08-19-2015, 11:13 AM
I need to take a break and some vacations so don't expect a shiny GL4 renderer soon
Crude reality:
* HW vendors don't provides new feature in older GPU (quite old for Nvidia/AMD, not really old for Intel). The free driver supports more extensions on those old GPUs...
* GL extension is a better API. New hardware (every year) => new extension => new possibility right now. DX is based on OS release (3-4 years). Because GL is a challenging API, all goodies from DX are incorporated in GL (possible with extension).
* AMD doesn't have any money to invest on the GL driver. I understand them it is a too small market. So the only solution is to do their job in the application. At least DX12/Vulkan will move half of the driver to the application. Performance of Vulkan/DX12 will be the same, it will only depends on the application.
* DX driver is really well optimized. In order to achieve the same speed, I need to implement complex behavior whereas a naive Dx implementation is really fast.
* The GL renderer wasn't done to replace Dx but to provide a nice plugin on Linux. The fact than GL is now better than Dx is an unexpected accident
Crude reality:
* HW vendors don't provides new feature in older GPU (quite old for Nvidia/AMD, not really old for Intel). The free driver supports more extensions on those old GPUs...
* GL extension is a better API. New hardware (every year) => new extension => new possibility right now. DX is based on OS release (3-4 years). Because GL is a challenging API, all goodies from DX are incorporated in GL (possible with extension).
* AMD doesn't have any money to invest on the GL driver. I understand them it is a too small market. So the only solution is to do their job in the application. At least DX12/Vulkan will move half of the driver to the application. Performance of Vulkan/DX12 will be the same, it will only depends on the application.
* DX driver is really well optimized. In order to achieve the same speed, I need to implement complex behavior whereas a naive Dx implementation is really fast.
* The GL renderer wasn't done to replace Dx but to provide a nice plugin on Linux. The fact than GL is now better than Dx is an unexpected accident