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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Simon Cardinale who wrote (7589)	9/23/1998 3:28:00 PM
From: Greg S.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

You're right that some OpenGL functions will end up in D3D, but I doubt that'll touch off a whole-scale movement toward OpenGL. And such a move certainly hasn't started yet. Not enough 3D accelerators have good OpenGL support, for one thing. Maybe in a few years it will have its chance. A few things: 1) 3D accelerators in the high end graphics market have supported OpenGL for years and years. Those that didn't used GLint, a GL derivative just like GLide. These APIs are really all very similar - I've never programmed in it before but from what I hear Glide is very much like a castrated version of OpenGL, optimized for the stuff that mainstream 3D processors are capable of nowadays. Don't underestimate the influence of OpenGL in the industry, directly or indirectly. 2) You can expect OpenGL to be incorporated into D3D. It's called Fahrenheit and it's a joint venture by MS and SGI. My guess is thanks to Microsoft it will be slower and harder to use than OpenGL. Basically this is SGI fighting for air in the lower end markets they lost when people realized they no longer had to pay $10,000 for a SGI workstation that did the same thing as a $3,000 wintel machine. -G

To: Simon Cardinale who wrote (7589)	9/23/1998 3:28:00 PM
From: Jeff Harrington	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

It's true I'm not a big fan of MS DX and I know a few people doing 3D development and they're probably going to end up doing the MS DX stuff because of chip support. My involvement with the OpenGL community because of my interest in VR probably has me listening to those voices. That and the fact that MS DX programming is pure rocket science. 3D programming shouldn't require a degree in math. It's a well understood optimization problem set now. I know a guy who had basically no programming experience that landed a 65K job a few years ago because he whipped up a DX demo. I hear he's still there, so what the hell, but he was an embarrasingly bad programmer. Knowledge can be expensive in this business. As you point out, there is no need for MS to license anything from TDFX. It's possible, in fact, that TDFX is licensing some code from MS because they're the one who have to comply with a standard (DX). You make the call and let the chip do its thing. Eventually there'll be a new API from MS that will make sense, lower the cost of 3D programming (you want to hire 10 guys at a 100K a year plus 10 artists?) and make TDFX look good. JH