Some generic questions...

[mito]

Not sure where to post these newbie questions, so here I go:

1. Future games will use more D3D or OpenGL?
2. When will ATI release a fully opengl optimized driver? Omegas?
3. Is d3d's sm2.0 different from opengl's sm2.0?
4. In a few words, what's the main difference between opengl and d3d?
5. What recent games only use OpenGL? Riddick?

Thank you.

 

[digitalwanderer]

5. What recent games only use OpenGL?

Doom3

 

[Guden Oden]

1. Future games will use more D3D or OpenGL?

D3D almost exclusively apart from those that are made on the Doom3 engine and a few others. Some will likely offer a choice of both; Far Cry has renderers for both APIs and the Unreal games have had both too (and even more variants in the past I might add, like Metal, Glide and PowerSGL). Unreal3 is prolly D3D-exclusive now though.

2. When will ATI release a fully opengl optimized driver?

What you mean "optimized"? It IS optimized already, been for years. Only eejits believe the other eejits who say ATi's OGL drivers aren't optimized.

Of course, the task of optimizing any piece of software is almost never-ending. It took years, if not decades to fully explore as simple a machine as the Commodore C64, much less today's GPUs, which are moving targets that get updated on a yearly basis...

Omegas?

Don't make me LOL... The drivers are binary files that can't be changed by users, screwing with the inf files don't count as "optimizing" a driver. This "omega" dude takes himself far too seriously.

3. Is d3d's sm2.0 different from opengl's sm2.0?

Only on the driver level.

4. In a few words, what's the main difference between opengl and d3d?

Sort of like the difference between Reebook and Nike sneakers. Different brands with some comfort differences that in the end do the same thing.

 

[mito]

5. What recent games only use OpenGL?

Doom3

Interesting. Considering doom3, why do some ATI cards outperform nvidia cards considering that nvidia is better at opengl?

 

[Diplo]

Considering doom3, why do some ATI cards outperform nvidia cards considering that nvidia is better at opengl?

Erm, because they are faster?

 

[mito]

Considering doom3, why do some ATI cards outperform nvidia cards considering that nvidia is better at opengl?

Erm, because they are faster?

I was considering equivalent cards. An 5900 is equivalent to an 9800pro. In theory, that gforce should outperform the 9800pro if running opengl games. That's what I meant.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I was considering equivalent cards. An 5900 is equivalent to an 9800pro. In theory, that gforce should outperform the 9800pro if running opengl games.

Problem, the 5950 ultra supremo edition isn't even a fair match up against a 9700 pro....the whole FX series really were dogs compared to the R3xx line-up.

It's different this time around with the 6800/X800, but last round it really was all one-sided in which was the out-and-out far superior architecture.

 

[mito]

digi,

what's your opinion on the 5700ultra?

 

[digitalwanderer]

digi,

what's your opinion on the 5700ultra?

I've never used one, so I don't really have one....'cept a couple of good friends of mine who's opinions I trust have spanked me about it and swore up and down it was about the best card for price/performance of the whole FX line-up.

The 5700 ultra ain't supposed to be that bad of a card, but I've never used one. I only used a 5900 np and the same 5900 np flashed to 5950 ultra. (Which usually is in my son's system, but I have it on my shelf right now for a much needed cleaning. )

 

[Humus]

Not sure where to post these newbie questions, so here I go:

1. Future games will use more D3D or OpenGL?
2. When will ATI release a fully opengl optimized driver? Omegas?
3. Is d3d's sm2.0 different from opengl's sm2.0?
4. In a few words, what's the main difference between opengl and d3d?
5. What recent games only use OpenGL? Riddick?

Thank you.

1. Probably. But I think the pendulum will swing back a bit to OpenGL in the future, mostly people that previously switched to D3D move back now that there are good cross-vendor extensions for shaders, vertex buffer and other important things. D3D's advantage of "single API for the same features" is mostly gone.
2. What's the criterion for a driver to be considered "fully" optimized?
3. There's no such thing as "OpenGL sm2.0". It has equivalent functionality, but with a different API layout and language semantics.
5. Riddick, yes. Doom3 was mentioned. Many small titles.

 

[akira888]

ATI cards typically beat Nvidia cards in Doom3 in vertex processing limited situations (ie low res/no AA) as ATI cards have been faster at that since the 8500/GF3TI days. If on the other hand you're bottlenecked by fillrate then the double pumped z/stencil of the NV cards gives the performance advantage back to the Geforces.

 

[Guden Oden]

...But only if you're drawing lots of Z and/or stencil stuff, of course. Otherwise, it could be bajillion-pumped and still wouldn't be any faster.

 

[cristic]

Serious Sam's default renderer is OpenGL, isn't it ? And Warcraft 3 has renderer for both APIs.

 

[AlNom]

Bioware seems to only like OpenGL on PC also.

 

[Reverend]

4. In a few words, what's the main difference between opengl and d3d?

Carmack.

See, I only used one word.

 

[XxStratoMasterXx]

4. In a few words, what's the main difference between opengl and d3d?

Carmack.

See, I only used one word.

Wasn't he close to switching to D3D? I wonder why he didn't?

 

[digitalwanderer]

4. In a few words, what's the main difference between opengl and d3d?

Carmack.

See, I only used one word.

It's funny because it's true!

 

[ChrisRay]

World of Warcraft also has opengl option.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Any compelling reason to use it?

 

[ChrisRay]

For World of Warcraft? Actually it doesnt seem any different than the Direct3d version. Unfortunately under a DirectX enviroment I sometimes get a multisampling bug with 4x Anti Aliasing that doesnt occur under 2x or 8x. Reinstalling the drivers fix it. It doesnt happen always and it only occurs in World of Warcraft. And a driver reinstall fixes it.

But this never occurs in OpenGL mode. Other than that they are exactly the same. Both offer the same rendering features and perform pretty much the same. It's hard to say because World of Warcraft is extremely CPU limited on my setup.

I get pretty much the same results with my 9800 Pro in the second computer. So to answer your question. Assuming you're not experience bugs with DirectX version. Theres no reason to use it. But under the same conclusion. There arent any reasons not to use it since offers exactly the same features/rendering as the DirectX version. I am pretty sure the only reason its there is because Blizzard supports macintosh which exclusively uses the OpenGL mode. They reccomend using OpenGL as troubleshooting step.