Question For Grey Alien - OpenGL?
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Question For Grey Alien - OpenGL?
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| Jake, In your professional opinion would you (BFG) ship a game that requires OpenGL support? Thanks for your insight on this. |
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| I can't 100% answer that, you'd have to ask the developer relations people. I would say it's not that likely simply because "back in the day" OpenGL was not as well supported. It is better supported but many people are still playing casual games on older machines. Even if BFG would take it, you have to add up the lost sales due to incompatibility. That's why I chose DirectX 7. |
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| I'd forget OpenGL for a casual 2D game. Unless you want it to not work on older hardware and have a load of chargebacks/poor conversion rate. If you're writing a 3D game that pushes the boundaries of modern hardware, OpenGL would be fine. |
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| I would say you're incredibly paranoid and that the situation has improved. |
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| OpenGL drivers were a nightmare right before AMD took over ATI, but I'd say they are about the same as DX problems now. |
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| Unless you want it to not work on older hardware and have a load of chargebacks/poor conversion rate. While that may be true (about the speed differences on hardware), you likely aren't going to do anything spectacularly taxing with any driver if you're writing a casual game. |
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| In your professional opinion would you (BFG) ship a game that requires OpenGL support? BFG ships many OpenGL games. Just look on the Mac page *grin* |
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| I would say you're incredibly paranoid and that the situation has improved. Well I have seen OpenGL issues with my own eyes on several target machines before. Of course OpenGL is fine for Mac. |
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| Yah its a pity Windows is less consistent with GL support. Mac and Linux are fine for GL as Gray said. Lots of Windows machines are too, but a bigger percentage with issues. As a ballpark figure what % would you say are problem machines? 20? |
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| It's probably not that high, but every % counts when it adds to the bottom line. |
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| Gotta draw the line somewhere and money isn't everything. |
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| Gotta draw the line somewhere and money isn't everything. To these folks, it is - and I'm not condemning them for that or anything. They have families and themselves to care for, and the cost of living is, unfortunately, not yet $0 (replace $ with your own currency symbol). |
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| and the cost of living is, unfortunately, not yet $0 (replace $ with your own currency symbol). Why? Dollar, Pound, Yen, Euro; zero is zero. |
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| For a niche product, then I guess it wouldn't matter, but otherwise looks like DirectX is the first driver to use still on windows. Thanks for the feedback. |
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| Why? Dollar, Pound, Yen, Euro; zero is zero. Because everytime I don't mention it, someone claims I'm being culturally insensitive. I do not know why. |
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| Yah money is still needed but it's not *everything*. |
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| could just say 0 without the symbol for currency |
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| my god you pedants ;-p |
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| I'd forget OpenGL for a casual 2D game. Unless you want it to not work on older hardware and have a load of chargebacks/poor conversion rate. Gfk, can you define what you meant by "older hardware"? OpenGL worked fine on my crappy old PC (amd 1.1ghz, ati radeon 7000). |
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| The whole currency type thing is really irrelevant, y'know… Yah money is still needed but it's not *everything*. Ideally, money would be unrequired. Unfortunately, my ideals don't seem to jive too well with the rest of the world (apparently I'm surrounded by incredibly conservative people who dislike peaceful living and want power). Gfk, can you define what you meant by "older hardware"? OpenGL worked fine on my crappy old PC (amd 1.1ghz, ati radeon 7000). Probably means a P2 Celeron with Win98 or some piece of junk like that. God, how I hate Celerons.. |
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| my god you pedants ;-p heh heh (;-) |
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| I'd forget OpenGL for a casual 2D game. Unless you want it to not work on older hardware and have a load of chargebacks/poor conversion rate. Gfk, can you define what you meant by "older hardware"? OpenGL worked fine on my crappy old PC (amd 1.1ghz, ati radeon 7000). What does the age of the hardware have to do with it? It all comes down to what kind of OpenGL support Microsoft includes out of the box. The average soccer mom is not going to update her video drivers! |
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| What would the best approach be then, support for both OpenGL (for cross platform support) and DirectX for Windows? |
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| Yep. I would code using the base max2d command set, making sure everything works fine in opengl/directx and then default to DirectX on windows and OpenGL on everything else. |
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| Ideally, money would be unrequired. Unfortunately, my ideals don't seem to jive too well with the rest of the world (apparently I'm surrounded by incredibly conservative people who dislike peaceful living and want power). Its not just a matter of peaceful living... I used to (A LONG TIME AGO) be all into this system called Technocracy that changed money into what is called an "Erg" which was a measurement of the energy it took to create something. This was an interesting concept until I found out that they beleived that everyone should get "paid" the same (which effectly means no one makes any money)... that idealism was so far removed from human nature that it could never work. No one would be motivated to do the dirty jobs, the dangerous jobs or the jobs that required a huge amount of knowledge or stress. This is kind of far removed from the topic bit just had to respond to niliums comment. |
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| People would need a new motivation other than money, upon which to decide whether to do things like the dirty jobs. But anyway, this has nothing to do with opengl. |
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| We need robots to do the dirty jobs so we can all have fun. |
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| Hmmm...I believe in many ways it's a matter of definition, when it comes to "dirty jobs". I think that a well organized community recognizes the value of every required occupation. In a way we are simply pushed into superficiality by media and misinterpret the wish for security with the wish of fame and fortune. Unshared no happiness lasts, even for the narcisists unseen or recognized by others. (Oh dear, that was a bit complicated) However, if money wasn't so perverted and recognized as purely the value exchange medium that it was supposed to be, so that artificial scarcity wasn't useful anymore, we could easily create technologies that took care of the least desirable occupations. ;) ...YAY ROBOTS... (directX would probably also disappear...haha) |
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| The average soccer mom is not going to update her video drivers! New target audience! |
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