🚀 go-pugleaf

RichE wrote:

  navyg8r wrote in message <6uufh1$sr0$1...@oak.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
  >simple yes or no question:
  >
  >if you see a 3dfx logo on the box of that awesome computer game you are
  >going to buy, you expect that game to have native 3dfx support (Glide) and
  >thus, use your voodoo 1/2/SLI or banshee card to its full potential.
  >
  >yes or no?
  >

 >Damn right it should.. D3D sucks. OpenGl sucks. Glide kicks ass.


Congratulations, you've displayed a remarkable degree of ignorance with just
that one sentence. Do you have ANY idea of what OpenGL is commonly used for?
Let me educate you - OpenGL is the industry standard in power 3D design
applications. Most of the 3D graphics you see on film, television, and yes in
3D games were created with the aid of OpenGL. OpenGL doesn't need to compete
with D3D and Glide, It already dominates a different market.


>All games should be programed from the ground up to ONLY run on Glide.


Bollocks. Like it or not the gaming industry is moving towards D3D. Why? Simple
reasion: it's generic. Ask any game developer or publisher what would they
"prefer" to be the industry standard and they'll say Glide. Ask them to choose
between Glide only or D3D only for their next title and they'll pick D3D.
Marketing 101 - go for the widest possible audience. Glide is still the better
gaming API - mainly because it's easier to program - but since when has being
the best guranteed market dominance? Ever heard of Betamax vs VHS? Amiga vs PC?

>Lets face it,
>if you're getting a 3d game nowadays you can't expect to run it in software
>even if you've got a 450mhz machine. Why don't developers do the decent
> thing and go 100% 3dfx..

Because it makes no economic sense. If 3dfx released Glide as an open market
API then maybe developers could afford to do this, but they still wouldn't.
Performance differences between D3D and Glide are becoming negligible. It's the
hardware that matters most now,
not the APIs (just compare the early performances of Glide vs D3D). Anyway,
there's room enough for two. But D3Ds future is pretty secure, I doubt the same
can be said for the Glide API.

>Imagine how cool games would look and the average FPS would go up about 30%


So what? You'd have to pretty anal to get excited about any FPS increase over
what most games are getting with a decent system. Face it, the API debate is
virtually dead, it's more a case of who can come up with the next killer
hardware configuration.

Stu