Embrace of 3-D graphics API squarely targets mainstream games market -- Apple
taps OpenGL in latest multimedia bid
-- Sat, 9 Jan 1999 06:16 EST
Jan. 08, 1999 (Electronic Engineering Times - CMP via COMTEX) -- San
Francisco - News that Apple Computer Inc. is backing the OpenGL 3-D API
could have far-reaching effects on the computer-games industry and
continues a new era of standards acceptance for the once-cloistered
company. By bundling with its Mac OS the graphics libraries originally
developed by Silicon Graphics Inc. for high-end commercial uses, Apple
will fan the smoldering war with Microsoft Corp. for the hearts and
minds of multimedia developers.
"We are totally committed to making the Mac the best game platform in
the world," said Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO at a keynote speech at
the Macworld trade show, here. OpenGL will become Apple's 3-D API of
choice and will be knitted into the Mac OS, Jobs said.
The move brings the graphics library SGI originally created for
high-end visualization markets deeper into the computing mainstream.
Ironically, that pits OpenGL as a stronger alternative to Microsoft's
Direct3D API, just as SGI is rolling out this week its first
workstations based on Intel processors and Microsoft's Windows NT.
"SGI's direction is to make our technology more relevant and mainstream,
" said Rick Belluzzo, SGI chief executive officer, who joined Jobs on
stage for the Macworld announcement.
The OpenGL move comes as games developers themselves are seeking
standards, migrating to APIs that command a mass market and away from
APIs such as Glide, from 3-D accelerator maker 3Dfx, that may offer a
performance boost but are increasingly tied to a small subset of
systems. "Glide support is falling very quickly as developers seek to
target a broader market than 3Dfx," said Brian Hook, a programmer with
games maker Id Software (Mesquite, Texas). "The installed based of
hardware accelerators has changed drastically in the past year or two,
and supporting only 3Dfx [hardware accelerators] via their Glide API is
simply not a tenable solution for any developer aiming for mass market
appeal."
John Carmack, Id's founder and an influential developer, joined Jobs
for a rare public appearance at Macworld to underscore the significance
of the OpenGL move. "I'm here because Apple has finally gotten its act
together in 3-D hardware acceleration," Carmack said.
Proprietary APIs were developed as workarounds for weaknesses in
available drivers, said Tim Sweeney, co-founder of games developer Epic
MegaGames Inc. But a growing support base is making it viable to build
a game solely around OpenGL, a situation that otherwise exists only for
Microsoft's Direct3D, he said.
"I expect proprietary APIs to play a very minor role in late 1999
games, and basically die in 2000," said Sweeney, who plans to base his
next game engine on a standard API, though not necessarily OpenGL.
"They were a necessary evil in the past, but their days are over. I
look forward to them dying."
Apple's decision also simplifies life for hardware and software
vendors. "We can now get to the point of having one driver model," said
Michael Litt, Macintosh product manager for ATI Technologies Inc.
(Thornhill, Ontario). ATI played a big role in Apple's announcements,
having been chosen as the lone graphics vendor for the latest round of
Power Macintosh desktops.
Apple's adoption of OpenGL may not have an impact on other 3-D chip
makers, since ATI will be the sole source for Apple's graphics chips in
its current Power Mac systems. "However, assuming developers adopt
OpenGL in grow-ing numbers because of the Mac platform's
attractiveness, there will be an influx of OpenGL-compatible titles,"
said Hook of Id. Id will tap OpenGL for its next release of titles in
March.
"A direct result of this will be that chip makers will devote more
resources to optimizing and testing their drivers on the Win32 platform,
" Hook added. "The net effect will be stronger support for OpenGL
across the board from software and hardware developers alike."
Apple is no stranger to OpenGL, but Macintosh developers in the past
also had to contend with Apple's proprietary API, QuickDraw 3D. The
shift to OpenGL demonstrates Apple's new attention to standards. The
company also has embraced 64-bit PCI and 100-Mbit/s Ethernet for its
Power Macintosh desktops, for example.
ATI's Litt expects the OpenGL announcement to open new markets for
Apple, particularly in professional arenas such as graphical design.
But QuickDraw 3D, like its Direct3D counterpart, won't disappear. "We
still see that being around for at least a year. We've found it's very
easy to have games supported in that API," Litt said.
Elsewhere in graphics, it's expected that Apple will begin
considering adoption of the AGP bus. AGP was left out of the newest
Power Mac family because when product design began, it wasn't definite
that AGP would become an industry standard, said Kendall Laidlaw, Power
Macintosh product manager. Apple continues to "keep an eye on" AGP, she
said.
"Apple would be an orphan if they didn't adopt AGP, and that would go
against the grain of the new Apple," said Litt. He suggested that it
might make sense to add AGP support to the upcoming Mac OS X, which
represents an overhaul of the Macintosh operating system.
In fact, AGP adoption is probably more critical to Apple than the
integration of graphics and core logic-another idea reportedly being
considered, Litt said. "They're not going to want to sacrifice graphics
performance just for the sake of integration."
One move Apple did finally make last week was the long-anticipated
adoption of the 1394 interface. Apple's new Power Macintosh systems
will all have support on the motherboard for the 400-Mbit/s Firewire.
A combination of Firewire for external connections and the Ultra ATA
interface for internal peripherals will replace SCSI, opening up
easy-to-use, high-speed connections to a world of devices, including as
many as 4 million digital camcorders that now sport the
interface, Jobs said. He also demonstrated a compact 6-Gbyte internal
disk drive that offers the Firewire interface.
"Firewire is going to explode and become the standard high-end serial
connection in the desktop," Jobs said.
-Additional reporting by Rick Boyd-Merritt.
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By: Craig Matsumoto
Copyright 1999 CMP Media Inc. |
