[SDL] SDL 1.3 - SDL_Texture or SDL_Surface?

[David Olofson]

On Thursday 02 August 2007, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
[...]
> With Vista my understanding was that the minimum out of the box
> experience for OpenGL had been raised at the cost of the maximum
> performance/capability without specialist drivers (due to OpenGL on
> Direct3D emulation). Can anyone confirm that this in indeed the
> case?

There were some last minute changes there (the original plan wasn't 
too popular), but I don't remember the details. You should be able to 
find the full story on the 'net.


> If so in a decade's time things may be simultaneously worse and
> better for OpenGL but it's true 99% of the people I know doing 3D on
> Windows do it using Direct3D and not OpenGL.

Well, Microsoft will probably try to keep it this way. Windows 
(including XBox) is a gaming platform large enough that many consider 
it the only platform worth supporting. As long as MS can keep it 
expensive to port to other platforms, Windows will remain the 
platform of choice for gamers. Other platforms won't have a chance to 
gain enough momentum to become the primary target of a significant 
number of developers.


> Is OpenGL really only become the 3D API for the 5% of non-Windows
> platforms?

I don't believe it's *that* bad. Although the really big market is 
causual games (where most of the indie game developers hang around), 
AAA titles are big business - and AAA titles are mostly played by 
hardcore gamers and other relatively advanced users. Many of these 
games are OpenGL only, and that doesn't seem to be all that much of 
an issue.


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.-------  http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples  -------.
|        http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine       |
|       http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine          |
|     http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting         |
'--  http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation  --'