newflash, pc gaming is dying becoming less relevant (Im sure I dont need to bring up stats to prove this)

WoW aside what would u think would be the most run 3d app?
Im guessing something like google earth (opengl btw).

how many millions of opengl es phones are out there?
look at there continued market growth (constrast this with the continued market decline of windows mobile)
look at apples download shop 5,000,000 a day (majority opengl) contrast this with home xna where if u hit 5,000 a day then youve a huge hit

another company called 'adobe' maker of some well know apps (eg photoshop/flash/aftereffects etc), guess what 3d api theyve started using?

look at the broad picture folks, computing + what we're using them for is evolving, opengl seems to be going from strength to strength, contrast this with d3d which yes dominates windows gaming ( a dying market ) yet has little impact elsewhere

Honestly of the 2 api's honestly which has got the better future :)
In saying that though neither are gonna die anytime soon

Come on, are you seriously asking game developers to predict the future of general-purpose computing? To self-styled game developers, if it isn't useful in pursuit of high-performance graphics - never mind that the majority of games neither need nor employ them - then it's "useless."

Besides, predicting the future is risky business. Most predictions beyond five years out in this thread will end up wrong, so why bother? Just enjoy the ride and enjoy the abundance of really cool technology available. (Seriously, even as "fucked" as OpenGL is, it's pretty amazing stuff compared to where we were 5, 10, 15 years ago.)

Quote: Original post by zedz
newflash, pc gaming is dying becoming less relevant

They've been saying this since PC gaming began. It hasn't happened yet.

Quote: Original post by zedz
WoW aside what would u think would be the most run 3d app?
Im guessing something like google earth (opengl btw).

Wait... why, aside from trying to support your point, would you think that? Do you honestly think people just sit about watching google earth all the time?

As for what I think it might be... well, I'm technically looking at it; I call it Windows Vista and the desktop which is powered by D3D under the hood.

Quote:
how many millions of opengl es phones are out there?
look at there continued market growth (constrast this with the continued market decline of windows mobile)
look at apples download shop 5,000,000 a day (majority opengl) contrast this with home xna where if u hit 5,000 a day then youve a huge hit

and why, why, WHY do people keep saying 'huhuhuh.. OpenGL|ES..' when it is NOT the same thing as OpenGL (note: two SEPERATE specs). They are two seperate APIs for seperate usage; you don't use OpenGL|ES on the desktop and you don't use OpenGL on mobile devices.
Feel free to stop making this mistake; it knocks your credibilty a little.

Christ, I'm getting bored of pointing this out to people...

Quote:
another company called 'adobe' maker of some well know apps (eg photoshop/flash/aftereffects etc), guess what 3d api theyve started using?

'Start' might be pushing it a little; the only reference I can find is for After Effects which is noted on the wikipedia page as supporting OpenGL back in version 6.0, in 2003.
However, again this is an OSX product as well, so once again we are back to 'use it if you don't have a choice'.
Photoshop might have recently picked up a few GPU tricks however, again, OSX product, so unless they felt like rewriting the backend for Windows to use D3D(and I would suspect that OSX is a bigger market for this sort of thing than Windows tbh) which would be a waste of time/effort, then it's hardly surprising.

Quote:
look at the broad picture folks, computing + what we're using them for is evolving, opengl seems to be going from strength to strength, contrast this with d3d which yes dominates windows gaming ( a dying market ) yet has little impact elsewhere

Honestly of the 2 api's honestly which has got the better future :)
In saying that though neither are gonna die anytime soon

OpenGL really isn't going from 'strength to strenght'; it is stuck with an old programming model which, if given the choice on the desktop, people want to move away from. Bind-to-edit is a pain and a waste of time and as for the multi-threading abilities, well I'm as yet to see anything even on the table for this.

In the mobile space, yes, OpenGL|ES has things tight right now, but MS are looking again at their mobile market in the wake of the iPhone and I wouldn't expect it to have that run forever. (I mean, once Sony where sitting high in the console wars and look what happened to them....).

When it comes to GPGPU and related tasks, well there is alot of noise about it but unless you are running ALOT of data at once for the average user is means nothing.
The biggest GPGPU workout my machine gets is when I run folding@home on my machine while I'm at work; and right now that all uses the CUDA/CTM stuff directly from NV and AMD.

As for the direction things are going, you are right things are changing; low power usage, light weight devices with good visual style and feedback are what people want/using. Look at the uptake of netbooks since they were released. In that sitution neither OpenGL, nor D3D, nor OpenGL|ES are likely to be required, instead you are looking at things like OpenVG, Direct2D and other things long those lines for many tasks. OpenGL|ES might well come along with that as well I guess, but again I wouldn't count MS out when it comes to these things.

But honestly, what does the future matter?
Right now, 19th April 2009, OpenGL is an old, outdated, pain in the arse API to use which has been fscked over by the ARB so many times I've lost count. D3D9, 10 and 11 on the other hand are better to work with (certainly the latter 2), closer to the hardware, have better integration of features (whats that? no geoshaders in the OpenGL core?) and favoured among those who have a choice in the matter and generally less of a mess. (OpenGL versions currently alive by my count; 2.1, 2.1+direct state access, 3.0, 3.0 forward compatible, 3.1, 3.1 + extension to reenable all the depreated functions(!!), and DSA, written against the 2.1 spec, also mixes up in the 3.x family as well).

Will it change? Well, maybe, once OpenGL was top dog.
But right now the facts, as they say, are the facts.

@Oluseyi
Errm, the API we have for OpenGL NOW and what we had 5,10 and 15 years ago IS the same [wink]

Quote: Original post by phantom
@Oluseyi
Errm, the API we have for OpenGL NOW and what we had 5,10 and 15 years ago IS the same [wink]

The hardware is not. The drivers are not. The abilities afforded to you via that same API are not.

>>They've been saying this since PC gaming began. It hasn't happened yet.

I said dying, not 'dead'
It (like gaming on the amiga etc) will never die
but Im sure noone can argue its on the downward curve practically everywhere (*)

FWIW heres some recent european sales data

heres europe's largest country for pc software (one of its last holdouts)
pc gaming software
germany €490 million 2007
germany €464 million 2008

console game software
germany €889 million 2007
germany €968 million 2008

pc gaming software
uk €211 million 2007
uk €170 million 2008

console game software
uk €1821 million 2007
uk €2070 million 2008

the US is similar to the UK
8-10%

(*)actually Ild love to see any rational data to suggest otherwise, hell I wish PC games werent on the outta

[Edited by - zedz on April 18, 2009 11:29:55 PM]

Quote: Original post by zedz
WoW aside what would u think would be the most run 3d app?
Im guessing something like google earth (opengl btw).

Google Earth definitely has both OpenGL and DirectX modes (on versions 4.0 and 5.0).

Quote: Original post by zedzactually Ild love to see any rational data to suggest otherwise, hell I wish PC games werent on the outta

That doesn't necessarily mean that any future PC game releases will be less profitable for the makers. In fact, it might mean less competition for them. And we could always start learning how to programme console games, it might not be as hard as it seems. [smile]

After what's been said on this thread, I'm actually starting to think Direct3D is the definite better choice for game development, and OpenGL's wider compatibility isn't necessary. One question, though: Can DX 10 games compiled in Windows XP run on Windows Vista?

[Edited by - Sappharos on April 19, 2009 11:40:44 AM]

Quote: Original post by zedz
>>They've been saying this since PC gaming began. It hasn't happened yet.

I said dying, not 'dead'
It (like gaming on the amiga etc) will never die
but Im sure noone can argue its on the downward curve practically everywhere (*)

FWIW heres some recent european sales data

heres europe's largest country for pc software (one of its last holdouts)
pc gaming software
germany €490 million 2007
germany €464 million 2008

console game software
germany €889 million 2007
germany €968 million 2008

pc gaming software
uk €211 million 2007
uk €170 million 2008

console game software
uk €1821 million 2007
uk €2070 million 2008

the US is similar to the UK
8-10%

(*)actually Ild love to see any rational data to suggest otherwise, hell I wish PC games werent on the outta

I'm gonna say citation needed - where did these figures come from?

>>Google Earth definitely has both OpenGL and DirectX modes

under windows default is opengl, (Im reversing promits WoW point :) )

>>where did these figures come from?
GfK

Quote: Original post by zedz
>>They've been saying this since PC gaming began. It hasn't happened yet.

I said dying, not 'dead'
It (like gaming on the amiga etc) will never die

Then dying is absolutely the wrong word. Declining? Especially with the current economy? Much more plausible -- for now. One year does not a ongoing trend make, however.