[Jsnuff1]

I am currently using the RAVE version of UT, is OpenGL better?

OpenGL will look better, but you'll need a ton of RAM and you still won't be able to match the speed of RAVE simply because the RAVE API has undergone revision after revision for optimization while Apple's OpenGL is still a relatively new phenomenon. Also the OpenGL version of UT was always unsupported so expect a bug or issue here and there.

In case someone tries to take this as "RAVE is better than OpenGL", forget about it. RAVE is better than OpenGL for Unreal Tournament because of that particular game's engine (which actually likes Glide the best) and the time in which it was developed. OpenGL is clearly the better API overall for the platform and one of the stroggest moves that Apple has made for better gaming on the Mac in recent years.

I thought that Open GL had undergone more revisions than RAVE...and that the reason UT runs faster in RAVE is solely because the game's engine is optimized for RAVE and not Open GL. Is that correct, that Apple's RAVE drivers have been optimized "more" than their Open Gl drivers?

[ShortcutToMoncton]

While I don't exactly officially know, I automatically would assume RAVE is more robust simply because it has been in development for a much longer time.

Like Covert says, OpenGL is relatively new, and has had few updates (some game designers have in fact critized Apple about this, I think). RAVE was in existence for quite a long time before development on it was canned, and was definitely optimized many more times than OpenGL......

greg

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Though the day's been
really long
I still feel I'm close to
nowhere....

RAVE has absolutely seen more revisions, optimizations and updates than APPLE'S OpenGL implementation at this point. That's a key distinction because the standard OpenGL API has been in existence for quite some time (mostly for business/modelling applications originally) and has seen many updates, but Apple's adoptance of OpenGL only happened in the last few years and they have to do the majority of the work on implementing and optimizing their OpenGL implementation for Mac hardware.

However, as I stressed above, no one is putting their money (or games) on RAVE anymore. Developers know that OpenGL is a better API overall, even if it's not running faster than RAVE right now. Every is confident that OpenGL will eventually reach the same level of optimized performance that RAVE has today with the enhanced graphical capabilities and extensions that OpenGL offers over RAVE.

UT does look a LOT better in OpenGL. Everything is automatically 32-bit color and 32-bit textures whereas Glide dithers down to 16-bit color only. OpenGL will also support the DetailTextures option which RAVE does not. Your video card has to have at least 16MB or more to handle such large full color textures.

If you upgrade to UT 436, the OGL RAM requirements are a lot less now but make sure to read the README as the OGL instructions have changed.

Are you guys serious? UT only offers 3 rendering possibilities:

Software 3fdx glide and RAVE. But choosing RAVE, the gfx work passes on to OpenGL, even though it says RAVE. At least, that what the documentation leads you to believe. Unreal, UT, Deus Ex...

Morogo - OpenGL is not available from within the game. You have to change the UnrealTournament.INI file using a text editor. New instructions are included with the UT 436 updater. As I said before, OpenGL looks a LOT better than RAVE. DeusEx and Rune (games based on UT) do not allow OGL rendering, believe me I have tried.