No OpenGL support in Windows2000 ??

[Sathya Krishnamurthy]

Hey vtk'ers

I have this article the SGI's statement on this issue

http://www.sgi.com/developers/technology/graphics/fahrenheit.html

cheers
~sathya


On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Will Schroeder wrote:

> Hi Simon-
> 
> A very interesting article, thanks for sending it along.
> 
> Another nail in SGI's coffin, I'm afraid. And, I'm sure Microsoft will generate it's usual share of animosity with this.
> 
> We have talked about adding a Direct3D renderer, it doesn't appear horribly hard to do. But this is definitely a topic that needs discussion.
> 
> Will
> 
> At 08:28 AM 12/2/99 -0600, Simon J. Rees wrote:
> >I realize this is slightly off-topic but it must have implications for vtk
> >developers and users.
> >I found the article below via another mailing list yesterday. Apparently
> >there will be no OpenGL support provided by MS in Windows2000 - at least in
> >the medium term.
> >
> >The original article was posted on 11/29/99 and can be found at
> >http://www.theregister.co.uk/991129-000007.html
> >
> >Any reactions? Is there an "official view" as to Windows2000 support for
> >vtk?
> >
> >-sjr
> >
> >The article text  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> >Fahrenheit, the joint Microsoft-SGI project "to define the future of
> >graphics" has crashed in ruins, with Microsoft to all intents and purposes
> >pulling its support for OpenGL and throwing its weight behind Direct3D. The
> >Register has obtained correspondence from the Win2k beta tests which makes
> >this abundantly clear, and last week SGI itself drew a final line under its
> >involvement with Fahrenheit.
> >
> >In a terse note posted on the company site, SGI said: "We have decided to
> >reduce our involvement in all aspects of the Fahrenheit project, in line
> >with our decision to no longer make the IRIX version of Fahrenheit
> >available." Fahrenheit had originally been intended to create a suite of
> >APIs for DirectX on Windows and IRIX and to incorporate OpenGL. As the two
> >companies said at the time (December 1997): "Fahrenheit low-level API will
> >become the primary graphics API for both consumer and professional
> >applications on Windows. The Fahrenheit low-level API will evolve from
> >Direct3D, DirectDraw and OpenGL, while providing full backward compatibility
> >with applications and hardware device drivers written for Microsoft Direct3D
> >and functional compatibility with Silicon Graphics' OpenGL technologies."
> >
> >This is quite clearly no longer true. OpenGL support was pulled from the
> >Win2k beta some months back, prompting a series of problem reports from
> >testers who found OpenGL apps were running slow and/or not working properly.
> >The responses from Microsoft staff do not entirely make the actual position
> >clear. One suggests that drivers for a particularly graphics card were
> >pulled because of source code issues, while another says that "we are not
> >supporting OGL until Direct3D is 100 per cent." Which of course suggests
> >that Microsoft support for OpenGL would crack on ahead once Win2k went gold.
> >
> >A later response clarifies matters further: "No driver that ships with Win2k
> >will contain OGL support... vendors will have to supply their own post
> >ship." All of this however fails to make clear the extent of Microsoft's
> >abandonment of OpenGL and the Fahrenheit project with SGI. But in an email
> >sent two weeks ago, Microsoft's Philip Taylor (senior in MS Direct3D) states
> >the position succinctly:
> >
> >"Do not let your personal preference for the Quake family of games dominate
> >your understanding of this market. OGL is not strategic for us... as the
> >last three years of history in the multimedia space have shown... SoftImage
> >has about 20,000 seats total. And I just about had them convinced to do a
> >port to D3D before we sold them. Outside of the Quake family of games there
> >are, maybe, two hands-full of apps that use OGL. Somewhere between 5-10 per
> >cent. D3D has overwhelming support in terms of titles, yet we have a serious
> >lack of drivers. D3D drivers are strategic for us."
> >
> >And Fahrenheit seems to have been a crock, as Taylor tacitly admits: "Two
> >years ago we had a working OGL wrapper on top of D3D. we missed a window of
> >opportunity to provide this to the IHV community so they would concentrate
> >on D3D drivers. Six months ago we missed an opportunity to make something
> >out of the mess that is called Fahrenheit and turn Fahrenheit low-level into
> >a driver layer to host both the D3D and the OGL runtime on... If we could
> >come up with a plan to remove this bottleneck and get to one graphics driver
> >that would be a huge win."
> >
> >Anyone interested in pursuing the dream of OpenGL as a standard on Windows
> >would do well to compare that last paragraph with SGI's sign-off on
> >Fahrenheit: "Any questions concerning the current status of, or future plans
> >for Fahrenheit should be directed to Microsoft."
> >
> >Fahrenheit clearly does not have much of a home at Microsoft. As Taylor puts
> >it, the company is concentrating on "one graphics driver" (the previous
> >policy had envisaged Direct3D for games, with the addition of OpenGL for
> >high-end systems), and rather than pushing OpenGL as a standard, Microsoft
> >will just let the graphics vendors produce drivers independently.
> >
> >This is a spectacular turnaround from the initial Fahrenheit announcement,
> >and quite a reversal from SGI's position of a year ago, when it trumpeted
> >Fahrenheit's importance alongside the announcement of its NT-based Visual
> >Workstations. But the Microsoft alliance has clearly not been to the
> >company's advantage, and in announcing its ending of support for IRIX
> >Fahrenheit and a 'reduction' (you can't get much more reduced than saying
> >don't hassle us, call Microsoft instead) in its overall involvement in the
> >project, SGI indicated that the rift between the two companies may have been
> >Linux-related.
> >
> >Said SGI: "The future key OS platforms for SGI will be IRIX and Linux and to
> >a lesser extent, [our italics] Windows... While it makes sense to have
> >Fahrenheit on all of SGI's strategic operating systems, it makes little
> >sense to have Fahrenheit on only IRIX and Windows. After much deliberation,
> >it was jointly decided that Fahrenheit could best continue as a Windows
> >OS-only product; thus Microsoft will continue the Fahrenheit development
> >process."
> >
> >The other obvious alternative would of course have been for Microsoft to
> >co-operate in a Fahrenheit implementation for Linux, so the end result is
> >hardly surprising.
> >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> >
> >
> >
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