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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!sgigate.sgi.com!fido.asd.sgi.com!tuolumne.asd.sgi.com!akin From: akin@tuolumne.asd.sgi.com (Allen Akin) Newsgroups: comp.graphics.api.misc,comp.graphics.algorithms,comp.windows.x.i386unix,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps Subject: Re: Freeware community needs 3d library NOW Followup-To: comp.graphics.api.misc,comp.graphics.api.opengl Date: 27 Jun 1996 21:29:02 GMT Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 44 Message-ID: <4quueu$mtr@fido.asd.sgi.com> References: <4qlf04$7pj@guysmiley.blarg.net> <31D027F3.2781E494@FreeBSD.org> <4qpr15$6fv@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4qujqi$vsm@guysmiley.blarg.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: tuolumne.asd.sgi.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.graphics.api.misc:659 comp.graphics.algorithms:29058 comp.windows.x.i386unix:20380 gnu.misc.discuss:26766 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:22309 comp.os.linux.development.apps:18138 In article <4qujqi$vsm@guysmiley.blarg.net>, Brandon J. Van Every <vanevery@blarg.net> wrote: | Which features do you feel those are? Direct3d is targeted very | specifically at the 3d games market. | ... | Such as...? And what do you feel OpenGL does better, by comparison? I covered some of this in my other reply, so I won't repeat that here. I'll write more about it as soon as I have time, now that D3D is available to the general public. | Which classes of games do you think D3D [retained mode] falls short on? Those that involve dynamically-changing geometry. That includes the obvious stuff (nontrivial character animation, lots of objects moving in an unconstrained way) but also some less-obvious stuff (for example, flight simulation in which the terrain is too large to keep in main memory at all times). | How do you see OpenGL as providing a superior development cycle | turnaround time... There are more people working on it, and more developers releasing it on independent schedules, than D3D. It's also more easily extended. | ... If SGI | really wants to ensure that OpenGL design cycles outstrip Direct3d | design cycles, I'd really like to see them provide a Sample | Implementation that has a much more efficient internal structure. ... We're working on a high-performance base implementation for Wintel platforms. We demonstrated it at the SGI developer's conference last month, and you'll also be able to see it at SIGGRAPH. | : or until someone | : comes up with a great new incompatible idea that takes the gaming | : world by storm. | | What might that be? :-) Wish I knew. :-) Allen