concious design decision. A complaint I have about DirectX IS that it's interface is sort of boroque. For the most simple of blits, there's a lot of unused parameters, which is kind of irritating, and makes the code harder to read and the interface harder to learn. My initial reaction to SDL was "This is great - it's so easy!" until I started noticing not-so-advanced features that are missing. I've basically concluded that if I want any kind of powerful 2d support I might as well just use OpenGL directly rather than fuck around with SDL's hamstrung (but admittedly very easy to use) interface.
So the upshot: DirectX is a proper superset of the SDL functionality, so writing an SDL plugin for directx would be a losing proposition at best (never minding the issues of adding a second, or on some platforms, third, layer of abstraction in what is already a time-critical interface)
ps: don't even get me started on SDL_mixer
Re:SDL integration (Score:3, Insightful)
SDL has had the ability to create OpenGL contexts for a long time. [csn.ul.ie] And we're talking about Direct3D, not DirectX, so the DirectDraw example doesn't apply.
Re:SDL integration (Score:2)
Re-reading the original message, I can see how you interpreted it that way, and perhaps that's what the poster meant. It was ambiguously written, however, and this was my reading:
"Wow, using this Direct3D wrapper would be great for writing games! But it only provides 3d functionality, I'd like to be able to use SDL for the rest. I hope they integrate these wrappers into SDL so that I can use Direct3D calls for 3D and regular SDL calls for the rest."
In the future you should use that +1 more conservatively, since your response is off topic at best, or just another troll with a +1...
Your implied belief that
See sig. Consider #3 dedicated to you.
Open Source Direct 3D Wrapper Means (Score:1)
Re:Open Source Direct 3D Wrapper Means (Score:1)
Re:Open Source Direct 3D Wrapper Means (Score:1)
Re:Open Source Direct 3D Wrapper Means (Score:2)
Sheesh. Has NO ONE heard of WineX? Mandrake Gaming Edition (incorporating WineX from Transgaming?). Take a look at the list of games that work with WineX. It is impressively long - and it already incorporates a lot of DX8 support in it. There is more wine than that bottled at winehq.
Winehq DOES benefit from Transgaming's work, by the way.
Re:Open Source Direct 3D Wrapper Means (Score:2)
Which version(s) of WineX have you tried? There has recently been the 1.0-2 (which shipped with Gaming Mandrake, and now there is 1.0-3 beta-ish/tester.
good news.. (Score:2)
Re:good news.. (Score:2)
Most 3dfx users (I have a voodoo5) use WickedGL drivers for opengl games.
Count the milliseconds . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
~~~
Direct3D and the Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
Even some game developers I have spoken to seemed pretty positive about the idea. "if only we could do D3D," they said. I think otherwise for the reasons stated above.
And what does this new "wrapper" mean to us? I hope it doesn't mean that Game developers or porting companies don't bother with the OpenGL conversion (when necessary). For if this turns out to be the case I fear the sceneario above may come to pass in the long run. Bottom line is, this scheme seems to still leave 3D on the Macintosh platform vulnerable to the whims of MS.
Re:Direct3D and the Mac (Score:2)
It may already be too late [slashdot.org] to prevent that, I'm afraid.
Doesn't Wine already have such a thing? (Score:1, Interesting)
What about WINE? (Score:3, Informative)
is a subset of WINE.
After all, The Sims uses DirectX and works over WINE. (I'm sorry, I can't find a link.)
Re:What about WINE? (Score:2)
http://www.transgaming.com/gamefaq.php?gameid=9 [transgaming.com] (see the question about running the Windows version of The Sims and the one about expansion packs)
A good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A good idea? (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't really matter - games are already coded with DirectX, and OpenGL already exists. If it is not the best thing (or, rather, the MS thing) the majority will code to DirectX. If you want their games, you have to use the API they use. I don't they will switch to OpenGL even if there are some improvements, because DirectX will always be tied in to Windows more closely than any third-party API.
Mr. Sharumpe
Re:A good idea? (Score:1)
SDL/OpenGL vs DirectX OR the end of open standards (Score:4, Insightful)
So if you see things on the long run, this might be more a damage than a boost to native Linux/OpenSource game-development.
Re:SDL/OpenGL vs DirectX OR the end of open standa (Score:1)
Re:SDL/OpenGL vs DirectX OR the end of open standa (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's just be crazy and say this happens and everyone starts throwing their Windows CDs in the trash. One of two things might happen:
1. Developers say "Let's just keep writing for DirectX, the wrappers work." So what? A Microsoft technology sticks around, but if so many people are leaving Windows, MS won't really have the power to enforce changes to DirectX 9 that would make it incompatible, because the devs will ignore them.
2. Developers decide that since everyone has a linux box anyway, why not write in OpenGL since it would probably be more efficient?
Either way, who cares? A working DirectX wrapper would win users over, and that's a good thing.
Re:SDL/OpenGL vs DirectX OR the end of open standa (Score:2)
Re:SDL/OpenGL vs DirectX OR the end of open standa (Score:2)
1) Microsoft gives up and decides to go cross platform, at which point they continue maintaining DirectX. This still causes problems for free/open software types, because they'd still have to play catch up, but at least it gives people a choice of OS.
2) Devs realize that there are plenty of people who aren't on Windows so they start using an already established cross platform kid (like SDL), or they just do what Id does and roll their own.
Again, it's not that I actually think this is going to happen tomorrow, or at all. All I'm really saying is that a DirectX wrapper is a good thing.
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
It doesn't even have to be better. It just has to be close enough that the benefits of using Linux will outweigh the benefits of using Windows.
Allways nice.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because _THERE_ is the real challenge. Not the polypusher-code to transfer d3d calls to opengl calls. Besides the lefthand-righthand difference between OGL and D3D ofcourse.
D3D is COM based, OpenGL is plain C. Of course, COM is just a pile of C interfaces, but still, coding D3D is using binary objects with methods and properties. OpenGL is just a global canvas with global functions. I sincerely doubt this will ever succeed for 100%.
If it means more game on Linux... (Score:1)
Wouldn't it be quicker... (Score:4, Funny)
Too bad . . . (Score:2, Funny)
Make it a non issue (Score:4, Insightful)
KEEP buying OpenGL games
mod up (Score:2, Redundant)
If you REALLY want games for your system of choice, try voting w/ your money
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Cryptnotic
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:2)
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:2)
My ATI Radeon 8500 get better results than my brother's gf3 does on benchmarks and when playing tribes 2. I don't care that it was released a few months later.
And read this [tech-report.com]
And 3D API's don't provide functionality. 3D Card manufacturers do. D3D can invent any sort of wonderful function they like but if there aren't cards to support it then it is useless. AFAIK nvidia and other card manufacturers are still committed to providing opengl support. Go to nvidia.com and you can read The NVIDIA DetonatorTM XP Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) delivers new performance optimizations and features in both DirectX® and OpenGL®
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:2)
DirectX isn't a bad technology, actually the only real difference inbetween DirectX and OpenGL is that DirectX is not easily expandable by the HWmaker. In OpenGL, Nvidia can add whatever crazy feature they want to their card and provide a function in their OpenGL driver to use it. However, with Direct3D you cann't use that feature until MS updates their API. Advantage OpenGL. However, In Direct3D, all functions that the API specifies work, since they are all emulated with software if the HW doesn't support them.
Really, you have to think of DirectX as a platform, in the same way that the PS2 or the GameCube is a platform.
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:2)
Actually, Microsoft probably paid them to put it on the machine. Unfortunately, that didn't save them from unprofitability.
Cryptnotic
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:2)
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:2)
By the way, I love the Dreamcast. I own 3 of them (2 U.S. and 1 Japanese) and something like 30 games.
Cryptnotic
Re:Make it a non issue (Score:2)
You write as if id [idsoftware.com] is insignificant, which is clearly not the case.
useful? not really (Score:3)
will it help people port to other platforms? doubtful, as they're probably using other ms stuff if they're using DirectX.
will it help people use more advanced features on other platforms? no, since they're just using underlying opengl (and extensions) anyway, which they could do in the first place.
is it more performant? no way - it's another layer of indirection, so it's at least an additional pointer dereference, and extra stuff on the stack.
so i'm left thinking this is a solution in search of a problem. if you want portability, you write to opengl. if you want extensions, you use the _portable_ extension mechanism that opengl already provides. check out nvidia's directx vs opengl extension comparison some time - guess which one has better & more support? hint, it doesn't start with direct..
so, again, why would any sane developer write to this?
(and yes, i read the faq [v3x.net].)
Re:useful? not really (Score:2)
I think at some point Linux will have added enought window's ness and windows will have added enought BSDisms that at some point they will be not that far from each other. Of course that will be the end of the 'OS wars'.
why would (Score:2)
After 7 YEARS (or is it 8, or only 6?) D3D is finally at the performance level of OpenGL(arguably not, seeing as how Q3A STILL outperforms games with similar graphics today).
When D3D was first created by MS, it was an extremely unstable, lousy performing, moving target! And don't even think about upgrading D3D, your current set of games probably won't work! And on top of everything else already wrong with it, it is completely non-portable! Why the fuck did anyone adopt it in the first place?
bullstuff! (Score:2)
Re:bullstuff! (Score:2, Insightful)
If Microsoft had put the effort into the open standard, then they wouldn't be Microsoft, now would they? The whole point of having your own proprietary API is developer lock-in. The sad thing is that developers seem to fall for it pretty frequently.
yup! (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:2, Funny)
What license? (Score:2)
Re:What license? (Score:2)
Taken from dxglwp-src-0.04.zip
/projects/src/d3d.cpp
File: d3d.cpp
Description: Direct3D 8 Wrapper
Copyright: Realtech VR 2001
Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. Realtech makes no representations
about the suitability of this software for any purpose.
It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
WINE integration? (Score:2)
If nothing else, this could pressure TransGaming into putting their Direct3D code into the main WINE tree.
Either way, WINE gets Direct3D support. Check off one more box on the list of things needed for full Windows compatibility. (And then buy native Linux apps anyway because it's a good idea.)
Good, bad, or ugly? (Score:3, Interesting)
So what does this give us? It does NOT give us a WINE implementation of being able to run DirectX apps. Yes, you could integrate the code into WINE but it's meant to wrap functions at the source level, not the executable level. It does give us a wrapper that DirectX code can, for the most part, compile against and product a working Linux/BeOS/Mac exectuable. So for the game developers it might mean their DirectX code will compile on other platforms, but any good game company would have abstracted out their graphics code so it would be API independant. That's what most of them do already and some do offer OpenGL/DirectX selection for rendering. Why they don't produce Linux versions of their apps if they can simply call OpenGL instead isn't clear, but that's their decision.
So are developers going to take DirectX code and compile against this to produce Linux OpenGL executables? I doubt it. Anyone who has coded their graphics sub-system directly against DirectX has probably coded other parts directly against the Windows API and if they haven't ported it to Linux already, they probably won't. Those that already have a clear decoupling of the graphics and the API don't need to and again, if they haven't ported they still won't for whatever reason (most likely support/business cases/etc)
On the flipside, I do applaud what these guys did as it is a big undertaking to wrap a system as big and complex as Direct3D so congrats and perhaps for the garage developer, it might be useful but to those people I say just code in OpenGL in the first place.
liB
Re:Good, bad, or ugly? (Score:2)
I send you this api to have your advice... (Score:4, Informative)
Things to note:
1. D3D is a huge moving target itself
2. This project doesn't support full D3D ( ATI/NV )
3. D3D isn't a 'standard', it's rewritten every release
Keeping these things in mind you won't get your windows games on linux, you won't get a wrapper for D3D for all GL cards, and you won't even get a finished release of this. I don't mean to sound negative, but by the time they have all the NV/ATI extentions supported DX 9.0 and maybe even OpenGL 2.0 will be out with an all new shader systems.
Too bad vertex and pixel shaders won't be used much until another few generations. You have to wait for the target (mainstream) consumers to get at least something like a GF3 or similar first generation consumer card shader support. However, I will say that doesn't mean you won't have some games and applications just requiring you to get a card with support or offer it as a runtime enabled option.
Not much there (Score:5, Informative)
-Gav
--
Gavriel State
CEO & CTO
TransGaming Technologies Inc.
gav@transgaming.com
Re:Not much there (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not much there (Score:2)
>>porting was one thing they did right
What color is the sky in your world?
It may have been 'right' in your eyes, but it was a colossal failure. Remember the total lack of sales, and death of Loki. You may have agreed with their approach, but the fact remains they had to fire all their developers and go bankrupt.
>>None of which will wind up in TransGaming's
>>coffers.
Lets see...... to vote with your gaming dollars you can buy Tux Racer, or........ Tux Racer. Good show old man.
I know it's hard, but try to see past the end of your nose. So instead of having games in emulation (support Transgaming and the work they're doing), you'd rather have them fail because they're not doing it the way you would. So you end up with nothing.
And lets recap.... the way you would do it was the Loki way. Yup - good business plan there.
Re:Not much there (Score:2)
Games are big business. Didn't we just hear that they outdid hollywood last year?
Re:what license (Score:3, Funny)
*
* Copyright (C) 1995-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
*
* File: dsetup.h
* Content: DirectXSetup, error codes and flags
so, whatever license the DirectX SDK comes under I guess.
Re:what license (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Useful... (Score:2)
This is the only game left in town. Loki is tits up. Virtually no one is willing to entertain linux ports of games. Recall that idSoftware tried it and it failed. Few bought the linux versions - they couldn't wait and bought the windoze version instead.
Fortunately, idSoftware still releases linux ports of their game binaries for free but they require you to buy the windoze version to work. With the paucity of linux users willing to actually buy software or their unwillingness to wait a month or 3 for a linux port (ala idSoftware), there is ZERO reason or incentive for anyone to support linux games.
We are left with such things as WineX who are focusing wine development specifically on games (checkout their site, there are quite a few games that run well using WineX. Many do not require windoze at all, even for the install).
If you want linux-native games, it's too late but you COULD try to NICELY encourage companies to do what idSoftware now does and release (unsupported) linux binaries for download. That is more likely to work than trying to get anyone to actually release boxed linux games. WineX and perhaps this DX8 translater are the only game in town (pun intended).
OpenGL does not handle the following: (Score:2)
OpenGL is what we call source-portable...anything that's legal openGL will work any openGL environment. So what's platform-specific in this code?
OpenGL does not handle windowing, that is, actually creating a surface on which to draw. OpenGL also does not handle input (DirectInput), audio (DirectSound/DirectMusic), or video (DirectShow). GLUT handles windowing and video to an extent, but AFAIK, standard GLUT can't go full-screen, read joysticks, or read more than one keyboard key at a time.
Re:OpenGL does not handle the following: (Score:2)
On those old machines, which ran at maybe 5Mhz, the entire interface (buttons, menus, text editing, etc) was done in GL, and as far as I can tell it works as well as modern X does on 1000Mhz machines. And if you wanted 3D you did not have to learn anything new!
Oh well...
Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Karma to burn, baby.
Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux (Score:2)
Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux (Score:2)
Those other YAHOO's must be young punks who have no recollection of the phrase, "DOS ain't done til Lotus don't run". Isn't that flying on a flag in Redmond somewhere(joke).
LoB
Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux (Score:2)
Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux (Score:2)
liB
Re:Just what we DON'T need, MS API's in Linux (Score:2)
I agree that in the short term this might look like a good thing but look at history. They push/change/break their own API's to keep the competition one step behind.
If you start "talking" the Microsoft Windows language (API's) on Linux then your just stepping in line and following the piper. And he's leading you over the cliff.
By the way, I NEVER said this was FROM MICROSOFT. They do control the API's this is being built to.
Do some research and see what Microsoft does.
LoB
Re:usefulness? (Score:2)
Give me a break! This is NOT a troll. I am dead-ass serious. It is also a FACT, inescapable, that NO linux game company (an now porting company) has suceeded. It is disheartening but it is VERY true nontheless.
You can beg, call, petition all you want for companies to write native linux games but it wont work and cannot work (for the near future certainly). There is NO money in it. Ask Loki and John Carmack, fer Cthulhu's sake! You MIGHT get lucky with a couple vendors if you ask nicely for free, unsupported linux binaries for some games ala idSoftware, but anything else? Yeah right, been there, tried that, failed IN EVERY CASE.
Troll my ass, just the ugly facts (AND I WANT/BOUGHT LINUX GAMES IDIOT MODERATOR!).
Re:usefulness? (Score:2)
If there was a true Linux gaming company, I think we'd see different results. We'll see what happens when TuxRacer comes out.
Re:usefulness? (Score:2)
Heh...TuxRacer?! Yes, lets have tuxracer vs Unreal II, Call of Cthulhu, Doom III (ok, Doom III being an idSoftware child will end up with an unsupprted linux binary for download), WarCraft III, and the like.
TuxRacer may be cute but it is simply not comparable to the likes of games coming or available for doze. I understand that a subpop actually likes senseless arcade games ala centipede, etc, but come on. I can only hope that TuxRacer acts as merely a springboard for real cool, technically complex games like those mentioned above.
I would argue that id was not just a porting operation when they dipped into the linux game market. They were developing both versions, but the linux version, by necessity, having a lower priority due to the market size, took a few months longer. This was precisely the reason it (linux games) came stillborn! Linux users were NOT willing to wait a measly 2 months for a native version. They just HAD to have it NOW and, of course, once you have the game for doze, why the hell would you pay again to get the native linux version? Linux gamers are too impatient and/or unwilling to pay for games. I love linux and the whole opensource thing but it is NOT the answer to everything and you MUST be willing to pay for good games if you want them to continue coming. Too often the overall linux crowd seems to get indignant that they can't just download a cool game for free (as if the Constitution or Bill of Rights - or equivalent - assures this should be so).
IF linux can gain on the desktop to an appreciable extent (and it must be able to AT LEAST match the Apple market share) THEN commercial games will start to trickle in. Look at Apple! They do only have a small piece of the desktop pie and naturally, games are fewer. You expect equal to windoze treatment for linux even though it's desktop share is a fraction of Apple's? Pure wishful thinking...and not logical or reasonable.
Gain more of a hold on the desktop and ask companies to provide linux binaries ala idSoftware. If they try to release linux boxed games, they will fail financially (see idSoftware and ask Carmack). It, of course, would be GREAT to get boxed games with Mac, Doze, and Linux binaries in the same package, on the same CD but even that is asking a lot given the desktop linux penetration to date and the examples of Loki, id, and a couple other noble attempts. I cannot hold out hope for a simplistic arcade game (TuxRacer) to somehow be the savior of linux gaming.