OpenGL

The presentation at this month's PyGTA meeting was about the changes that have occurred in the OpenGL API. The speaker was Mike Fletcher, who is the maintainer of PyOpenGL, the Python bindings for OpenGL, so he is intimately familiar with its specifications. The changes essentially bring OpenGL into line with Direct3D and were made due to pressure from the graphics hardware manufacturers and game developers. The old API was very different from how modern GPUs work, so the OpenGL drivers required a complex conversion layer to match the hardware. The game developers complained that OpenGL lacked the performance of Direct3D.

However, the new API is completely incompatible with the old one so any software the uses OpenGL would have to be rewritten. This has serious implications for open source projects where developers are always in short supply. Many games could be abandoned altogether when the developers realize how much work is involved. More useful applications should fair better if the user community is well established. Since the OpenGL API is from now on allowed to change and follow new hardware trends, most open source developers will likely abandon direct use of OpenGL and switch to a 3D abstraction library. Time will tell how this plays out.