Open GL and other video modes Created 17 years ago2006-12-27 02:24:25 UTC by aaron_da_killa

Merry Christmas all

Anyway I found out somthing new a few weeks ago. Its called Open GL. Dam it was cool but I noticed that there where some major diffrences (bad Spelling) between the to. For Example in Standard if you have to many Brush based entities they will dissapear, also in Open GL the lights in my level dont flicker and Open GL dosent like distance ( Levels where there is a long line of sight)

Since I am making a major MOD called reddawn, I was wondering What people use more so I can build my MOD according to the video mode. The standard mode or Open GL. There is also another Mode called Direct 3d or some shivers but reddawn will not be using that mode. But tell me if you use direct 3d.

Also could you smart bunch of peoples could tell me the Pro's and Con's of the modes. So far My Mod is being built for Standard Mode but that can change.

Direct 3D uses someting simlar called Direct-X, which is a completely different graphics style.

Most games today use Direct 3D, because it has particle shading and point based shadow and all that fancy stuff, but the D3D language is CRAZY and not easy to use. You have to understand Matricies, linear algebra, vertex mathmatics, etc to understand what's going with all these point calculations.

Most other application, like CAD, use OpenGL, because it's easier to program in, and uses less graphic power.

Anyways, just wanted to mention that, so enjoy programming your MOD

i use opengl in half life one.

I dont see much of a difference with D3D but software mode sucks

period.

Hmm ok.And thanks for that end comment Noobish

Half-Life was built with OpenGL, and therefore will always run best with it. In my opinion, you should always design your Half-Life mod using this mode. I suppose software mode may be better for some testing purposes, but that's besides the point.

Open GL doesnt like distance

That's actually not a problem with OpenGL at all, since you can set the view distance in the map properties. Maybe software mode can bypass this, but I wasn't aware of it, and in the end it gives you no advantage.

Direct3D, on the other hand, isn't so great with Half-Life. It wasn't intended to be used except as an alternative for people who had no other option. It won't display decals, and lighting will look much worse than when you use OpenGL.

Direct3D is the creation of Microsoft, and is considered very hard to program for. For these reasons, John Carmack, among other people, chose to adopt OpenGL instead, so all ID games use it. As you may know, Half-Life was based on the Quake engine, so it's obvious how OpenGL was adopted.

Microsoft was the only one (as far as I know) who ever claimed that their API was better for games than OpenGL, and they likely only did so to try and persuade developers to use Direct3D. What they said doesn't apply to Half-Life in any way, and OpenGL is certainly the most capable API to run it under.

Lol. noobish. I'm just trying to say, software mode sucks because it does.
And following srry's post i'd stick with OpenGL

He was actually referring to the name of a previous poster, not calling you noobish...

And software mode doesn't suck, it just doesn't have texture filtering, and it runs at a slower framerate. It has some other downfalls as well, but some people think that not using texture filtering gives a more accurate representation of the texture artist's original work.

Nuh Tetsu0 when I said noobish I ment the other guy who replyed's, name. But thanks for the reply man.

Anyway Srry, I'm not sure if its my graphics card but when you have a long line of sight it lags bad. Also Some lights dont flicker and some other problems. Is that my graphics card or me resoulition. (hmmm bad spelling aaron)

Somehow, I don't see lights not flickering as a problem, but an improvement instead... I've never seen them do that in real life.

And your problem with the line if sight undoubtedly stems from you having a slow video card. If you have very high r_speeds in large areas, this may slow your framerate considerably. For this reason, You'll notice Valve was very careful at keeping them low in even gigantic areas, like the dam. It doesn't even reach 700 w_poly's!

Hmm yes I saw that. Its time to hang my head in shame. I have a 16mb Graphics card. Hmmm. Anyway I wish that the Lights would flicker because its part of the reddawn Story line. SHIT. I said to much.

Another Intredting thing I noiced. Textures made by Wally fade away at a short distance in standard mode but not in OPEN GL

ooo.
what a silly name

Hmmm... Sounds like it has something to do with the mipmapping process that Wally uses by standard. There's another one in Wally you can do it with, Remip Deluxe, or something like that.

About the sprites, you could always make your own, or edit the default ones to have a flicker animation, if it's really important. That'll work as long as the storyline doesn't include anything about the lights only flickering when you move...

Hmmmmmm ok. But How do you make sprites emmit light. Its pretty important. Its a major part of the story line.

I am also worried about somthing else. Later in the MOD you .... somehow enter a city. The thing is going to lag as hell. Its a futureistic city (2263). Do you have any tips

You can't make sprites emit light. Period. However, you could have a light entity in the same location as the sprite, which seems like it would do the exact same thing.

I have no tips for the city, except not to make it overly detailed. You might want to take a look at a mod called Black Ops to get some ideas, since it has a ton of (current, not futuristic) city environments, and it keeps the r_speeds low as well.

Other than that, you could just go the same route Poke646: Vendetta went and completely ignore r_speeds. With your current specs however, this wouldn't really be an option.

You'll really have to optimize the hell out of the map. Don't get discouraged of the framerate drops too low, optimization can fix that. Keep in mind that it can be helpful to design the map in an efficient manner. For instance, stay away from long hallways and use bends and corners, so that you keep level length, without sacraficing performance. Additionally, you're graphics card is... not so good so I'm sure very few people will have issues on a map that causes yours a little (or perhaps a lot ) of trouble.

Here's a nice optimization guide that you can put to use. It covers everything from hinting to areaportals to func_details. Good read.

Thanks you to guys. TWHL is very helpful

Ahhhhh shit. Sorry rotorsplint. The guides for half-life 2. reddawn is half-life 1. I read anyways

Hay srry I couln't find Black Ops

And another thing. How do you quote other people. They wouln't tell me on snarkpit so could you folk tell me. Or will i have to spend another hour trying to figure it out

You can just click the little question mark next to the emoticons, and it'll tell you. Strange how a help page is so hard to find, eh? Well, that's TWHL for ya.

Also, don't double (or triple) post like you just did, when there's an edit button next to your name in the post.

Sweet as.And sorry people have told me not to triple post before. Sorry srry

assballs

HUH sickshit it works

FYI, OpenGL was out for years before Microsoft developed DirectX. Similar to Bill Gates forcing the Microsoft version of "Javascript" on the world although Sun's Java is more than adequate.

DirectX is used for many games simply because Microsoft ships and supports DX in Windows and does not support OpenGL well at all.

OpenGL is open library software. DirectX is proprietary.

DirectX, in general, is very computer unfriendly as it goes below the operating system layer to take over video cards and IO devices directly for the sake of speed. I honestly don't remember having to powerdown or reboot when running an OpenGL application.

OpenGL is the most commonly used.

Direct3D is almost like an afterthought. Dont use.

Software mode is absolutely terrible. KEEP AWAY!

Oh and stop referring to Software mode as 'standard mode' because it is not the standard mode. The standard mode is OpenGL.

Good luck with your mod.

The guides for half-life 2. reddawn is half-life 1

Yeah, it may be a Source tutorial, but the actual techniques remain the same. I know for a fact that HL1 uses hint brushes and func_details. And I'm pretty sure that it uses occluders, areaportals, etc.

Glad to be of service

I know for a fact that HL1 uses hint brushes and func_details.

Well, your facts are wrong. It doesn't use func_details.

It only uses hintbrushes, clip, null (hl1 version of nodraw), etc.

It doesn't? Woops. Sorry I didn't mean to misinform. I guess you learn something every day.

I've had HL on several computers. The first computer, when I first got HL would run OpenGL, but it would be very buggy. That wasn't HL's fault or the computer's performance faults, it was a family computer and no one else knew not to go and click madly on the internet. Lots of spyware and bugs. It ate itself to death.

Anyway, I bought myself a spiffy new computer some years later and, because I'd screwed with the resolution settings and some other stuff but not the rendering modes, I didn't use OpenGL.

OpenGL looks far more like what is being presented in Hammer than software mode does. Also, because I will test maps on both modes, I know some maps don't work in software. They literally lock HL up. zeeba-g's 'Section 23', which is a beautiful map in OpenGL, has very low framerates in software mode.
Kasberg's 'Tokyo Museum' map would load, show up, then when the player moves, HL promptly closes.

The only complaint I have with OpenGL is that when I window switch out of HL, the resolution doesn't change and I get a zoomed in desktop.

The only things I can say about Direct3D is that it takes a long time to load and doesn't look much different than OpenGL.

wow. fail bump. why are you even looking this far back on the topic list?

Lol @ penguinboy, thanks Empedocles :).

I don't have any idea why some people are still using the default video settings.