Hey there,
Check out this one:
http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/cgi_directory/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000001;p=
This is gonna hurt. Under the upcoming windows, directx is going to be the end-all graphics interface. If you would want to use opengl under it, it will be running on a layer on top of directx, essentially being a LOT slower.
nice one…
cheers,
laszlo
Does this mean OpenGL won’t work under Windows at all? You should still be able to run third party drivers, like the ones from Nvidia, don’t you?
Afaik I never ever ran a application directly under Windows’ version of OpenGL, although you can configure max for example to use these drivers (It still stands at verison 1.1 I think and has always been painstakingly slow).
To run Max I’ve been using Nvidia cards and drivers with their own OGL divers and these seem decently fast. Is there reason to believe that this will change with Vista?
Stefan Kubicek
stefan@tidbit-images.com
No, it means that microsoft will have an emulator basically, that
emulates opengl 1.4 calls. So opengl would be locked at v1.4, and
would run at a fraction of it’s speed (as it would run on top of
directx).
I have read a couple of web forums about this issue, and it looks like
you CAN override the basic mechanism, and install a regular opengl
driver (well… if your card manufacturer supplies one), but that also
means that most of the new UI features in vista will be lost.
I could care less about those, but there was hope finally, that
windows would look pretty 
cheers,
laszlo
Can’t Windows run applications in parallel? I once had Max running in OpenGl mode and some other application running DirectX, next to it (some Renderware DFF viewer).
Both worked without problems next to each other. The new Windows-GUI (Vista?) represents just such another application which uses Direct3D, while other applications can still tun in parallel using another standard (OpenGL).
Afaik most 3d cards come with both a Direct3d and an OpenGL driver, so this would practically always work (unless you have a very cheap card that does not ship, or is not compatible with, any freely available OpenGL driver, in which case you probably don’t even have any use for OpenGL in the first place?)
For me it sounds like: If you want OpenGL under Vista you have to pay for it by purchasing a card that has suitable OpenGL drivers. But for professional, OpenGL highperformance this has always been the case anyway (at least under Windows)
Or is this too naive a view of affairs?
Stefan Kubicek
stefan@tidbit-images.com
For me it sounds like: If you want OpenGL under Vista you have to pay for
it by purchasing a crad that has suitable OpenGL drivers. <<
It isn’t that simple in this case. There are some issues with the way the
drivers share the hardware with DirectX. The built in driver will be
limited to version 1.4 support, and custom drivers may require certain
features to be disabled. It looks like if you want the new Aeroglass
composited interface to be active, you would need your driver layered atop
DirectX.
If you are interested in this subject, take a look through the rather
lengthy thread Laszlo linked to. Be warned, it contains more microsoft
bashing than actual facts about the issue. Once you get through the FUD,
there is some useful data here. For the most part, it still sounds like a
“wait and see” situation.
hmm, I guess “rather lenghty” doesn’t quite cut it
Ah well, I want to get work done. And if that means not having a shiny desktop in favour of proper OpenGL so be it. I can live with that (I still use the Windows2000 theme on my WinXP machine
And who knows what Nvidia or ATI are oming up with.
Stefan Kubicek
stefan@tidbit-images.com