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| Making Shiz | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 19 2011, 06:41 AM (260 Views) | |
| skarik | Sep 19 2011, 06:41 AM Post #1 |
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kitten eating scum
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Say I want to make an engine. But, I want it to be like cross-platform. Well, no, I decided I wanted to do OpenGL a few years back. Anyhowz, should be even considerin' addin' a DirectX mode for Windows? (kinda gettin' cockblocked by unity, and kind of want to get this set up theory-wise for my senior year for when the three of us are going to go full speed on this edit: and dr. b please don't give a huge epic paragraph answer like you usually do. just like a three sentence if you choose to responds like choice,reason,reason bam |
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| Dr. Best | Sep 19 2011, 12:42 PM Post #2 |
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Administrator
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Maaan, three sentences only? Well I'll give it a try. You should go for as much backend independence as possible using OpenGL or Direct3D only in a very small number of classes. Then you may go ahead and implement an OpenGL backend first. Lateron you might find that the huge number of Windows PCs without proper OpenGL drivers is a good reason to add Direct3D support as well. |
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| skarik | Sep 20 2011, 12:14 AM Post #3 |
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kitten eating scum
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The backend independence was planned from the start just how you said: small number of classes. I 'spect the implementation will vary from OS to OS, but keeping the backend separate will definitely assist with that, among other reasons. I didn't realize the thing about the lack of OpenGL drivers on Windows, though. The two computers that will be workin' for development will be OpenGL 3.2 compat (though technically both are 4.x compat), so I figure the three of us (assuming one decides tonight on whether or not to go to medschool) can get away with just working with the OpenGL 3.3 SDK, then adding higher and lower support when there's a working product. Would that be a good approach? |
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| Dr. Best | Sep 20 2011, 12:28 AM Post #4 |
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If you want to get around that you can use a GUI toolkit in addition. You can use e.g. wxWidgets to have all the window, message and timing stuff platform independent immediately. Might seem like a bit of overkill, but wxWidgets does not require an end user runtime and does not add that much weight to your software. If your graphics device driver comes with Windows or is obtained via Windows Update, chances are high that it does not provide hardware acceleration for OpenGL. If it comes directly from the vendor, you have full OpenGL support. It is a real problem though. One example that proves this point is that it was one of the main reasons, why Poisonville was cancelled during public beta. Sorry, but I'm not really familiar with the different OpenGL standards. P.S.: I moved this. |
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| skarik | Sep 20 2011, 12:31 AM Post #5 |
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kitten eating scum
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Sounds good over here. Well, in any case, you've been a great help in increasin' the knowledge here. Thank ya very much. I might bump this topic if we get to discussing and we hit some sort of logical snag. Again, thank ya. |
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10:20 AM Jul 11