[Zordab]

I am not a serious gamer but maybe a casual gamer and am having many problems with openGL. I have an iMacDV 400 with OS 9.04 and have just updated to the newest version of openGL. I am into pinball and have Timeshock! and have to keep reinstalling it to get it to work with openGL. I just bought Fantastic Journey and the ball movment is choppy even with graphics and sound set to meduim. I have DoomLegacy and it went to hell after I tryed to run and old wad I had created years ago and it will not work even after reinstall. I have just downloaded Marathon Rubicon and it also will not work under openGL. This openGL thing seems like a pain in the arse. I almost think I should avoid openGL games because they work like crap. What's with it?

Thanks for any advice,

Zordab

[megetherio_tron]

opengl ****ing rocks
what are you smoking?
I remmeber upgrading my opengl from 1.1.1(or something) to 1.2.1 and then when i started to play diablo II
all clipping that used to happen(i'm on a 500 dvse graphite with 128 ram) when i played in millions of colors stopped and i could play perfectly with the quality settings all the way up
UT still gives me probs but not opengl probs(just graphics processing relative to cpu power probs

i don't know
I see opengl as a brilliant breakthrough in gaming
I've never had bad luck with it

I suggest updating to latest

Open GL is superior to both Direct X, Rave or glide...it's the overall package and best compromise of speed/visual quality.

If used correctly, it can also produce excellent outside environments (Quake 3's dark arenas are just one facet of Open GL).

[SpeedRacer]

Zordab -

Rather than slamming you for making a blanket statement about the inherent good/badness of OpenGL, here's something to keep in mind:

OpenGL adds additional memory overhead to your OS memory requirements. Newer version of GL are not as bad as older ones, but you should still allow a min of 5-15MB of extra memory beyond what you set your game's preferred memory setting to. (ex: if you have 200MB free memory left, do not set your game's preferred memory to anything higher than 180-190MB).

I would not even try to play GL-based games on a 64MB machine.

HtH.

Speed

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

I think that the quality of the game's code also is an important factor. However, the RAVE-based UT uses far more RAM than the Open GL-based Quake. Furthermore, Quake trounces UT in frames per second. The textures are far more detailed and gameplay is much smoother overall in Quake 3 compared to UT.

So based on these two games, Open GL owns all of the other 3D APIs. I think it also says something that John Carmack prefers Open GL. Id software writes some of the best game code around, and they actually write their own ports for Macintosh. So when a developer like this stands behind Open GL it suggests to me that this API rules.

[SpeedRacer]

Originally posted by OverclockedHomoSapien:
...Quake trounces UT in frames per second. The textures are far more detailed and gameplay is much smoother overall in Quake 3 compared to UT.

Correction... GL runs faster on ATi cards (Rage128 & Radeon) *not* Voodoo-based cards like the v2 in my lowly iMac. Using Voodoo's Glide runs UT runs *much* faster than either UT or Q3A in GL on this machine's Voodoo 2 card.

Saying that GL runs faster across all games and all hardware just isn't accurate.

...I think it also says something that John Carmack prefers Open GL. Id software writes some of the best game code around, and they actually write their own ports for Macintosh. So when a developer like this stands behind Open GL it suggests to me that this API rules.

Agreed. Apple's standardization on GL shows that they are listening to game developers - a very good thing.

Speed

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

Part of the problem is your video card, which is totally unoptimized for anything at all (sorry but that Rage 128 sucks like a hog in heat). On a powermac G4 w/ Radeon, UT in Glide is only a hair faster than UT in RAVE. Thus, Quake 3A in Open GL is significantly faster than UT no matter what the API. You can find the numbers here:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/...il/index4.html

So with optimized hardware and software, Quake in Open GL trounces UT in either RAVE or Glide. Hopefully Unreal 2 uses Open GL.....Id needs some stronger competition to light a fire under their asses and get updates out more often.