I'm not directly familiar with either graphics library, but here's my take.

OpenGL
- Documentation? Something tells me that most commercial developers aren't scouring the web for german2english tutorials. Whether it's DirectX or not, they're more like to spend a few $thousand on real learning material.
- If commecial developers are using Visual Studio, it's likely that they aren't making games for other platforms anyway.
- I think the potential user base is larger here. OpenGL has been ported to several OS's.
- If I change a couple words around, perhaps you can see the flaw in this logic, "Since most of users already have Xbox, many developers find it quite pointless to invest cash in Playstation3".


OpenGL. All in one solution? No. The history of Unix tells me "Do one thing, and do it well".

sorry, i meant direct3d vs opengl, i hust thought everyone would assume thats what i meant.

as for performace, nvidia cards are waaaay better than ATI cards at opengl. recently, nvidia was able to top ATI in direct3d performance aswell, but they keep leepfrogging.

im beggining to see more adoption of openoffice(my history teacher uses it, and one of my friends). i think that if ooo would become a little better, OEM's might start including it with their computers by defualt. that will lead to REAL interoperability which will in turn make linux more popular, more games for linux.

a great advantage that linux has over OSX is that because it runs on pc's, windows is only 3 minutes away. If OEMS start selling linux pc's with the exact same specs as windows pc's alongside each other and the linux ones are 75 dollars cheaper, i think that will lead to more adoption. especially in the budget non-gamer market.

Next thread on this subject:

"What Linux really really really really needs to replace Windows . . "

OOo is far from ever reaching the level of MS Office. OEM's barely even include MS Office (they only include a demo sometimes) most of the time people get it seperate so its what people are choosing to use. Even if OOo was included most people would still get MS Office because thats what their company uses. Since MS Office works on the apple OS it has that much more market share. Im sorry but OOo is not replacing MS Office anytime soon.

Much as I would have loved to disagree here, I must admit you're right.

OpenOffice, when presented as an alternative to MS Office can really embarrass you. My uncle has all his work in MSWord DOC format and yesterday I tried to open a few documents with OpenOffice. It's really embarrassing when the file loads all right but the printing just ignores all the page layout settings. Couldn't figure that one out.

Besides he doesn't like OOo because he has used it with Windows and he says that most of his page layout commands are ignored by OpenOffice when they work perfectly with MS Word and he is unable to set a page up just right like he wants.

I think AbiWord, though feature-poor compared to OOo, can be a better alternative to MS Word than OpenOffice.

lol the few times we agree harishankar. Anyways OOo is a great freeware office suite. And since not everyone can afford the steep price tag for MS Office I think it definitly has its place. However MS Office is more powerful overall and definitly more established people talk about how windows needs to be replaced by linux (which I think is a foolish comment in and of itself and is going down the wrong path) but you need to understand its not just Windows but its the software that runson windows that companies need. Many companies have very customized software that will only run in Windows. AutoCAD, Adobe, Macromedia (?), MS Office, SAP (?), specialized equipment and lab software,shipping trackment system software, tyhis list goes on. All that software will need to be moved over to linux before it can "replace' windows. Fat chance of that happening. Even if you figure only 70% of computer owners have a job where htye use a PC at work almost all those people would be using MS Windows. I estimate 90% of corporate and business client PC's are runnign Windows as the main OS if not more. That is a huge market share still so MS is effectively seeing nearly ~1.7 licenses per person that uses a PC. Thats also not including some of those people may have a desktop at work a desktop or two at home and a laptop. If that makes sense to anyone? Basically my point is MS windows is very very very very very very very well established and all this talk of "overthrowing windows" or "replacing windows" is purely wishful thinking. There is sooooooo much more to it then just the OS. There is a lot of infrastructure behind it. For personal use yeah it could gain a stronger foothold perhaps maybe 10% in the near future (not too near still thinking close to a decade if not more) but corporate use? Forget. You can show me all these utopian articles of these small companies who switched to Linux saving soem money. But in the whole scheme of things thats but a mere drop in a huge ocean.

IMO Linux should just continue as it is. I mean yeah we can make improvments to it but why does it need to replace windows? Why can;tit co-exist? Pk you hate MS. Big deal congrats you now have severed nearly allt ies to it so what do you care if someone else uses it? Yeah show other people thats always good. But don't force it onto anyone. Isn;t that why you hate MS? And now you want to do it with linux.Open source, closed source. It doesn't matter its still the same thing. So stop it with these topics of how to replace windows and let each one go at their own pace and enjoy linux like you always have. Linus never intended to have linux as a Windows replacement. he just wanted to make a good OS with an innovative licensing scheme and people decide to bash MS for what they do and then turn around and scheme of ways to get everyone onto linux.

Well thats my thoughts. Good night all.

Did that this weekend. I wish I could tell them the main reason I purchased this game is to support companies that make native Linux games...plus UT series is amazing!

Sweet story carlwill.

I only support games that are good :-p fortuantly UT was good.

Guys,

The whole reason microsoft made DirectX is so that games developers can be locked-in to Windows only. On top of that, they make it a component in visual studio and add all these extra features to DX on each-n-every release to encourage end-users to always have the latest directx and so ms gets more money........

Even though OpenGL operates a little faster than Direct3d, D3D is marketed better (remember the Half-Life 2 demonstration and marketing??) eg, Wow!! look at this!! see-through water, high-definition textures....

Its all marketing...

its a fantasy when you use the word 'REPLACE' What you mean I think is 'Compete With'

its all about business and Microsoft has their name planted in 95 percent of the households. I dont see that changing for awhile because again its all about the name and familiarness. You can tell people "hey look, there's better coffee out there" but they still feel comfortable at Starbucks which seems to have a store every 1/2 mile in my city. I don't see anyone uprooting Starbucks, McDonalds, Nike, etc and the same is with Microsoft. I think if you marked Macintoshes down to $300 with monitor and all it might take a 5-10 percent bite out of Microsofts hold on the market but for the most part I think people are going to buy Windows based PC's. I dont think most people on this forum switched to Linux because they got a virus, or spyware or pop-ups....I think they switched (or rather use in conjunction with Windows) to Linux because they are avid computer users and are fascinated by technology in general. Hell if someone is switching because they became frustrated by viruses, or spyware etc then what does that tell you about their competency level in regards to computers? Are they really going to have the patience even for the easiest distros like Mandrake, SimplyMepis or others when they have to install packages or such?

One other important thing is to make a universal "exe" file format that is integrated with the linux kernel. That way there can be a better foundation for installing packages. Each architecture would have its own exe package (for each seperate program) and each exe package would have all the required dependencies. You could have an "advanced" option that allows you to install source also.

My 3 "sense"

I think many Linux distro's are 100% Newbie Ready! Many first time buyers walking into a store and seeing Linux next to Windows may prefer Linux... Especially if they compare the price tags between fully loaded machines complete with office suites!

People who have used windows for years learn how to handle some of it's quircks and failures themselfs without paying a computer technician $80 if they can even find one that don't say "Sorry, we don't do linux"

That's where sites like LinuxQuestions.org come in... There are people here with years of experience dealing with all the little quirks in Linux and they can explain to newbies how to do the same so that eventually every other person you meet can handle routine maintaince of a linux machine!

Yet there will always be the old time windows users who say "this linux stuff is just to wierd" but they may be in for a rude awakening when they see how different Vista is from XP!

I can't wait to see peoples reactions to a round Start Button that no longer says start and what they will do when many windows programs no longer even have a simple File menu!

Yeah... About Vista...

Nobody is going to buy it. XP works fine for me and I dont want to pay for something that pushes my hardware requirements to the limit. Neither do businesses. You can google it if you like. Here is something I got in a second off of google.

"No one" was going to buy XP either.

Very few people buy a separate copy of the newest Windows version.

Most people either:

1. Just wait until their Windows computer is "too old" and then buy a new computer with (guess what) the newest version of Windows preinstalled on it.

or

2. Pirate the newest version of Windows.

I'm not advocating piracy. I'm just saying it happens a lot.