‘Microsoft wants to limit OpenGL support’

On the OpenGL.org forums, discussed about the OpenGL support in Microsoft Vista, which would run entirely through DirectX. This emulation would of course have a significant negative impact on the performance of the graphics platform, which would decrease by up to fifty percent. Moreover, according to the poster ‘Metro’, MS would only support OpenGL 1.4, which in addition to the performance also undermines the development of OpenGL. In addition, Vista’s expected high market share would jeopardize the cross-platform development of OpenGL applications, meaning this decision also affects owners of Mac and Linux systems.

A 3Dlabs employee, who participates in the discussion under the alias ‘barthold’, reports that Microsoft’s architectural decision has since been confirmed by his company, nVidia and ATi. It would be possible to run Vista’s AeroGlass interface via an OpenGL driver, but as soon as the operating system detects an ICD, AeroGlass would be automatically disabled. Based on this, it is concluded that Microsoft has not made a technical, but a political choice here.

Back in 2003, when Microsoft withdrew from the OpenGL-ARB, was said by Creative 3Dlabs CEO Neil Trevett recorded that “Microsoft’s decision will not greatly affect the progress of OpenGL unless the company removes support in Windows.” That moment now seems to have come a big step closer, and OpenGL supporters are calling for action: anyone who cares about the competitor of MS technology should get into their pen.

Microsoft has a Powerpoint presentation of a speech at the WinHEC conference online set stating that the company still sees its OpenGL support as “hardware accelerated” despite the move to D3D. In the presentation, the software giant calls OpenGL an ‘important component of Windows, especially for high-end applications’. The support of the OpenGL system would certainly improve compared to Windows XP, according to Redmond.