Doom Creator Says Direct3D Is Now Better Than OpenGL 405
arcticstoat writes "First-person shooter godfather and OpenGL stickler John Carmack has revealed that he now prefers Direct3D to OpenGL, saying that 'inertia' is the main reason why id Software has stuck by the cross-platform 3D graphics API for years. In a recent interview, the co-founder of id Software said, 'I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today.' He added, 'Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns. Direct3D handles multi-threading better, and newer versions manage state better.'"
"Doom creator"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Slashdot not for nerds anymore? I never thought I'd see the day when John Carmack was described on Slashdot as "Doom creator".
Not only that (Score:5, Insightful)
They work with the GPU manufacturers. Basically when new GPUs are in development, so is the new DirectX. So MS has a chat with nVidia and AMD. They tell the GPU makers the kind of things they want, the GPU makers tell them the kind of things there hardware is going to have, and they are able to come to a standard that everyone supports. That is why when new GPUs come out they support all the features of the new DX. It isn't some amazing coincidence. Also it is proper support, a single standard that works well with the abilities the cards have. You write your DX driver, and everything works.
OpenGL functions in much more of a lagging capacity. New video cards come out, and then it gets support for whatever it is they bring to the table sometime later. Khronos doesn't seem to go out and engage the vendors during development and try to have OpenGL ready to meet the next gen cards. Also their strategy often seems to be "just use extensions for it," which means that you can have differences between vendors for how things work.
Re:DirectX (Score:5, Insightful)
it would be nice. but open source isn't about nice.
And that is why Open Source doesn't win. Be nice and user friendly, and you are able to play better with others.
Re:"Doom creator"? (Score:3, Insightful)
The topic is about comparing one API to another.
In that context, even if you were to go into a semantic rant about it, John Carmack is the creator of Doom.
Re:DirectX (Score:4, Insightful)
Say what you will about the confusing configuration dialogs and lack of build config options. Visual Studio + Visual Assist is (so far) untouched in terms of features and stability.
(And I'm saying this as a full time developer of Gnome apps...)
This sounds familiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns.
*tweak*
Apple had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve OSX, while Windows has been held back by compatibility concerns.
:)
Re:DirectX (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What shocks me the most.. (Score:4, Insightful)
And it is far preferable to the alternative.
Re:DirectX (Score:5, Insightful)
What lunacy...I guess Linux didn't go anywhere either cause it's open source...or Chrome.....or Firefox.....
Re:DirectX (Score:4, Insightful)
"Commercial will always triumph over open, because open is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
Or something like that.
Re:DirectX (Score:4, Insightful)
it would be nice. but open source isn't about nice.
And that is why Open Source doesn't win.
I feel like the whole idea that we had to "win" in the first place was a fallacy...
Re:This sounds familiar... (Score:1, Insightful)