Microsoft, DirectX & Cross Platform Gaming
Doom 3 & Half life 2, two of the most anticipated games of this year are about to come, & again this has created the age old question of Upgrading your PC & DirectX vs OpenGL.
Some say that OpenGL is better & some say DirectX is, but they don’t consider that open GL is not only an Open Source Gaming API but also cross platform while DirectX is Windows Only. With the advanced in DirectX new powerful GPUs are coming which not only require more power to run, but they also emit more heat & money. OpenGL on the other hand looks as good as DirectX but it is still considered a no no for gaming.
The biggest reason for this is the big market share of Windows, developer find it useless to make games for Linux & MacOS X, although for MacOS X there are a lot of games, but they are again all OpenGL based cos DirectX is not for Mac but they still look really good & play good
Now comes the Linux gaming arena, one of the most popular open Source software in the market, sure U can play games with WineX on Linux but it isn’t the same, developer either make a OpenGL rendered compatible with Linux but not made for Linux, this is the same reason, UT2003 & 2004 can run on Linux in OpenGL mode but the gaming is not the same as OpenGL + Windows or DirectX + Windows
This makes me think Y don’t MS release DirectX for other platform too, like DirectX for Mac & Linux, I don’t say that they make it open Source, only release the runtime not the SDK, this way they will capture the market taken already by OpenGL & will add a lot to their already popular DirectX.
The UI of Longhorn is being made in DirectX, it is comparable to MacOS X UI, if not worse which is made in OpenGL, & it has already created hype that it will require Massive GPU power to run it. The AERO Glass UI will require 128 MB RAM with a DirectX 9 based gfx card, although it can be done even at lower specs if they optimize it, but then again MS will never go for what is not there.
Some say Doom3 is better look wise some say Half life 2, some say NVIDIA is better some say ATI, what the hell can’t they stick to one slandered, compatible & equally performing on all platform & cards which won’t create this much confusion. Make a game for NVIDIA in OpenGL & ATI in DirectX, so those with NVIDIA card can’t play on ATI card cos they can’t take a performance hit of only 10 fps & vise versa. WTH, if U can’t take a performance hit of 10 fps then U should not scream at the high cost of components cos U have enough money, well, every one don’t.