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h3r3tic
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 261
Location: Torun, Poland
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deed_y
Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 2
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 Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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Thanx !
About the OpenGL gui : I understand you want to use it in your app and so don't mind about using it as a general purpose gui, anyway I think that an OpenGL gui for general purposes would be a nice replacement for more classicals gui. Using OpenGL, it is possible to do far more beautiful and complex gui than when using the classical windows widgets. Futhermore, gui built with OpenGL are cross platform ... And now all computers are fast enough to handle this, that's why I think a good and performant Opengl gui would be a very nice thing  |
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h3r3tic
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 261
Location: Torun, Poland
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| Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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| deed_y wrote: | Thanx !
About the OpenGL gui : I understand you want to use it in your app and so don't mind about using it as a general purpose gui, anyway I think that an OpenGL gui for general purposes would be a nice replacement for more classicals gui. Using OpenGL, it is possible to do far more beautiful and complex gui than when using the classical windows widgets. Futhermore, gui built with OpenGL are cross platform ... And now all computers are fast enough to handle this, that's why I think a good and performant Opengl gui would be a very nice thing |
Yup, I understand it and share your point of view. There is at least one general-purpose GUI based on OpenGL but ... it's rather ugly. I'd like to use my lib for normal apps but I don't know if I can make it powerful enough. After all it's my first attempt at coding a GUI. I hope I can get some design decisions right... At the moment it seems pretty good to me  |
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Workaphobia
Joined: 24 Jun 2004
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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Er, but what about systems where the graphics card has zero support for OpenGL, or for whatever reason it is using software rendering mode? Will the framerate be tolerable without hardware acceleration, even for something as simple as a GUI?
I'm just thinking back to how crummy Chromium runs on my laptop.
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"Nifty News Fifty: When news breaks, we give you the pieces." |
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h3r3tic
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 261
Location: Torun, Poland
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| Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Workaphobia wrote: | Er, but what about systems where the graphics card has zero support for OpenGL, or for whatever reason it is using software rendering mode? Will the framerate be tolerable without hardware acceleration, even for something as simple as a GUI?
I'm just thinking back to how crummy Chromium runs on my laptop. |
Fortunately there aren't many such cards around any more. But to answer your question: with software rendering there may be artifacts (e.g. I've seen lack of proper texture support in some -> font problems), the framerate could be anything from 1 to 100 fps, depending on the CPU and GPU 
After all, each program has its mininal requirements. In the case of my GUI, it will probably be at the level of Riva TNT - class graphics cards. But don't worry, the game I'm creating will probably require at least a GeForce256, with GeForce FX5 as the recomended GPU  |
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aldacron
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 1322
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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| h3r3tic wrote: |
Fortunately there aren't many such cards around any more. |
I think you'd be surprised at just how many there are, then. I know an indie game developer whose games are all OpenGL-based. His market is mostly the 'casual' gamer. His Windows support issues are primarily related to outdated drivers and cards which just don't handle OpenGL properly. Conversely, he's had very few OpenGL problems on Mac. I don't expect this to change for a while yet. The average computer user is slow to upgrade/replace hardware and often have no idea where to get the latest drivers for their graphics card (if they even know to do so). |
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h3r3tic
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 261
Location: Torun, Poland
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:53 am Post subject: |
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| aldacron wrote: | | h3r3tic wrote: |
Fortunately there aren't many such cards around any more. |
I think you'd be surprised at just how many there are, then. I know an indie game developer whose games are all OpenGL-based. His market is mostly the 'casual' gamer. His Windows support issues are primarily related to outdated drivers and cards which just don't handle OpenGL properly. Conversely, he's had very few OpenGL problems on Mac. I don't expect this to change for a while yet. The average computer user is slow to upgrade/replace hardware and often have no idea where to get the latest drivers for their graphics card (if they even know to do so). |
Maybe I don't know average computer users, because amongst the ppl I know, the worst GPU one of them owns is a Riva TNT2... I know there may be some 14 year old kiddies that when asked about hw specs of their machines will say "What do you mean what computer I have ? My daddie bought it for 600 dollars". I prefer to be lazy and assume that these kiddies have wiser friends who know a bit about computers and will install drivers for them. And if they don't have a GeForce class hardware... then they are lost, I'm not willing to code a software rasterizer for them |
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clayasaurus
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 857
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| Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 12:52 pm Post subject: |
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| h3r3tic wrote: | | aldacron wrote: | | h3r3tic wrote: |
Fortunately there aren't many such cards around any more. |
I think you'd be surprised at just how many there are, then. I know an indie game developer whose games are all OpenGL-based. His market is mostly the 'casual' gamer. His Windows support issues are primarily related to outdated drivers and cards which just don't handle OpenGL properly. Conversely, he's had very few OpenGL problems on Mac. I don't expect this to change for a while yet. The average computer user is slow to upgrade/replace hardware and often have no idea where to get the latest drivers for their graphics card (if they even know to do so). |
Maybe I don't know average computer users, because amongst the ppl I know, the worst GPU one of them owns is a Riva TNT2... I know there may be some 14 year old kiddies that when asked about hw specs of their machines will say "What do you mean what computer I have ? My daddie bought it for 600 dollars". I prefer to be lazy and assume that these kiddies have wiser friends who know a bit about computers and will install drivers for them. And if they don't have a GeForce class hardware... then they are lost, I'm not willing to code a software rasterizer for them |
Or just fall back on SDL's blit functions, unless that is the same thing as software rasterizer's? *confused* |
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h3r3tic
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 261
Location: Torun, Poland
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| Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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| clayasaurus wrote: | | Or just fall back on SDL's blit functions. |
But I'm creating a game engine, not just a GUI, 3d rendering is more complex than blitting |
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aldacron
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 1322
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:18 am Post subject: |
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| h3r3tic wrote: | | Maybe I don't know average computer users, because amongst the ppl I know, the worst GPU one of them owns is a Riva TNT2... I know there may be some 14 year old kiddies that when asked about hw specs of their machines will say "What do you mean what computer I have ? My daddie bought it for 600 dollars". I prefer to be lazy and assume that these kiddies have wiser friends who know a bit about computers and will install drivers for them. And if they don't have a GeForce class hardware... then they are lost, I'm not willing to code a software rasterizer for them |
It's just one of the things you should be aware of if you are releasing anything commercially (indie or otherwise). TNT2's are fine for OpenGL with good drivers, but there are several cards out there that just do not suport OpenGL properly. Using Direct 3D (particularly version 7) has shown to give the largest level of compatiblity with user's hardware (just wait until you get emails from people with Matrox cards). Software raterizers do not make much sense today, but pluggable D3D/OpenGL renderers are the best option to maximize your market size. Then again, OpenGL-only is not as risky as it was 2 or 3 years ago, and if you aren't doing anything commercially then it doesn't matter anyway. Personally, I intend to support OpenGL only - the consequences of doing so just arent' great enough to justify adding D3D support for the market segment I'm going after.
I recommend that you start visiting the IndieGamer forums. They used to be hosted by Steve Pavlina from Dexterity Software, but after he left the indie game business for a career in public speaking, a few of the members got together and opened the current site. The signal-to-noise ratio is much, much better there than it is in places like GameDev.net and flipcode. Most of the people posting are active indie game developers with varying levels of experience. Lots of good stats, advice, info and general news from the trenches - covering techinical and business perspectives (and even general indie lifestyle stuff). Great place to visit regularly. |
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h3r3tic
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 261
Location: Torun, Poland
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| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:14 am Post subject: |
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| aldacron wrote: | | It's just one of the things you should be aware of if you are releasing anything commercially (indie or otherwise). TNT2's are fine for OpenGL with good drivers, but there are several cards out there that just do not suport OpenGL properly. Using Direct 3D (particularly version 7) has shown to give the largest level of compatiblity with user's hardware (just wait until you get emails from people with Matrox cards). Software raterizers do not make much sense today, but pluggable D3D/OpenGL renderers are the best option to maximize your market size. Then again, OpenGL-only is not as risky as it was 2 or 3 years ago, and if you aren't doing anything commercially then it doesn't matter anyway. |
Thanks for the info. I'll keep that in mind. Right now I'm not doing anything commercially, if I had more time, that'd be a different story. I'm just trying to find my way into the industry and still I have not enough experience to work on something large. I'm thinking of FragBots as a source of that experience and a great portfolio to show to someone for whom I might work in the future.
| Quote: | | Personally, I intend to support OpenGL only - the consequences of doing so just arent' great enough to justify adding D3D support for the market segment I'm going after. |
Same with me. I thought about making a hybrid renderer, but it's not worth the time it'd consume (coding/maintenance)...
| Quote: | I recommend that you start visiting the IndieGamer forums.
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Great, thanks for the link. I've just spent an hour browsing that forums As for gamedev.net forums: they're not that bad if you read selectively. E.g. gathered together, the posts by YannL could form a book about game development |
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clayasaurus
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 857
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:47 am Post subject: |
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| h3r3tic wrote: | | clayasaurus wrote: | | Or just fall back on SDL's blit functions. |
But I'm creating a game engine, not just a GUI, 3d rendering is more complex than blitting |
Oh ok. I though you were talking about using your GUI as a general purpose GUI that could be used in a chat program, the next MS Word, etc.
I agree. If I am not mistaken, modern games have gotten rid of the 'software mode' rendering all together, because it is too slow/complex, and overall not worth it. |
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aldacron
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 1322
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:48 am Post subject: |
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| clayasaurus wrote: | | I agree. If I am not mistaken, modern games have gotten rid of the 'software mode' rendering all together, because it is too slow/complex, and overall not worth it. |
Check out Pixomatic. If you have Unreal Tournament 2004 (or even just the demo), you can see it in action. If you own Dungeon Siege, there's a Pixomatic port in the downloads section of the Pixomatic site.
I don't think AAA PC titles are shipping without software renderers because they are too slow or complex. I think the reason is that the minimum target spec has moved beyond the point where a software renderer is needed. Looking at the minimum spec for Knights of the Old Republic 2 (which I just recently picked up and have become quite addicted to), they list 32 MB OpenGL 1.4 compliant graphics card, but then have a section listing supported chipsets, the oldest being Geforce 2 and Radeon 8500. Eight years ago including a software renderer as a fallback was a necessity, five years ago it was a safe bet. Now the segment of the market that would need it has fallen off the radar, so the ROI doesn't justify development/maintencance costs.
The handheld/embedded market is a different story. I think, for a little while yet, there will continue to be devices where software renderers have a place. |
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