[Info-vax] Interesting View of Graphics Driver Futures

[lawrencedo99 at gmail.com]

On Friday, May 6, 2016 at 11:42:59 PM UTC+12, Neil Rieck wrote:
> Now Microsoft has dominated this technology ever since "SIGGRAPH 1992" but
> their copyrights and their lawyers have forced other OSs to push OpenGL which
> has never be able to keep up (feature-wise).

DirectX is Windows-specific, OpenGL is cross-platform. That’s how it’s always been. Android uses OpenGL. That alone would make it the most popular real-time 3D API in the world.

> Most people outside of gaming have ignored the efforts of companies like
> Valve (which was started by an ex-Microsoft employee) to look for
> alternatives until now.

Gabe Newell did it after he found out how much DirectX performance had fallen behind OpenGL. Microsoft may have been stung out of its complacency by that for a while, but I suspect it has too much on its plate right now to keep up for the long haul.

By the way, modern GUIs make heavy use of OpenGL behind the scenes. This even applies to those sporting the oh-so-trendy 2D “flat” look at the moment.