DirectX support should be dropped...

#1 Sorry, but I disagree.
On my laptop, only the directx mode is fully functionnal.

#2 I disagree also. On my voodoo 3 I dropped significantly in frames per second in OGL (not that they were great in D3D but that's not the point). The only bug i saw were with the gui where the buttons didn't have the sort of 3d protruding look to them and they were just ugly but i could live with that. Now that I have a geforce 3 I use openGL all the time but that's not the point. Point is that take a look at the compatability file and you will see how some video cards do better in D3D than OGL.

#3 http://www.nvidia.com/content/optimizedgames/index.asp

look at the graphics api column

thx

#4 I know a lot of games are written in DirectX, most games are written for windows so its a logical choice, but my point is that DirectX isn't needed since it only works with 1 client(windows) and 1 compiler(VC++) that torque has. As far as Voodoo cards go, personally I dont think they should be worried about since the performance is soo terrible with them in DirectX with torque.

#5 While I agree with the theory of single-api-is-simpler, if the DirectX wrapper works for certain cases where GL doesn't, it obviously proves out its own usefulness.

I'm not sure what compilers have problems building DirectX. I'm pretty sure that Codewarrior could build it as well, though I haven't tried myself, which is the other supported compiler on Windows. What other compiler(s) are 'people using' that has problems?

d

#6 actually code warrior doesnt build the directx wrapper...
it only compiles in VC++ 6 and its only for windowws.... its a waste of time to code and debug the directX wrapper that will only work in 1 platform.. OpenGl works on the 3 platforms and works a lot better than the directx mode.
It should be dropped or left as it is...

#7 If you don't want to use the DirectX wrapper is there a way to set a compile-time flag to build the engine with only OpenGL support?

If not, maybe that could be added.

I'd like to see them both continue to be supported.
The code in the engine itself shouldn't have to worry about it being on OpenGL or DirectX.

I guess its really up to the Garage Games folks if they want to continue to support the DirectX wrapper moving fowards.

#8 well actually if you dont want direct3d support you dont build the wrapper and that's all ... the wrapper are the .dlls you get when you compile the whole project...
gl2d3d.dll is the wrapper

#9 On my laptop (W2k; ATI Rage 128), only the D3D is functional.

#10 My feeling is that limiting your games rendering options limits the number of people who can play it. Nothing more fustrating then buying a game and finding out you can't play it because the dev team decided that they didn't want to support the only means you had of playing a game. Yes, it makes it easier on you and your dev team since there is a lot less work but limitting your audience that way is never a good thing.

Alc

#11 Did anyone get Open GL to work on a laptop? On my laptop (Baycom, Win98 SE) only DirectX is working.

Alex

#12 Opengl works on my laptop ^^ But then again my laptop has a geforce2 mx in it...

#13 I think if only one single person had trouble with OpenGL and the DirectX worked fine, that would be reason enough to keep it.

We have a wonderful multiplatform engine, why would we look to limit how many people we can reach?

#14 Please don't remove D3D support!
Some cards (like mine) run much better in D3D than in OpenGL. I get much better frame rates in D3D and I get weird transparancy problems in OpenGL.

#15 Do u want to get stomped out by microsoft!!??

#16 Actually, I think that's why Tim hasn't responded. He was on IRC and said "I think someone's in my house! It's Gates' lackeys!"

He never responded after that.

#17 Why would I want to remove DX? *smiles nervously* I'm not even sure why I posted this thread...it was stupid of me. *looks back and smiles nervously*

Seriously I dont think you have to worry about them removing it...it can still help some people out there that don't like being in the 20th century (you voodoo users know what Im talking about... :) )

Microsoft and NVidia ownz you all!

-Tim aka Spock

#18 Dropping DX isn't required to keep torque cross platform. Between the platform abstraction and D3DtoOpenGL, most of DX is wrapped so that ports like Mac and Linux are possible.

Furthermore, a win32 port without DX would suck to implement and probably perform poorly compared to the DX version.

That being said, you do need to be careful about using DX if you want a cross platform game. If you use D3D directly, you should make sure that it also works with D3D to OpenGL. For the non-wrapped APIs (such as DirectPlay), either don't use them, or create a platform wrapper for them and use that. That makes it easier for us non-win32 types to port the backend to the other OSes.
One basic rule for portability is don't include platform specific header files anywhere except the "platformXXX" code.

#19 I just tested the D3D wrapper under borland. With a little work, it compiles fine.

I'm still waiting till this nasty 80's technology we call OpenGL dies, and OpenGL 2.0 is released.

#20 If the torque game engine works on multiple platforms and support multiple rendering options... that is good? Isn't it? Unreal engine does both... and there are tons of games out there that supports both... Why fight it? DX8 is just as good. If it wasn't good enough why would Nvidia do a full hardware implmentation of the DX8 api? If you want it out, you can always take it out yourself on your code. But there are number of people who's relying on the DX8 support.