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glNext GDC session presented by Valve, Frostbite, Unity, Epic, Oxide

LordOfChaos

Member
I'll be very interested in this one. It didn't seem like OpenGL could catch a break on the PC side, I hope their new API is competitive.
 

Nzyme32

Member
I'll be very interested in this one. It didn't seem like OpenGL could catch a break on the PC side, I hope their new API is competitive.

Same. The more I read, the more interested and somewhat hopeful I am for it, despite knowing next to nothing. Seems like OpenGL really needs a fresh start
 
Sick, 2010 was a good vintage for graphics. Apple has great taste. Those OSX users have it made, I say!

The year an OpenGL version comes out is typically not the year an OS adds support.

They were making really great yearly strides in OpenGL support until Yosemite. Wouldn't surprise me if something is up with OS X's graphics stack completely right now, however, with the Core Graphics head leaving, and the introduction of Metal.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Btw isn't it weird that there are no IHVs present in this talk?

This is an offshoot of one of the comment other links posted here:

I know this is GDC, but how come this is API users giving the talk rather than the IHVs?

All of the folks presenting are members of Khronos and have been participating in the creation of the new API.

Sounds like it will just be stuffed API chat. Dependant on how far along they are, they might just redirect folks to individual vendor events or booths or whatever. Maybe they will be surprise guests, who knows.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
As someone that does a lot of OpenGL development on a Mac Pro (2013), I can assure you that "stability" isn't something that Apple's drivers are good at. I can think of a half dozen ways to trigger a GPU reset or hard-lock the entire machine with code (sequences of GL function calls and/or shaders) that works fine on other platforms. Same story for their OpenCL runtime; simple things like "a loop calling a function using a vec4 constant pulled from an array" will crash the GPU in a way that requires a hard reset to recover.

Yup, I have the 15" Macbook Pro Haswell, I can't at all agree with people who dismiss Apples poor graphics performance with "they favor stability". The Windows graphics stack has been more stable and 30-50% more performant for me, on Apples own hardware. it's a sad state of things, and they're also years behind on OpenGL implementations.

If they adopted whatever this new thing is quickly, that would be great, but might be wishful thinking.

Like shit, they built the entire Mac Pro around OpenCL, and still fuck up its performance.

mac-pro-2014.0011.png
 
I see Tom Olson from ARM has been added to the speakers. He's the chair of this iniative, basically.

From the Khronos slides

Organized as a joint project of ARB and OpenGL ES working groups
Chair: Tom Olson (ARM)
Language / IL group chair: Bill Licea Kane (Qualcomm)
API spec editors: Graham Sellers (AMD) and Jeff Bolz (NVIDIA)
 
Yup, I have the 15" Macbook Pro Haswell, I can't at all agree with people who dismiss Apples poor graphics performance with "they favor stability". The Windows graphics stack has been more stable and 30-50% more performant for me, on Apples own hardware. it's a sad state of things, and they're also years behind on OpenGL implementations.

If they adopted whatever this new thing is quickly, that would be great, but might be wishful thinking.

Like shit, they built the entire Mac Pro around OpenCL, and still fuck up its performance.

mac-pro-2014.0011.png

Eh. I would like to see a later version of 10.9's performance, as well as 10.10.2 (per usual, the early releases of 10.10 have had performance regressions, which usually get resolved in later driver optimizations).
 

Durante

Member
I see Tom Olson from ARM has been added to the speakers. He's the chair of this iniative, basically.

From the Khronos slides

The fact that the chair is from ARM and the IL chair is from Qualcomm should be enough to confirm (as if it needed confirmation) that glnext is also intended for the mobile space.

(Just saying because someone was doubting that in another thread)
 

Nzyme32

Member
I see Tom Olson from ARM has been added to the speakers. He's the chair of this iniative, basically.

From the Khronos slides

Kind of sounds like there is going to be a hell of a lot to discuss, yet the talk is only an hour long. Not too sure how much detail to expect from all this
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Really looking forward to this.

I hope they get good industry support even from the usual OpenGL laggards.

This needs to be something beyond gaming on Linux and Android though, they seriously need at least to get the foot in the door with Apple and get them to commit to glNext on OS X before they bring Metal there too.

Windows is and will be DirectX, iOS's future is Metal at the moment, consoles do not rely on glNext (although if they got Sony to commit to it would be really nice, but not expected), etc...

Android means Android 6.0 or something, which is not out yet, and we keep seeing how long it is taking for new versions of Android to reach a critical mass of users.
 
Aspyr dev on reddit

Note: this is all personal opinion and conjecture.

"They" would include: Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Intel. While I fully expect to see glNext on a Nvidia GTX 970 very soon, I doubt the GTX 670 I have will see an implementation within a year if at all. I doubt we'll see an implementation of glNext on an Intel HD 4000 at all, it'll probably be unsupported.

So now we have a choice: support two different graphics pipelines (OpenGL + glNext), or go with the lowest common denominator. So far the entire game industry has taken the LCD route so, to me, what's going to happen next is very clear. glNext will be a buzz word API that only a handful of people will use until most of the market supports it, 5+ years from now.

It's my hope that they made glNext compatible with the last 5 years of products and the companies involved have created an open source OpenGL implementation on top of glNext. That would provide immediate support, driver improvements and a transition path. However, that won't sell additional hardware so they won't do it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gamin...essor_to_be_unveiled_at_gdc/cogbtdc?context=3
 
Aspyr dev on reddit
It's my hope that they made glNext compatible with the last 5 years of products and the companies involved have created an open source OpenGL implementation on top of glNext. That would provide immediate support, driver improvements and a transition path. However, that won't sell additional hardware so they won't do it.
That's the real stinger. If they really want easier ports of existing games, they would tackle a D3D layer as well (Aspyr dev mentioned possibility in another post). Both of these would be so nice to see, but the Aspyr dev is probably right.
 
There's also going to be two other glNext sessions, outside GDC

More on the Next Generation of Graphics and Compute API

Date: Thursday, March 5 | 1st session: 12:00pm – 1:30pm | 2nd session: 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Location: SF Green Space

Neil Trevett | President of The Khronos Group, OpenCL Work Group Chair, VP Mobile Content, NVIDIA
Pierre-Loup Griffais | Developer, Valve Software
Tom Olson | Work Group Chair OpenGL ES, ARM

Take a break from the Moscone crowds and join us at SF Green Space (see map and directions below) for more about this exciting new API, whether you missed the 10:00am session at Moscone or just want to learn more. We’ll have many of the speakers and demos that were presented at the 10:00am session, and we will have plenty of time for Q&A. While you’re here, pick up a reference guide, and more.

You DO NOT need a GDC conference or exhibitor pass to attend, however seating is limited. If the first session is full, come to the encore session at 2:00. Please register for your session below.

https://www.khronos.org/news/events/gdc-2015
 
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