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[Grant64]

Azimer - How is the plugin going. It is an extremely time consuming process building a graphics plugin and just wondered if you could give a progress update - PS Does Azimer already have a public Graphics Plugin - I would like to try it sometime?

[Azimer]

A public release will come with my audio plugin. I plan on making something similar to "Azimer's Plugin Pack". Just make plugins and release... basically be what I do (dunno if I will do Apollo any time soon ;) )

[Grant64]

Could this mean the sort of merge of 1964 and apollo with 1964 doing the core and you making the plugin?

[sk8bloke22]

1964 isnt the only emu out there that benefits from azi's plugins. there's tr64 which also pretty much needs them (audio wise at the mo) and even pj64...his audio is the only plugin that allows u to select the HLE option, which really increases speed.

[Renegade]

so, azi is making HIS OWN graphics plugin. not Jabo's. Not tr64's. NOT any other thing. am I right, or left?

oh yeah, does the gfx plugin (what's the word for it) support DirectX?

[Azimer]

Originally posted by Renegade

oh yeah, does the gfx plugin (what's the word for it) support DirectX?

No... OpenGL. And not full time. My major project is my audio plugin, and until that is retired, it will remain so.

[conkerman]

yo, azimer, just a question. i know that u r working on your audio and also the graphics, but why opengl?
jabo did a little plugin for it and then there's trwingl. i've heard that the graphics quality may be better but is opengl as superior to d3d?
jabo's and nemu's video is damn good and they use d3d, can opengl be better than those?
conkerman

[Azimer]

OpenGL is my choosen API. It is the API I am most comfortable with and that I am most fluent in. I would have to learn D3D to use it and that just allows for more room for errors.

[Renegade]

OGL. can it be used on NVidia TNT2s without any problems?

[Azimer]

nVidia and ATI are both great OpenGL supporters.

[sk8bloke22]

why do ppl, particularly plugin developers (looks at jabo) go for direct x instead of opengl. i mean opengl works so much faster on my pc than directx (in terms of games, UnrealT on directX versus UT on openGL - openGL is loads faster). i mean very few applications use openGL as the API, why is that? or is that gfx cards are just now mainly geared towards running the features of directX...

[Remote]

It´s all about preference, if you were to browse through one or more, there come in the thousands, graphics programming forums or sites you will quickly see hundreds of posts arguing which API is better. It´s the standard DirectX, Direct2d and Direct3d, which were merged into one when Directx8.0 was released - DirectGraphics, versus Opengl.

I get the impression that a lot of people seem to think that OGL is fading away, leaving more room for DirectX. You can accomplish more with DirectX, since it´s a wide API, besides graphics(DirectGraphics) it covers input(DirectInput), audio(DirectSound, DirectSound3d), network/internet play(DirectPlay). Games often use OGL for graphics and Directx for audio and input, so it that sense Directx is superior to OGL, it covers more terrirory.

But when the rest is peeled off, and a naked DirectGraphics tries to knock down OGL it will not succed, neither will OpenGl. OpenGl is a graphics only API, and despite that Directx is a much more mature API, in the latests years it has gone from version 1.00 to version 8.1a, soon to be version 9.00, while OGL remains at version 1.x, OGL version 2.0 is being developed, OGL can achieve everything that DirectGraphics can. When the OGL standard has halted, it´s not probaly not the right word, but it has evolved slower, and DirectX has accelerated in development, OGL has been updated and modernised through extensions. So to sum it up...

DirectGraphics can achieve everything that OGL can, and what OGL can not achive naturally, compared to DirectGraphics, it does through extensions. DirectX is also platform specific, Windows, where OGL is platform independant. Other then these major API´s there´s only SDL, Simple Direct Media Layer, left which to my knowledge has yet to be used in a Zilmar spec Nintendo 64 emu, regardless of form - audio, input, graphics.

It should also be mentioned that DirectX is mainly used for entertainment, gaming, where OGL is geared towards more professional applications, military simulators uses OGL as the graphics API.