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bwoodring writes
"Yahoo! Business News is reporting that 3dfx has been admitted to the OpenGL Architectural Review Board. This could be an indication that 3dfx plans to retire their proprietary 3D API Glide soon in favor of the more ubiquitous (and Linux friendly) OpenGL."
What this really means (Score:1)
I hope Loki is on it (Score:1)
________
Re:Woohoo (Score:1)
Popularity (Score:1)
Soon? 3dfx already dropped glide. (Score:2)
This is old news. Obviously they would go after one or more other APIs, and OpenGL is the only other choice after Direct3D, even though Direct3D is lightyears ahead of OpenGL.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Glide not Linux-friendly?!! (Score:1)
Re:Glide is Good (Score:1)
Re:Isn't Glide opensource now? (Score:1)
Those wrappers are not legal...
Did you know that Creative made a really nice
wrapper for their TNT card... well.. they got sued by 3dfx for using their glide development resources to make the wrapper. Glide has been open for quite a while.. it just depends on how you look at open.
Re:Soon? 3dfx already dropped glide. (Score:2)
Direct3D is constantly getting new functions, features, etc, that make common procedures faster. The Architectural Review Board seems to sit around and meddle over suggestions instead of making a decision and adding support.
In the graphic world, advantages, no matter how slight, are advantages, and as far behind as OpenGL is, Direct3D might as well be lightyears ahead.
If OpenGL was on par with Direct3D, there would be no question as to what I would use.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Re:Quick question (Score:1)
Re: Microsoft & SGI / OpenGL - AKA Farenheit (Score:1)
Yeah, right. And if you don't write it with OpenGL how do you make it work on Linux? Like I said, we're winning. [
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That's partly because of the implementation... (Score:2)
It is literally that simple.
Right now, I'm working with people with Alphas and PPC machines (I just got a loaner from a good friend of the Open Source community a couple of weeks back and I've just got around to putting SuSE on the box- PPC support is very likely to become a reality.) The Voodoo/Glide setup is notably harder and much twitchier- I know, I've GOT a Voodoo3; it's because of the implementation, not OpenGL/Mesa.
Re:Isn't Glide opensource now? (Score:1)
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Re:Isn't Glide opensource now? (Score:1)
and create a nice friendly glide wrapper for my TNT?
Somehow I still think this is going to be a
no no based on the terms and conditions set for by
those at 3dfx.
One word, proprietary.
3dfx and OpenGL (Score:1)
With 3dfx cross-platform stance (Mac, Linux, Windows) OpenGL is the only real solution.
Hardware OpenGL for Linux: Only Half the Solution (Score:2)
From the standpoint of the technical computing market, the more industry support for OpenGL hardware in Linux, the better our options.
Between developments like this and some improvement in x86 memory bandwidth, you could start to see develop a tsunami of engineering desktop workstation choices migrate from the low volume, high end, high dollar RISC chips onto a more commoditized x86/Linux basis.
So far, those 2 items have kept many workplaces in the camps of Sun, SGI, HP, IBM and DEC(Compaq) where
remains as true as ever.Re:Isn't Glide opensource now? (Score:1)
You're thinking of the old miniGL drivers that only worked for Quake-engine games. 3dfx did that because it was a lot quicker and simpler than writing a full ICD (and also because Win9x only can have one ICD, and a Voodoo1's ICD would have hosed that of any primary display card). Quake was the big game at the time (early-mid 1997), and they saw supporting GLQuake as a great way grab mindshare from the DOS-only Rendition VQuake. And boy, did it ever work. The development of the miniGL persisted because Voodoo owners were speed freaks who shuddered at the thought of using a slower ICD. 3dfx basically kept with the miniGL wrapper because it was what people wanted. It finally died off when non-Quake engine OpenGL games started to appear, since developing a miniGL for each of those games would have been too expensive.
Glide is Good (Score:2)
Glide is one of the few proprietary products I don't mind supporting.
Glide wrappers for OpenGL? (Score:2)
When Glide became open-sourced I hoped to see wrappers appear to allow those of us with accelerated OpenGL to be able to make use of Glide-specific applications. In fact, I almost wondered whether 3dfx would go down this route themselves - Glide on top of OpenGL would not be as optimal as the native Voodoo acceleration, but it would expand the base of Glide-accelerated cards and thereby accelerate the adoption of Glide.
Has anyone seen anything like this on the Linux side? Many wrappers exist for Windows to provide this functionality (with varying degrees of success) but there appears to be little evidence of such a beast in Unix-land.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:If only they had done this 2 years ago! (Score:1)
Re:Isn't Glide opensource now? (Score:1)
1: Whenever glide is initialized, the animated 3dfx slash screen shows up. OpenGL is instant.
2: Glide _will not_ run in a window no matter what. In fact, switching to a windowed app can corrupt the graphics both in Win95 and MacOS 8. The OpenGL drivers run with no problem in a window.
Re: Glad to see someone else who hates Mesa. (Score:1)
Oh no... It happened to you too. Check out this article [tomshardware.com] over at Tom's. The Geforce is NOT a 256 bit chip. It's all marketing.
Here's the quote:
I could hardly believe my ears when I was finally told what the '256' stands for. NVIDIA adds the 32-bit deep color, the 24-bit deep Z-buffer and the 8-bit stencil buffer of each rendering pipeline and multiplies it with 4, for each pipeline, which indeed adds up to 256.
It looks like ATI got sucked into doing it as well because it seems this strategy to confuse consumers actually works.
Re:Two Tidbits (Score:1)
They are only a voting member on the ARB, nothing more. OpenGL is a part of Windows so they care to influence it's direction in the best way possible and that's what they've been doing all along. MS *needs* OpenGL, not the other way around.
OpenGL ARB membership == voting rights (Score:4)
Glide had earlier and better support on Linux for 3Dfx hardware than OpenGL. Infact OpenGL under Mesa became available on Linux because Glide was already available to supply the hardware acceleration underneath it.
This is all old history because OpenGL has well and truly arrived on Linux and 3Dfx has already deprecated Glide, infact they did this a long time ago and it has nothing to do with ARB membership.
Some other comments suggest that 3Dfx were late to the OpenGL party but this again is highly misleading. 3Dfx were one of the first out with consumer card OpenGL drivers on Windows (a subset at least) which Carmack used to test his port of Quake. These matured into real drivers over time and 3Dfx even aggressively implemented extensions like multitexture and point parameters. They have been doing a great job on OpenGL.
The membership of the ARB merely gives them voting rights on future direction and extensions. This is a good thing and indicates OpenGL's importance to PC card manufacturers but it really doesn't say anything about 3Dfx's commitment to OpenGL which has been there all along. To commit to and implement OpenGL drivers on your hardware you don't need ARB membership and 3Dfx have been doing this for years now.
Re: Microsoft & SGI / OpenGL - AKA Farenheit (Score:1)
Thank god it died, imagine what an ugly platypus it would have been if it had ever been other than still-born. Farenheit was just Microsoft's face-saving strategy to quiet down an open rebellion that was going on on rec.games.programmer at the time. I boggled when SGI played along. Well, they should have known better as they can now see with 20-20 hindsight.
Today, if OpenGL doesn't quite rule the world yet, it's clearly the crown prince, and Direct3D has become the decrepit pus-ridden old emperor. John Carmack deserves a lot of credit for that, but he's far from the only one.
Just one more of the many fights we're winning these days.
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not really news (Score:1)
I have never been a fan on 3dfx but I am all for market competition. This seems like the last chance for 3dfx to pull themselves out of the gutter.
Their "glide edge" that they have had in games in the past over ogl dropped extremely fast over the past two years with the rise of nvidia and is shown with Epic's (the guy's who did unreal tournament) new business descion to focus on supporting nvidia cards. nvidia who has consistantly provided ogl extensions to developers to maintain a high ogl feature set. The most overwhelming pitfall of UT's design was its overdependance on glide, which at the time of its creation (96ish) was all that was really feasible.
This is good news for everyone as now 3dfx will be able to provide the level of ogl support as nvidia has. Which can only make everyone happier.
-z
Re:3dfx is doing this a little too late. (Score:2)
Actually, neither is ANYTHING you see: your eyes are constantly twitching back and forth at about 70 Hz. This jitter allows your brain to interpolate the data from the retina, thus increasing the effective resolution. Kinda funny how hardware imitates life.
Re:Isn't Glide opensource now? (Score:1)
if you don't believe me, do a search for openglide5a.zip
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Re:"Linux Friendliness" ? (Score:1)
Here I go, spoiling my Karma again.
"Linux Friendliness" ? (Score:4)
What the hell does this statement mean? Glide was the only way to get Unreal Tournament running on Linux at *all*. Glide has been on Linux since forever.
If anything, Glide has also been easier to set up and configure than Mesa/OpenGL is currently (I've spent the last week attempting to get XFree86 4.0.1 to talk to my GeForce2 GTS, and it's been a bit of a hassle, to say the least).
I think you're after the words "Open" or "Free", but only in a philosophical sense is OpenGL more "Linux Friendly" than Glide.
(Something that also factors into this equation, is that Glide is no longer supported under Linux on the Voodoo 4/5/6 - and it looks like it never will be. I bought the Voodoo5 5500 and returned it the next day in favour of the GeForce2 - the V5500 was a pain.)
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More linux friendly? (Score:1)
I've never done either, but I know a few people who have done both, and OpenGL was a PITA compared to Glide!
News? (Score:1)
I hope they finally do it... (Score:1)
Now while Glide is not as popular even among programmers (i guess it's because 3dfx decided to market their own boards), there are still a bunch of good apps floating around there that are worthwhile looking at on a Voodoo board.
If 3dfx was any smarter about this, they'd embrace all the Glide wrappers out there to make the standard more popular. Then more programmmers would write to it, since it would mean a bigger target audience than it has now. But the results would be better and faster on a Voodoo board because they were designed from the ground up around Glide. Now, because they tried to fight Glide emulation, 3dfx is pretty much a has been.
Glide (Score:1)
Woohoo (Score:1)
Will people start taking notice of it now so that they can easily port games to Linux?
dnnrly
Isn't Glide opensource now? (Score:3)
Being truly OpenGL-commited is a good thing though. In the past, (and still), all their OpenGL-drivers seems to be some kind of wrapper for Glide. That is, uses Glide to respond to the OpenGL-calls.
Could anyone enlighten me as to wether this really changes that position for 3dfx?
ICD's (Score:1)
Glide wrappers (Score:2)
Now imagine if that had not happened. Because it is an added feature, it's possible that other manufacturers would get on the bandwagon as well, and a Glide driver could have become just as much a standard for any new 3D hardware as an OpenGL one is. I'm sure the simlicity of the API, and its relatively broad distribution would make Glide a more popular platform than it currently is.
And because cards other than Voodoo would have this support in the software layer, whereas 3dfx has theirs built into the hardware, they'd win out on performance for any Glide title.
Not only is it open-source... (Score:1)
3dfx is doing this a little too late. (Score:2)
Also, since 3dfx refuses to adapt dot-product bump mapping (also known as dot-3 bump mapping) and still refuses to update to cube environment mapping, their position in the 3d market has dropped further. Even ATI is ahead of them in the feature list right now. All that 3dfx has right now is a FSAA routine that jitters the tris; kinda creepy knowing that the framework of a 3d scene is NEVER actually standing still.
Right idea, wrong API... (Score:2)
Then again, there are people moving to create an Open-Source implementation of QD3D now, too. Check the Quesa Website [quesa.org] for more info on that. They're pretty far along in it, too.
I always thought Apple made a mistake in obsoleting QD3D. Relatively easy to work with (easier than OpenGL), an open standard file format, and the capability to do some seriously cool stuff besides. Ever used TextureEyes to map a running MPEG onto a 3D model with three mouseclicks? What Apple should have done was offered OpenGL as a low-level API, with QD3D as a higher-level option. Maybe Quesa can fulfill that one.
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Re:Good to see these things come full circle (Score:3)
OpenGL has always been the cross platform 3D graphics toolkit of choice, for going on 10 years now. It was here before Glide. It was here before Direct3D. It was here before Quicktime VR.
Not only that, but it had about 10 years of experience from IrisGL put into it. It doesn't matter if Apple never adopted it (there would be third party versions, with acceleration, like Mesa, coming along), or SUN, or Microsoft - it's now available for just about every platform in existence. MS doesn't understand that that's why Direct3D will never "win". Apple finally accepted it - they moved to Unix and more standardized libraries, and it will only benefit them.
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Come on now!! (Score:1)
Re: Glad to see someone else who hates Mesa. (Score:2)
You think that's bad, in Quake 2 on my dual voodoo2 setup, I saw rainbow-colored light bursts whenever the shotgun fired. Now that's messed up. Also, in GLQUAKE the rendering speed was really bogged down (sub-25 FPS, should be at least 35 on a single V2). I'm starting to wonder if Mesa is coded in Java, cause that's the only explanation for the loading lag. My GeForce2 on my Win2k machine runs beautifully; anything that wants OpenGL (even the Microsoft screensavers!) gets the hardware drivers.
I applaud you in returning the Voodoo5 - it is truly a folly of a 3d accelerator. 3dfx is staying with a 128-bit 2D accelerator when the world has moved onto 256-bit. Alex Leupp should really take his blinders off sometime; he would probably pee his pants once he saw how far behind 3dfx really is.
Re:What this really means (Score:1)
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Re:Soon? 3dfx already dropped glide. (Score:1)
Re:"Linux Friendliness" ? (Score:1)
Re:What this really means (Score:1)
Re:DirectX (Score:1)
Re:DirectX (Score:1)
Guess what your good ol' copy of Quake uses?
Re:Great! (Score:1)
Re:Soon? 3dfx already dropped glide. (Score:2)
Since when? Direct 3D has traditionally sucked in a big way. Although I haven't seem them myself, apparently the newer versions have improved dramatically, and in places edged ahead of OpenGL. But light years ahead? I think that's overstating things a bit.
Re: Microsoft & SGI / OpenGL - AKA Farenheit (Score:1)
There was a short talk at the siggraph OpenGL/Linux BOF where someone said (don't remember his name) that OpenGL might actually loose the war for "preferred game API" within the next few month. The problem, as he stated is that changes for new extensions take way to long to pass the ARB.
Re:Come on now!! (Score:1)
Re:Glide is Good (Score:1)
Glide was obviously based on the simplicity of OpenGL. It's designer was Brian Hook [209.115.22.225] who worked at id Software on Quake2, and I think previously worked at SGI on the first optimized (read: non-Microsoft) OpenGL software implementation for Windows [gamasutra.com].
It lacks the high-level features of OpenGL such as doing matrix transforms, display lists, primitives, texture coordinate generation, etc. Glide was designed for game developers, who generally would prefer to implement these functions themselves, anyway. Since Glide was chipset specific and offered a lot of low-level control, you could come up cool effects with a bit of hacking. What 3DFX now hypes as T-Buffering [zdnet.com] was easily possible on the Voodoo1 chipset with Glide 1.1. With a couple of lines of code you could get fairly effective full-scene anti-aliasing and motion blur.
Most companies were developing their own APIs in the mid 90's so it was natural that 3DFX would do it as well. Rendition (RIP), 3DFX's early main competitor, had their own called Redline and NVIDIA's first attempt, the Edge3D, had an API that was kept away from anyone but licensed developers. Sidenote: NVIDIA used to imply that the Edge3D could render quadratic surfaces in hardware - I wonder what ever happened to that feature. d:^)
Paul
Ah, here it is. (Score:1)
Of course.. (Score:2)
While DirectX is important for game support under Windows, DirectX is highly proprietary and only
available for Windows.
How about someone writing DirectX -wrappers for
OpenGL/OpenAL?
Re:I hope they finally do it... (Score:1)
The tech support calls would be nightmarish, too.
If only they had done this 2 years ago! (Score:2)
Can this be... (Score:2)
Re:ICD's (Score:1)
I don't know what they think, but... (Score:2)
A marvellous arcade game that uses Glide is Rush2049. Admittedly tho, using OpenGL would make it easier to port.
x-4 (Score:1)
-rev
and are they going to acutally going to maintain the drivers and not just announce linux support, release version 0.0.1b of the driver and never update it? one can hope cant they?
Re:Good to see these things come full circle (Score:1)
This seems like another of those "Us and Them" posts MS Vs the FreeWorld
If they get the xBox out there and no OGL on that sucker heh, they are making in roads to gain more developer mind share with DirectX(D3D), So... although they may not be able to *win* if they can get enough people to forget about OGL for the most part....... Viola.
Jeremy
Thats very true... (Score:2)
Glide on all boards, and support for all games, wouldn't be bad though. That would mean a competitor to DirectX.
OpenGL is however better positioned to take over that role.
no wonder those voodoo 5's are so expensive! (Score:1)
*runs*
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Re:Come on now!! (Score:1)
Erik
Re: Microsoft & SGI / OpenGL - AKA Farenheit (Score:2)
clarification (Score:1)
The openGL ARB used to be runed by SGI but since they doesn't do it any more (actually they do but they are not as active as before), some one else should step up and take the lead. But this hasn't happened yet, A lot of people think that nVidia runs the ARB as the currently most power full member, but infect they dont.
OpenGL is actually runed by A few individuals from all the members that in a most co-operative manner carries out the work. What may be surprising is that some of the most power full voices come from people who does not work for any of the hardware company's, Im thinking of people like Chris Hecker and Brian Sharp, who carries out some excellent work for the ARB. The voting is mostly just a formality.
BTW 3Dfx has actually told game developers that they do not see Glide as a future platform.
Re:Come on now!! (Score:1)
So we should scorn all things not open source...so all the nice linux games should be boycotted since they are not open source?
Re:DirectX (Score:1)
Software companies are no longer wanting to bet on one horse, so if there is a way to be able to bet on several horses at a time, for the same cost, then they will. OpenGL is such a solution and means that the porting cost is less than something written in Direct-X.
3DFX is also a hardware company and when most of their competitors are offering OpenGL based solutions, then they will want to go with the solution that is selling. It is easier, and cheaper, for MS to interface Direct-X to OpenGL, than it is for 3DFX to the other way around.
Re:"Linux Friendliness" ? (Score:1)
Actually, they have every intention of support Glide apps under the DRI. It's just not high on their priority list.
Ranessin
What the hell I am gonna do? (Score:1)
Two Tidbits (Score:1)
Although the link is just corporate propoganda, there were two things that stuck out for me.
The permanent members of the ARB are 3Dlabs, Compaq, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and SGI.
What vested interest in OpenGL could M$ possibly have except from leading it in a direction that benefits DirectX.
And second...The board currently includes representatives from 3D Labs, ATI, Compaq, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, nVIDIA, Microsoft, SGI and Sun Microsystems.
So doesn't this show that 3dfx is more concerned about not being left out, or losing mind share among important decision makers?
Seeing 3dfx get seriously on board with OpenGL is great. The shotty OpenGL support at the time of Quake 3 Test is what drove me to nVIDIA. I hope this is the start of a stronger 3dfx that can better compete in the market place
Happy Joy Joy (Score:1)
The glide api has come and pass. It was a nice try at cornering the market into using a proprietary api but there is far to much quality competition to think this would ever work today. It now seems to be a burden to gaming companies to provide patches/tweaks/updates or what have you so Joe Gamer can get a few more frames or even decent gameplay on his 3dfx hardware.
Though I seriously doubt 3dfx would completely remove their glide implementation... this is at least a sign that they will focus their efforts more to the slightly greater embraced OpenGL standard.
Over the years I have come to respect this company for their continuing dedicated to their hardware and customer base. Routine driver updates and their support of the GNU/Linux operating system are rather notable points.
Anyhow, this is probably the right thing to do for their customers... so everyone benefits.
Re:DirectX (Score:1)
Good to see these things come full circle (Score:2)