Is It Time For an OpenGL Gaming Revolution? 496
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the free-games dept.
from the free-games dept.
MrSeb writes "In a twist that reinforces Valve's distaste for Windows 8, it turns out that the Source engine — the 3D engine that powers Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, and Dota 2 — runs faster on Ubuntu 12.04 and OpenGL (315 fps) than Windows 7 and DirectX/Direct3D (270.6 fps); almost a 20% speed-up. These figures are remarkable, considering Valve has been refining the Source engine's performance under Windows for almost 10 years, while the Valve Linux team has only been working on the Linux port of Source for a few months. Valve attributes the speed-up to the 'underlying efficiency of the [Linux] kernel and OpenGL.' But here's the best bit: Using these new OpenGL optimizations to the Source engine, the OpenGL version of L4D2 on Windows is now faster than the DirectX version (303.4 fps vs. 270.6 fps). If OpenGL is faster, and it has a comparable feature set, and hardware support is excellent... why is Direct3D still the de facto API? With Windows losing its gaming crown and smartphones (OpenGL ES!) gaining in popularity, is it time for an OpenGL revolution?"
Tonight's article... (Score:2, Funny)
Since we've jumped from the performance revealed article this morning to the time to bury Direct X article this afternoon, I can only assume tonight's article will be about "doing away with the legacy OpenGL."
No, but... (Score:4, Funny)
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/08/02/1236203/valve-shares-performance-numbers-on-port-of-left4dead [slashdot.org]
Re:No.. (Score:5, Funny)
the 800 gorilla.
Wow, that's a lot of gorillum.
Re:No.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No.. (Score:5, Funny)
People don't change the game they play, that much I have gathered. I have always been more concerned about the games I wont be able to play anymore than the games that are about to come out net week. So to me, windows has always been an unstable platform that barely looks after its own. In my mind, if someone finally bursts their bubble, at least they wont be able to fuck anything else up by forever changing the rules of the game in the name of selling new versions. Did we ever need direct X? Any reason why direct X couldnt be an open standard? Were they too self centred to just work on opengl? No, of course like any other company, microsoft is the best at anything ever, the only way...
I have never ever given a flying fuck about the difference between opengl and directx apart from one thing: one was open, and one was not. In the process of cynically trying to control the game market, microsoft have forgotten that it needs to also be preserved for posterity... but fuck all that, as long as we have angry birds, who cares about all that other shit... //end drunken rant. more beer needed.
Re:No.. (Score:5, Funny)
How do we nominate a Slashdot post for a Pulitzer?
Re:valve just doesnt' like windows8 for the app st (Score:5, Funny)
I'd also suspect that WinRT and Win8 Metro apps won't support OpenGL... (Can anyone confirm/deny?)
I'd also expect WinRT won't support graphics, mathematical functions or English. (Can anyone confirm/deny?)
Re:No.. (Score:5, Funny)
Tablet sales are 24% of the market in 2012, but are increasing 100% year over year. If that continues for 18 more months, ...
... they will have 174% of the market?
Re:Direct3D can do better (Score:5, Funny)
my car can do 270 kph, and yours can do 315... well yay. But which one is more fuel efficient at 60fps?
I'm not sure whether you're talking about cars or computers now, but the answer's the same either way; it's depends on the driver.