Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/09/07/23:48:22
In article <3400C9E5 DOT 5759D7ED AT magibox DOT net>, thane AT magibox DOT net says...
>> Good games require an API that gives full control of the machine to the
>> program. Windows just isn't going to cut it.
Well, first off, that's what DirectX is, really. Of course, it is a hellish,
orgreish thing to try and actually accomplish anything with (or at least
that's what I've been finding in my experiments <sigh>) but at least it is
a decent API.
Now, really I have to scold you children on something. I don't really think
MS is deserving of the kind of punishment people put them through these days;
of course, maybe I'm just playing the devil's advocate, but honestly I
couldn't be happier in some respects with Win 95 -- and, uh, yes, I have used
Linux. Linux itself is wonderful, much better than Win 95 at least in terms
of functionality, however I can't see that X11 is worth it, which is
unfortunate because X11 itself is really great too -- it's just so darned
ugly. GUI - good-looking user interface. Win95 looks good, it's more or less
standard (not as standard as I'd like it though) and it seems to run well on
my system (486SX/33) which is more than I can say of X11. In addition, to all
those who whine about OpenGL vs. DirectX, OpenGL ran at a snails pace and
looked like crap; I just finished installing the DX5 SDK on my machine (yes)
and believe it or not, the examples look pretty good from where I sit. Yes, I
have seen *much* faster 3D demos, but as far as I can tell D3D vs OGL? No
comparison, at least as far as games go. Nowhere in the OpenGL spec did I
find anything remotely similar to DX3D 5.0's Immediate Mode DrawPrimitive,
and if you think I'm interested in dealing with OpenGL (or D3D for that
matter) codestreams, plese, slap me with a large tuna I probably need it. The
DrawPrimitive functions seem as though they will work perfectly for what I
want. I tend to agree that Retained mode is probably not that great, but
OpenGL has no Immediate Mode anyways, that I can see -- correct me if I'm
wrong, I have to admit I did not quite get through the OpenGL spec (got the
HTML versions from DEC).
Really, I think things are basically in massive transition right now. As much
as I really can't stand what's-his-face president of Oracle (he is a dink,
big japanese-style house, nice car, you know the one) I tend to agree with
him when he says we don't really have to worry about MS taking over the
world. Bill Gate's is not Satan -- yesterday I kidnapped him, stripped him
down naked, and -- surprise, surprise, didn't find any pentagram tatoos
anywhere, no 666 burned into his forehead, either.
- Calvin -
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