Tag Archives: OpenGL

Batch, batch, batch: Respect the classics!

Today I randomly stumbled upon some discussions about DirectX 12, Mantle and whatnot. It seems a lot of people somehow think that the whole idea of reducing draw call overhead was new for Mantle and DirectX 12. While some commenters … Continue reading

Posted in Direct3D, Oldskool/retro programming, OpenGL, Software development, Vulkan | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

DirectX 12 and Vulkan: what it is, and what it isn’t

I often read comments in the vein of: “… but vendor A’s hardware is designed more for DX12/Vulkan than vendor B’s”. It’s a bit more complicated than that, because it is somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem. So I thought I’d … Continue reading

Posted in Direct3D, Hardware news, OpenGL, Software development, Software news, Vulkan | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

GameWorks vs GPUOpen: closed vs open does not work the way you think it does

I often read people claiming that GameWorks is unfair to AMD, because they don’t get access to the sourcecode, and therefore they cannot optimize for it. I cringe everytime I read this, because it is wrong on so many levels. … Continue reading

Posted in Direct3D, OpenGL, Software development, Software news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

The myth of HBM

It’s amazing, but AMD has done it again… They have managed to trick their customer base into believing yet another bit of nonsense about AMD’s hardware. This time it is about HBM. As we all know, AMD has traded in … Continue reading

Posted in Hardware news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

BHM File Format release 0.3b

I have made a new release of the BHM File Format project. In release 0.3b there have been some minor code refactorings and bugfixes, but the most important new thing is the BHM Visualizer tool: This C# application (which should … Continue reading

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When old and new meet: lessons from the past

As you may know, I like to dabble in retro-computing. I have held on to most computers I’ve used over the years, and I play with them from time to time. However, an interesting change has happened over the years: … Continue reading

Posted in Direct3D, Oldskool/retro programming, OpenGL, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Alex St. John: The Evolution of Direct3D

I just stumbled upon this blog by Alex St. John, one of the creators of DirectX at Microsoft: http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2013/07/22/the-evolution-of-direct3d/ It gives a very interesting view on how OpenGL and Direct3D related to each other in the early days, within Microsoft. … Continue reading

Posted in Direct3D, Oldskool/retro programming, OpenGL, Software development, Software news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Linux, the Dunning-Kruger OS

Over the years, I’ve seen a pattern emerge. I have documented this on various occasions. Such as the time when Jed Smith thought he knew about Windows security features such as ACLs. Or that time when Linus thought he had … Continue reading

Posted in Direct3D, OpenGL, Software development, Software news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Cubemaps

The other day I wanted to create a renderpass for realtime previewing of my cubemaps. I wanted to go for the lazy way of just googling for some code, and copy-pasting the proper coordinates into my code. However, I could … Continue reading

Posted in Direct3D, OpenGL, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The problem with free/open source software

I have recently obtained two Apple Mac Mini G4 machines. They date from 2005, but I did not immediately associate them with retro-programming (I would think they’d have to be quite a bit older for that). They both were unable … Continue reading

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments