Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!tjs From: tjs@cs.monash.edu.au (Toby Sargeant) Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: openGl from yaroze conversion Date: 27 Jun 1999 23:27:54 GMT Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 38 Message-ID: References: <37702400.7AFE4B6B@breathemail.net> <930348110.639671215@www.netyaroze-europe.com> <377619BC.66BC29FE@breathemail.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: longford.cs.monash.edu.au X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) On Sun, 27 Jun 1999 13:31:56 +0100, Alan Marshall wrote: >I heard that although those 2 Matrox cards are v good, their OpenGL >support isn't as good as it should be, but maybe that's just a Windoze >thing. IS the 400 out here yet, or just in US? Slight tangent but I >think some of the TNT2 cards ship with Win95,98,NT and BEos and Linux >drivers! The Matrox G400 is out in the US, and has just made it to Australia. Don't know about Europe :) As to OpenGL support, according to a FriendWhoKnows(tm) ther G200 OpenGL support has mostly sucked up til now. The G400 should have much better support and thias should flow on to the G200. The most important thing is that although they're not the best in terms of raw speed (although the G400 will apparently change that too), they're really good in terms of quality and features. The G400, for example, is the first 3D card to have real bumpmapping in hardware. The other important issue is that the Matrox cards perform exceptionally well as 2D cards. They're AGP cards, unfortuantely, so I'll have to upgrade before I can get one. :( >When you say performance edge, what exactly do you mean? Do you just >mean faster or what? My only experience of Direct3D is playing a game, >selecting openGL, then Direct3D, and then sticking to OpenGL. I decided >not to bother to learn Direct3D ;) Direct3D has the 'advantage' of being much lower level, which means that the speed is less a function of the driver and more a function of the actual game itself. Given a good OpenGL implementation, however, it should be possible to get comparable speed. OpenGL is _much_ more programmer friendly, which I think is arguably more important, given that raw machine power is increasing exponentially, whereas the number of hours in a week certainly isn't. Toby.