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OpenGL 4 specification released

Published on 15th March 2010 by Gareth Halfacree

The latest version of the OpenGL specification looks to match features with Microsoft's Direct3D 11.

The Khronos Group have used the GDC to launch the latest version of the OpenGL specification - and it brings some impressive new features to the table.

As reported over on Ars Technica, perhaps the most important thing to note about OpenGL 4 is that it brings the open standard's features to the same level as Microsoft's closed Direct3D 11 - promising top-quality visuals for games that implement it.

The two main functions added to the OpenGL standard in this revision are hardware tessellation - the ability to programmatically synthesise polygons for far more realistic curves - and compute shaders - key to the offloading of computation tasks to the GPU, as in GPGPU computing.

While the Khronos Group have supported GPGPU via their OpenCL specification, the new compute shaders support in OpenGL 4 allows that technology to be integrated directly into the graphics engine - making it easier for developers to implement.

Sadly, many of the advanced features that the Khronos Group promised for OpenGL 3 - dropped due to time constraints and complaints about lack of backwards compatibility - are still missing from the specification: game developers will be saddened to hear that the object-oriented API - designed to mirror that used by Direct3D - still hasn't made an appearance.

While cards supporting OpenGL 4 are currently thin on the ground, Nvidia has pledged support in its up-coming Fermi cards, and while rival ATI has yet to comment it'd be foolish for it not to match Nvidia's pledge - and the news isn't all bad for those still running on older hardware, with the Khronos Group havng also announced OpenGL 3.3, which aims to bring as many features of OpenGL 4 as possible to older hardware platforms.

If you want to hear about OpenGL 4 straight from the horse's mouth, V3.co.uk has a video interview with the Khronos Group from the GDC.

Are you pleased to see the cross-platform OpenGL standard getting even with Direct3D, or should games developers - and graphics card manufacturers - be concentrating on Microsoft's platform first and foremost? Share your thoughts over in the forums.

14 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

Eriku-Kun 15th March 2010, 14:25

too little too late?
If all they are doing is trying to match DX then they will allways be a step behind and by the time the industry actually support this the next DX version will be out with new goodies everyone will want instead of this.

wuyanxu 15th March 2010, 14:47

i see, so it's a not-sure for 5xx0 cards on OpenGL 4's support.

this may influence my upgrade decision..... come on ATI

cheeriokilla 15th March 2010, 14:55

@Eriku-Kun I don't think it's too late for an OpenGL 4.0 release that looks so promising, and yes they are catching up to DX11.

But how many developers still use DX9? So is it really too late?

technogiant 15th March 2010, 15:34

Won't recent moves to make Steam and xbox360 games available on Mac's boost OpenGL......Mac's and other Apple product use OpenGL don't they?

dec 15th March 2010, 17:06

Does Khronos make Havok? The physics API. I remember something about intel or ATI buying havok but I havent heard much since that about physics API's (excluding PhysX). Has b-t ever reviewed a openGL game? I cant think of any (openGL games) off hand

Landy_Ed 15th March 2010, 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by dec
I cant think of any (openGL games) off hand

Umm, Quake?

OpenGL Games

Zayfod 15th March 2010, 22:16

No Havok make Havok

On topic.

It is utterly vital that OpenGL continues to be an evolving and developing graphics standard, without the competition Microsoft will have little drive to improve DirectX and we'll get into the scenario we had with IE5. Stagnation, and massive unaddressed security holes.

metarinka 15th March 2010, 23:19

nothing in recent times. Default render path for Mac.. which is like what 1-2% of the pc gaming market?

MSHunter 16th March 2010, 00:54

OpenGL is on all Half-life products (gearhead or something like that)

sheninat0r 16th March 2010, 01:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by metarinka
nothing in recent times. Default render path for Mac.. which is like what 1-2% of the pc gaming market?

Hopefully Valve can use OpenGL to great effect in its OS X ports of Source games - that would certainly help boost its market share.

Elton 16th March 2010, 03:35

If there's one thing that I like about OpenGL based games, it's triple buffering support.

gavomatic57 16th March 2010, 15:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eriku-Kun
too little too late?
If all they are doing is trying to match DX then they will allways be a step behind and by the time the industry actually support this the next DX version will be out with new goodies everyone will want instead of this.

Too late? No, given that DX11 has only made its way into 3 or 4 games and to no great effect, it doesn't have that much of a head start. It seems the only people who really care about DX11 are ATI users...both of them ;)

feathers 18th March 2010, 10:29

Can't think of any OpenGL games with nice looking graphics even close to DX. OpenGL has had a long time to develop and if it's still not caught up then it's not going to happen.

gavomatic57 18th March 2010, 13:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by feathers
Can't think of any OpenGL games with nice looking graphics even close to DX. OpenGL has had a long time to develop and if it's still not caught up then it's not going to happen.

Have a look at the Unigine Heaven benchmark in OpenGL mode...looks curiously similar to DX10 mode.

As for OpenGL games - all of the Doom3 engined games (Doom 3, Quake 4, Prey etc). They're not new but they still look quite good.

Also, Rage, on the ID Tech 5 engine looks excellent
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