I can see your point about those who cannot afford the high-end 3D graphics cards seem to be left out. But OpenGL or Direct X also was created with 3D graphics in mind, not with the low-end user in mind. Most games created in the past few years require some hardware acceleration to perform well.
I have thought that some sort of OpenGL lite for support of older machines, so that people in poor countries could have some access to better games.
I myself have to stick to a budget on how much I can spend on my hobby of programming. After two’s years of using an old video card, which at the time did very well for me, I found that all the new OpenGL demos would ether run too slow or not at all on it. I purchased a low end ATI Radeon card for $44.00 US dollars, which was in my budget. And now all the demos and games run well.
One drawback to being in computer programming is you always need to get better hardware to keep up with the market.
Sorry that you spent so much money and feel like it is all for nothing. I myself have been using all the free on-line tutor’s to learn OpenGL. I also purchased an OpenGL programmers book, but I found one used for only $10.00 US dollars.
When I was your age growing up I also came from a poor family, but I loved computers. So I found any neighbor or people in my town that needed odd jobs to be done and saved up money to buy my computer stuff as not to burden my parents.
I have also found that if you need help finding hardware or books, the people on the internet will help you find things within your budget. So before you spend a lot of money ask around to see if you can get it used or at a discount.
Also you could post your program, and let us look at it. Maybe we could give you tip’s as to what you can do to speed it up.
Originally posted by Fernando:
[b]People… sorry for this answer, but I have to exprees what I’m feeling now…
I’m very disappointed with OpenGL…
I know that I have a old computer (Duron 950, 128MB and 4MB video card), but I thought OpenGL could do more than only run application in newer 3D video-cards…
I done my father spend mutch money with OpenGL Programming Book and OpenGL Reference Guide. Maybe In the US it’s cheapper… But I live in Brazil… Here, a book costs R$ 160, and the Minimun Wage is R$ 180. For most people, a book costs a 1 month work.
I had to bag many times for my father…
I fight with a lot of peoples to be here today, trying to Learn OpenGL…
I’m seventeen, I have five years of experience in Software Development, and I always dream, and always worked to one day, construct a good game. A good game seems that it will have good graphics, good history, good playability, etc and a good engine, that allow people to run in any PC, indeppendent if it have or don’t have a 3D recent video-card.
I remember my Pentium 200, 40MB and 2MB video-memory, it used to run Quake2 in 640x480 in a very high speed… I know it’s a 256 color game based, but, today, with a PC fourt times more faster than my old PC, I can’t run just a OpenGL Example, that put on the screen just some images…
I’m very sad with this kind of thing…
I don’t know what I’m going to do…
When I started to Learn OpenGL, i thought that I could make a good game on it…
But today I see that OpenGL don’t have a good support to SOFTWARE mode.
Does it seems that I spended money, I fighted with my father, with my mother, I left my work, left my life and friends for nothing???
Sorry for this guys…
I’ll take a rest now, think about my life, and what I’m going to do with OpenGL.
sorry and thank you for hearing me[/b]
