Opengl on game consoles, such as Playstation2?

Hi. I wonder if somebody has ported OpenGL to Playstation 2? (i’ve heard some rumours about that). In earlier topics here there were discussion about OpenGL on Xbox, but nvidia denies having anything to do with that (although MS representative suggests that).

Would opengl be a good development graphics language for multi-platform development? Or is the multi-platform 3d-engines (such as Hybrid’s SurRender 3d) the solution for multiplatform (game) development?

or is there any need for multi-platforms? Is MS going to conquer console markets with xbox and its multi-zillion dollar marketing campaigns? Is Dreamcast going to fade away? Does PS2 have enough momentum? What about Nintendo and Game Cube?

my question is purely academic, i’m not intending to do multi-platform game development. I’m just wondering if opengl could have any future in game consoles?

-J.

(for more info on SurRender, check: http://www.hybrid.fi/surrender/index.html. It currently supports Dreamcast, PS2 and PC)

I am sure that the Xbox can use OpenGl, I am not sure about the PS2 but I have heard rumours that it supports OpenGL. The GameCube wont support OpenGL. The Ps2 is crap anyway and will die; 4 MB of graphics memory is not much, nor is the slow (in comparison to Xbox and GameCube) graphics chip. Then there is the Indrema which will more or less only support OpenGL as it runs Linux but I don’t think that it will take off. ( People who want Linux don’t want it on a console and people that want a console want it to be game centered; that is why the GameCube should do well or at least surrvive.) I could talk all day but my views are hardly balanced when I’m anti-playstation, anti-M$ and Pro Nintendo.

The PS2 does not support OpenGL, at least not directly. There is a middleware driver (read: a driver created by a 3rd party) for the PS2 that supports OpenGL 1.2 I have not been able to test this (beleive me, I’ve brought it up to my leads several times) and I dont know how much it costs to license. But it will die, if it hasnt already (there just isnt a big enough market for most middleware software).

So, in short, no the PS2 does not support OpenGL, but yes, OpenGL can be run on the PS2 given a driver (of course we already knew that, OpenGL can be run anything given a driver!) and yes somebody has written a driver, but it is not widely used, requires a Sony developer license to even test it and I can assure you is quite spendy.

I’ve been thinking it would be nice if TI would make a mini port of OpenGL for their TI-89 calculators. It would give me something to play with during those long, dull lectures and I wouldn’t have to lug my laptop to class…

Tim Stirling
The Ps2 is crap anyway and will die; 4 MB of graphics memory is not much

Ok 4 MB may be just not enough for a full powered lots-of-textures-in-VRAM but remember that PS2 was designed with real-time texture swap in mind, that is you can change texture on the fly without notice it.

On the other hand, on PC, if you want to add a new texture on VRAM and VRAM is full, you WILL notice it because VRAM will be cleared :wink:

It’s just another way of think/design a engine.

good point but what do you think is better , pS2 or an Xbox with a nice NV20. I might get an xbox and rip off that stupid microsoft label, infact I will hide it in a cardboard box. One thing I realised in my previous reply, I never mentioned Sega, hmm.

drifting offtopic
the xbox has 64mb memory and uses an os based on win2000 (much slimmed down though i expect) now i know because of memory restrictions when ppl port a pc game over to a console they sometimes have to tone it down. heres me thinking they’ve stuck the HD with the xbox partly to act as virtual memory cause 64mb aint enuf nowadays, eg UT does not work on win2000 with 64mb (drifting on a lifeboat)

No, the XOS does not have virtual memory.

People can make great games with 64 MB. It just takes a bit of planning. 64 MB is huge for a console!

  • Matt

Really, no VM? It does have a HD right? I assmue people will just write their own VM handlers then.

I don’t think 64MB is that huge, it is only 63.99MB more than what the Atari 2600 had!

(Xbox has 8 GB HD to enable installation of games)

Well… If XOS is sort of Windows-2000, then It should be relatively easy to port OpenGL on XBox, if there’s enough political will.

Though Xbox graphics chip is said to be twice as fast as PS2’s, I also presume it will be much more expensive to produce. Although Gates and his game producers subsidize the console’s buyer, it will be more expensive to produce and thus requires the games to be more expensive to cover the price of subsidized hardware. I believe it is easier for Sony to push PS2 price to the optimal value where low-enough price will lure the masses to buy the thing. And masses of people buy masses of games then!

Then again, MS has got plenty of $$ to spend on marketing & subsidizing. And when you attach keyboard into the Xbox, it’s a pc then (with Internet connection, word, Outlook, MSN & hotmail content etc.) Eventually MS will sneak into PC markets as well. (provocative question: is Xbox the amiga of 21st century?)

Speaking of nutty hardware of PS2 then. I suppose there are more directX capable programmers out there than those who know the wonders of PS2 (or Nintendo GameCube). But if PS2/GameCube were to have openGL (and much opener licensing policy), they would get significantly more 3rd party developers who have lower step to start develop/port titles for those consoles (and for XBox too! Not all know the wonders of DirectX)

-J.

And speaking more about the ultimate vision of MS. Mr. Gates wants to come to your living room, offering you MS content from MS hardware, which is using MS software. And when you are mobile, you will use MS mobile devices to access MS infrastructure (where your personal data resides.). (However, if all that works as “well” as e.g. win98, the future is grim…)

Originally posted by Elixer:
[b]Really, no VM? It does have a HD right? I assmue people will just write their own VM handlers then.

I don’t think 64MB is that huge, it is only 63.99MB more than what the Atari 2600 had!

[/b]

The ps1 only had 2MB of memory used for all graphics, sound and gaming needs.

The Xbox OS is going to be quite limited, so I’ve heard. And it won’t be on the hard drive, a lot of the software will come shipped on the game cds. So, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to write a VM controller or something for it.
Anyway, a console with an ethernet connection is just damn cool. Not sure if I’m gonna drop $500 (or however much it is) for it though.

saw an article yesterday
“Blodget estimates Microsoft will “lose $125 on every Xbox console–and that’s before taking into account” sales, marketing and other administrative
costs.”
they’re gonna have to sell quite a few games per console to make a profit
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2693121,00.html

Speaking of OpenGL and game consoles, I read one site that says the “Gekko [GameCube] CPU has several extensions optimized for processing OpenGL code.”

No idea if this means that GameCube will ship with OpenGL drivers or not.

Assuming that the site was correct, of course.

The quote is from this page, at the top of the section called “Nintendo Gamecube”
http://cube.ign.com/news/26984.html

j

On the PS2 vs XBOX topic :
1 : Even if i use a PC with Win98, i don’t like MS (i know it’s off topic)
2 : If texture swaping is EFFCIENT ENOUGH on PS2 then the 4MB should not be a problem
3 : XBOX has a shorter learning curve, PS2 has a longer learning curve. So what ?? The PS2 is still a powerful hardware, there is still 1 or 1.5 year(s) before great games appear on XBOX. Think about games quality on PS2 in 2002/2003…
4 : As Yamauchi san would say : only gameplay and fun are important, if we lose them we are dead :wink: See the PS/PSONE :slight_smile:

OpenGL is currently not supported on the XBOX, this gets ugly (don’t ask, don’t tell)…
So if you want to make an XBOX game, use Direct3D…

From what I hear that middleware driver for OpenGL on the ps2 isn’t all that.

Gamecube’s graphic API is very, very simliar to OpenGL.
basically replace the gl* with gx* and some support for things the GameCube hardware supports directly iirc.

bottom is very off-topic…
i was going to delete it, but…
-akbar A.

//////////////////////
This will be an intersting thing to watch, Nintendo’s goal write now is to sell “fun” games, make money.

while Microsoft’s goal is
a.) complete monoply powers in the world of electronic entertainment
sub a.) even if it means taking a big blow cash wise.

imho, don’t belive any of that we want to see cool games bullshit. (there trying to change there image)…
if they wanted to see cool games they would have dropped D3D a long time ago and focused on OpenGL.
just look at the history of what they’ve done and you’ll probably come to the same conslusion. see the “get a load of the geforce3 specs!” on the OpenGL-ADVOCACY list.
see what micheal gold, allen akin, and kurt akeley say about MS and what they did and
do…
heh

back to politics,
Nintendo knows this, but many of the companies MS has been buying will end up being a ‘major’ loss for themm.

I agree with what yamahuchi said, in 1~2 years, ms will releize the “companies they purchased” did not go well in the console~normal people bracket…

MS will get hit harder then they planned for IMHO, XBOX2 will probably be where they’ll get more market share.

laterz,
-akbar A.

[This message has been edited by kaber0111 (edited 03-09-2001).]

Originally posted by kaber0111:
if they wanted to see cool games they would have dropped D3D a long time ago and focused on OpenGL.

Ummm, to suggest that the quality of games somehow depends on the graphics API is rather laughable… a game is a good or bad game based on its gameplay, not the specific method by which it makes pixels appear on the screen.

Face it, the API wars are over – they were silly in the first place. Interestingly, I’d say that D3D has moved towards OGL and OGL has moved towards D3D.

Please check in your API conspiracy theories at the door. If there was a conspiracy against OpenGL, I’d be one of the first folks to be worried, because it would directly impact my job security.

  • Matt

>mmm, to suggest that the quality of games
>somehow depends on the graphics API is
NO.
This is not what was suggested, I guess I phrased it wrong…

What I was suggesting was the difficulty of developing games on horribly designed API. It wasn’t always so easy and straightforward to draw stuff…

And I’m guessing your not familiar with the petition many game developers signed and sent into Microsoft…

I suggest you read that, pretty good comments from some well known game developers.

like i said, a good thread to read through would be “Get A load of those geforce3 specs” on the OpenGL-ADVOCACY list…
Kurt Akeley (SGI), Allen Akin (va linux <precision insight> ), Tony Cox (MS), and Micheal Gold (nvidia) are some good emails to read…

And if your to impatient I suggest you just read what Micheal Gold had to say about some of the terms of the contract with Fahrenheit.

>the API wars are over – they were silly in
>the first place. Interestingly, I’d say
No.
They where not silly in the first place.
MS had to squash OpenGL.

Right now MS has achieved this, there is enough critical mass of Direct3D where OpenGL really does not pose a threat.

see Allen Akin’s posts…
He wrote a lot more in detail about why this is beneficial (OpenGL dies) to MS just in case you don’t understand it…

It’s not a conspiracy matt, it’s very real.

-akbar A.

[This message has been edited by kaber0111 (edited 03-10-2001).]

>to suggest that the quality of games somehow depends on the graphics API is
>rather laughable… a game is a good or bad game based on its gameplay, not
>the specific method by which it makes pixels appear on the screen.

BTW, in practice this does matter to an extent.

If your game is going to be uploading tons of textures to the scene per frame (procedural textures come to mind) your going to want to use D3D…
If this was a few years ago, there was no support for a stencil in D3D and you needed one, you would use OpenGL.

If it is now, and you want your vertex_program stuff to run on the gpu on “all cards supporting it” your probably going to want to use D3D cause you won’t know if
that IHV will expose extensions on the GL side to do this (seeing that’s it’s already supported in d3d…) .

food for thought.

mcraighead :
a game is a good or bad game based on its gameplay, not the specific method by which it makes pixels appear on the screen.

100% damn right man !

Face it, the API wars are over – they were silly in the first place.

Silly for sure, but remember that MS wanted to kill OpenGL with DX in order to rule all developpers :wink:

Interestingly, I’d say that D3D has moved towards OGL

Well, that’s true : D3D acts like a states machine like OGL.

and OGL has moved towards D3D.

It’s true but only through NV/S3TC extensions IMHO.

Please check in your API conspiracy theories at the door. If there was a conspiracy against OpenGL, I’d be one of the first folks to be worried, because it would directly impact my job security.

Well, as i said before, i remember there was a time when MS was trying to kick OGL.

But, just as the PS2 vs XBOX vs GAMECUBE war, the D3D vs OGL war means nothing from the gameplay/fun point of view and remember that only gameplay/fun matters :wink:

[This message has been edited by holocaust (edited 03-10-2001).]