RE: the new windows operating system

If Microsoft didn't give a sh!t about us game developers over the Carmack 
OpenGL vx DX fiasco (way back when -- yes I signed the petition -- lot good 
it did), why would they care about us now? Most developers simple don't 
care, and MS is so full of "eat their own dog food", that the only way to 
make them change, is to change the dog.

As always the choice is in EVERYONE ELSE to make sure OpenGL is natively 
supported on their platform.

Thanks for the update on ATI and nVidia remaining commited!  That's reall 
refreshing to know that OpenGL will still be around / available / supported 
on Windows (even if SGI isn't.)  Thank-god they have a little more common 
sense, about supporting industry standards, then MS.

It's a waste of developers time to keep re-writing your pipeline for 
consoles and PCs.  Maybe MS and Sony will see the light someday -- but I'm 
not holding my breath.


At 12:19 PM 8/9/2005 -0800, Evan Hart wrote:

>Since I was at the OpenGL BOF at SIGGRAPH where this was discussed, I 
>would like to clarify a bit of what was mentioned.
>
>First, there were two current paths for OpenGL on Vista mentioned. The 
>first one is a DX wrapper, with its potential performance shortfalls and 
>lack of extension support. The second path was a traditional ICD which 
>when activated would force the desktop out of the compositing mode, but 
>would allow performance and extensions.
>
>Second, 3DLabs, ATI, and NVIDIA all pledged that they were dedicated to 
>work with Microsoft to add the additional support necessary to make ICDs 
>work seamlessly with the rest of the OS. There was an open request to have 
>developers contact their Microsoft reps to express any concerns that they 
>have over this.
>
>Finally, this is all my personal take on the issue as an attendee at the 
>BOF. I think an unfortunate bit about the issue in that it gets quickly 
>caught up in FUD from all directions, which helps no one. With the current 
>state of affairs, you could possibly classify all of the following 
>statements as true:
>
>   1. OpenGL support on Vista will run through a slow D3D wrapper.
>   2. OpenGL on Vista will not support the compositing desktop.
>   3. OpenGL will have support for the compositing desktop on Vista.
>   4. Vista will support high-performance OpenGL ICDs.
>
>Obviously, they all need qualifiers, and are not simultaneously true. This 
>unfortunately makes it too easy to confuse developers. Please get the 
>facts straight and if you feel it will impact your products, make whatever 
>Microsoft contacts you have aware of your concern over the issue.
>
>   -Evan


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