OpenGL has gotten a lot of things right, but its most serious problems are not economic or political, they are technical. I do not care which API wins, but if OpenGL is to win, it MUST correct its numerous flaws, and in my opinion, this should involve a dramatic redesign at nearly every level. My intention here is not to offend or insult, (though I will be terse and sarcastic) nor is it to somehow harm OpenGL. The real problem is that OpenGL, as designed, is inferior to its competitors in several very important ways, which I will spend the rest of this post laying out. However, it is not the real problem, merely a symptom.

This lack of interest is the reason why problems 1 and 2 have not been solved yet. These issues are merely the result of lack of interest in OpenGL on the part of ISVs, IHVs, and, consequently, gaming customers. They can be solved by throwing more resources at the problem. These first two reasons are both non-technical, and thus, ultimately irrelevant. It is also, certainly, a solvable problem, but given the dominance of Windows for gaming, the IHVs have little incentive to solve it at present. DX games are the primary driver for GPU sales, so it is natural that the vendors direct their attention there. OpenGL driver quality is highly variable, and lags abysmally behind DirectX. Mobile (ES3) is even further behind, and is sitting where DirectX was 6 years ago.

At this writing, the lowest common denominator feature set for desktop platforms is a restricted subset of GL4. An advanced spec is of no value if there are large fractions of the market that do not implement it. While the current GL spec is at feature parity with DX11 (even slightly ahead), the lowest common denominator implementation is not, and this is the thing that I as a developer care about. Mobile GL, Linux GL, Windows GL, and Mac GL, are all different from one another, and offer varying levels of feature support.

OpenGL is highly fragmented across platforms. OpenGL is a bad investment for anyone with ambitious graphical goals.ĭespite being available nearly everywhere, on the platform that gives us a choice, OpenGL is rarely chosen. They believe that OpenGL and D3D are basically the same and that OpenGL gaming would just take off if we developers would be more open-minded. There are those who think that OpenGL and not D3D aught to be the primary API target for PC game development. The present state of OpenGL is incredibly frustrating, and it has caused me to be much more blunt and rhetorical than I might normally be. Rich Geldrich has a lot to say about this subject, and I agree with pretty much everything on his list. The opinions expressed in this post are my own personal views and are not endorsed, shared, or sanctioned by anybody in particular (especially my employer). UPDATE () If you read this, know that Vulkan has addressed every issue I raise in this article.

Opengl 4.4 texture units