“The broad industry support Apple is building around OpenCL will help increase the critical mass behind OpenGL, the 2D and 3D graphics language Apple uses extensively in Mac OS X,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.
“Since the mid 90s, Microsoft has worked to prevent the adoption of OpenGL as an interoperable industry standard in favor of its own proprietary DirectX portfolio of graphics software and gaming tools,” McLean reports. “Microsoft’s DirectX strategy was originally intended to push DOS game developers to Windows; it has since served to tie PC gaming to Windows, as DirectX is only available on Windows. Successive versions of DirectX have also been used to push developers to the latest version of Windows; for example, the latest version 10 was intended to result in a crop of Vista-only games that would boost Vista sales. However, this did not work out as intended, as the slow uptake of Vista prevented any real market for DirectX 10 games from developing, leaving PC games to target Windows XP instead.”
“OpenGL is now more competitive with DirectX than ever. Microsoft’s stumble with Vista and its DirectX/Direct3D version 10 has also helped to stall its momentum in the market. Microsoft plans to add OpenCL-like support for GPGPU computing into DirectX 11 in Windows 7, but Apple’s OpenCL, which is designed to work closely with OpenGL code, will arrive first and with broad industry support. Apple has also released OpenCL as a royalty-free, open standard anyone can implement on any platform,” McLean reports.
Full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
So where are the shills calling for the immediate release of DirectX on other platforms. If Apple should be forced to license FairPlay (EU I’m looking at you), shouldn’t DirectX get the same treatment?
MCCFR…I stand by my earlier statements and your own statements have shown everyone your political bias and ignorance.
Again…can the politics.
CYxodus…
Go climb a rope! I made one “jokey” statement – with a smiley – and you’re behaving like I insulted your sister as opposed to some cigar-chomping multi-millionaire. BTW, I then followed it up with an on-topic reference.
Is it me or have some people around here become a little sour since early November?
“‘Apple has also released OpenCL as a royalty-free, open standard anyone can implement on any platform,’
“Except Microsoft, which has nearly 90% of the PC market.”
Actually there are OpenGL apps that run under Windows too. Thus it is quite possible that OpenCL could run on platforms running Windows.
“One can’t run Vista effects or 3D games without Direct X.”
Absolutely not true. It is indeed true that you cannot easily remove DirectX (and definitely not legally) from Windows. However, you do *NOT* need to use DirectX to do 3D on a Windows machine.
“Direct X is embedded in video cards so no matter what you have on your Mac, it’s not going to work.”
Also not true, the firmware on most video cards allow them to support DirectX. They do not have DirectX embedded into them. Additionally, most video card also support OpenGL.
MCCFR…I could care less about your statements if the article had some political reference, I just don’t care for people who insert political, religious or what-not when the article had nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with the election. If you had posted a “I’m first” comment, I would have busted your chops for that. Warning to all who like to do that.
That’s all I’m going to say on this.
“”One can’t run Vista effects or 3D games without Direct X.”
Absolutely not true. It is indeed true that you cannot easily remove DirectX (and definitely not legally) from Windows. However, you do *NOT* need to use DirectX to do 3D on a Windows machine.”
Actually, it is absolutely true. Very few games are coded for OpenGL, despite the fact it’s been available since DX was initially released. id Software does OpenGL in every game they make, but few others do the same, given the market penetration of DX-based software. That said, there’s much broader support for OpenGL in professional and engineering graphics markets.
Yeah, but who’s writing software for Vista/DirectX 10? Apparently not too many developers. Most of them appear to be targeting XP/DirectX 9, for which support is rapidly improving in the virtual machines that run on other platforms. The world won’t stop or wait for Microsoft to get their act together. I’m not saying that no one will wait, but even if 10-15% of software developers find that no one is paying them to wait for MS, that means that thousands of developers will be coding for “alternative” platforms, and I’m sure that at least another 10-15% of companies will hedge their bets by exploring more cross-platform development. Developers = Software = Users = Market Share. Apparently Steve Ballmer forgot his own lesson. MS will be pushed down the hill, but they won’t be destroyed. They will be forced to compete for market share the way they should be. Thankfully, they probably will never be able to regain their total dominance of the market again. Hopefully, they’ll be down to 60% market share within the next 5 years.
This article was about OpenCL/GL vs. DirectX, right?
As much as I’d like to think this will take off, considering that 99% of game developers are stuck in DirectX land (and have no desire to learn anything else), I don’t expect the industry to rush to OpenCL anytime soon (and OpenGL has been out for decades, and is hardly used in game development).