OpenGL 3

[Kuron]

The latest:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/13/opengl_firestorm/

[Sebastian]

I'm also not satisfied by OpenGL 3.0 aka 2.2
But on the hand that means that one doesn't need to relearn everything for 3.0
It's rediculous to announce a OpenGL 3.1 that will be what 3.0 should have been. Another 6 months time for Microsoft to push even further ahead with DirectX 11. It's really confusing because OpenGL delivers some features of DX10 and makes them available for XP, Linux and Mac. I'm quite suprised that Carmack didn't investigate (id Software is part of the Khronos group) I doubt that is what he wanted for OpenGL 3.0 but maybe he's switching to DirectX now. He recently said Microsoft managed to form it to a nice graphics API which is nice if you take into account that the very same man told us DirectX is crap when it was first released with Windows 95. I think it's kinda bad that OpenGL is the only cross platform 3D API. You are somewhat dependent then. Of course that is true for DirectX as well but the difference is: Microsoft is constantly pushing ahead. DirectX11 will deliver a consistent interface for GPGPU programming. Another revolution and again Windows only. One of the consequences will of course be that the next XBox will become THE high end graphics console because SONY won't be able to keep up, their only choice is OpenGL.
For us hobby and indie developers that whole stuff isn't important. We can't even deliver content that will exhaust OpenGL 2.0 and very few are able to write good shaders. For us there is plenty to learn before worrying about geometry shaders and GPGPU computing. And who knows, maybe Intel will shock us next year with Larrabee?

[Kuron]

DirectX is crap when it was first released with Windows 95

It sure beat WinG   I have never liked Carmack or his work, so his opinion doesn't carry much weight with me.

OpenGL has always been a double-edged sword.  I still prefer it over DX.  For me OpenGL is always faster on my systems than the same game using DX, plus for me OpenGL runs much better on low-end hardware than what newer versions of DX do.  My Eee won't run anything DX9 but everything OpenGL runs just fine.  Much of what people "perceive" to be missing from OpenGL can be done via shaders. 

OpenGL's main problem is it relies too much on the input of application developers.  The industry has changed in the past 20 years.  Now the main use for a 3D rendering API is games, not apps.  Lazy and talentless application developers should not be holding back the progress of OpenGL. 

Most of the work I do can be done just using GDI.  But if I need anything more powerful, I will only use GLBasic.  Gernot has done an awesome job on improving GLBasic since I bought it