Google ratchets interweb 3D on Windows
Google has announced a new open source project designed to facilitate the use of WebGL, the browser-based 3D graphics standard floated by Mozilla and the Khronos Group. Known as the Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine - ANGLE, for short - the project will allow the still-gestating WebGL to work in tandem with Microsoft's DirectX …
It should improve the directx to opengl mapping that goes on in there. Ooh, and maybe virtual box as well, while we're at it, so you can play directx games inside the vm that map to the opengl calls on the linux/ bsd host.
This is an OpenGL layer on top of DirectX, not a DirectX layer on top of OpenGL. Both have their uses, but I don't think they necessarily have much in common.
how is implementing OpenGL-ES on DirectX going to help wine? The translation's going the wrong way.
You might be more interested in the DirectX state tracker for Galium3D as it could help in the case you mention.
http://zrusin.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-features.html
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nzk2OQ
WHY exactly do we need 3D graphics on the Interwebs? Aren't 3D programs usually space hogs? And someone thinks it's grand that we'll want to download all those textures and sprites for their webpage?
And people complain that Flash is a pain in the ass...
@Pirate Dave
So we can have a standardized mechanism for making 3D games and other content where 3D is genuinely appropriate, without relying on Flash/Silverlight.
This is a *good* thing, I don't think anyone is proposing that normal web content be somehow made 3D.
Those damned colours everywhere on the webs! Damned resource hogs. Whole bytes for nothing. 16 colours was good enough for my father, so they'll damn well be enough for anyone. (As if any man can even name more than 16.)
i remember when people moaned about 'downloading' gifs etc for a webpage...
I see all the web developers have put me in my proper place. God forbid a network admin like me try to discourage people from wasting bandwidth on frivolous 3D stuff. Carry on, chaps.
Yet another layer between the computer and the application. Not every damn thing needs to run in a Web browser.
"Google product manager Henry Bridge points out in a blog post, Windows machines aren't all that likely to include OpenGL graphics cards."
Ermmm this is 2010, not 1999. Point me to a mainstream <£50 graphics card that _doesn't_ come with OpenGL drivers for Windows... Matrox, S3, Intel, nVidia and Ati all provide OpenGL drivers for their cards. Google talking more crap, nothing new.
Why would we ever need any more than 640K of RAM?
Why the hell would I want my computer to be permenantly connected to the internet?
With technologies like this, you need to put the horse and cart the other way round. Throw the tech out there, and see what people can do with it.
I can think of a couple of minor uses for it (nothing earth shattering) but if the techs readily available, some bright spark will come up with something that'll make you think "Oh, yeah. Why didn't I think of that!"
It'll be nice to see GL get some DX support. It has languished a bit from lack of mainstream hw and sw support. The last ever game written it it was released 12 years ago.
Before the trolls jump on that, yes I know there are plenty of applications that use GL (I do raytracing myself) but we're talking numbers here, boys.
When it comes to native hardware support, GL really does need to tap into the readily available. After, who's gonna buy a £500 nvidia Quadro card to surf the web?
Doom 3 was released in 2007 and supported OpenGL, where have you been for the last decade? There have't been many, but all Id games have supported OpenGL. How long Id will continue supporting OpenGL now they are owned by Zenimax is another story.
And apparently WoW can run in OpenGL if you are into MMMO's.
I'm so glad they got the acronym straightened out. "Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine - ANGLE" is much better than the earlier name which was a no go, Native Operations for Graphical Output.
@Tzael:
I think what they mean is that when people plug in their GFX cards and load up windows it automatically installs the Windows Update driver which includes only DirectX.
You can get OpenGL but you have to go to the vendor website or install from the CD, but to most users if it works why break it?
"@Tzael:
I think what they mean is that when people plug in their GFX cards and load up windows it automatically installs the Windows Update driver which includes only DirectX.
You can get OpenGL but you have to go to the vendor website or install from the CD, but to most users if it works why break it?"
Erm - nope! I think you'll find that the vast majority of gfx cards will be installed with the cd and drivers that came with it, Windows will usually insist on it unless you want a 'Standard Vga adapter' and a horrible yellow exclamation mark in device manager and a display that only shows 16 colours.
