Message-Id: <199811152033.UAA07031@remus.clara.net>
From: "Arthur" <arfa AT clara DOT net>
To: <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: RE: OpenGL and DJGPP
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 20:32:48 -0000
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

> OpenGL was never meant for software rendering. It might be speedy
> on a dual
> PII-450Mhz, but there's no point to using it unless you're specifically
> targetting an audiance who will have OpenGL equipped hardware.
> Allegro is a
> very good alternative to OpenGL, and DirectX (if you have the
> time to learn
> it) is even better.
>
> Wes
> wesk AT widomaker DOT com

Yup, OpenGL is designed for quality, not speed. You are exaggerating a bit
by saying that you need a dual PII-450 setup to get smooth graphics, but any
game will suffer on anything less than a PII. Direct3D is designed for
speed. It is much faster in software mode than OpenGL - especially on lower
spec machines. It is _much_ harder to program, though, and OpenGL is
marginally faster in hardware modes even though it is not as well supported.
I heard that DirectX was merging in some of OpenGL. If anyone can confirm
this, mail me privately.

Back to the original question - Microsoft's and SG's OpenGL distributions
arn't aimed at DOS setups. You'll need MESA or SciTech MGL to use OpenGL in
DOS. Allegro's routines are simple, but compared to OpenGL, they look poor.
This is no offense to Shawn Hargreaves (the author of Allegro), but
Allegro's 3D routines were never designed to be a direct competitor to
OpenGL and so are a little basic in comparison. They are _much_ faster
though.

James Arthur
jaa AT arfa DOT clara DOT net
ICQ#15054819

> Teemu Kurppa wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> > I tried to find answer for my question from web and faqs, but without
> > result:
> >
> > Is it possible to build OpenGL programs without hardware support (ie.
> > all rendering is software implemented) on DJGPP ?
> >
> > I downloaded Microsoft's OpenGL-package for Win 95, and also GLUT, but
> > all instructions on web seems to concentrate on setting up OpenGL for
> > some commercial compiler (for example Visual C ...)
> >
> > I've tried to get path's and everything right, but it just doesn't work?
> > If anybody could help, it would be much appreciated