OpenGL 2.0 coming Real Soon Now

Posted by: Charles 'grey wolf' Banas at 03:24 AM 

I thought breifly about including this in a tech article, but I thought it was too interesting to put off.

DirectX 9 games can use pixel shaders extensively now (as you can easily see in Halo), so using programmable shaders has come quite into vogue. As a result, 3D Labs put forward a proposal to the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) for OpenGL 2.0 (we're currently at 1.4). OpenGL 2.0 changes the way OpenGL works entirely, by making the full pipeline programmable - which has huge advantages over DirectX 9, by allowing games to completely control the visuals they display. The result? Real-time cinematic and life-like imagery is possible with techniques that developers haven't used since the DOS days. OpenGL 2.0-compatible games will potentially have visuals that will absolutely blow your mind. And the finalized specification is due in a few months.

• ACM Queue article