PSGL

The GDC slides ask for feedback but give no direction as to how to do so.

It would be great if PSGL was GLES 1.1+ compliant and PSGL 2.0 was GLES 2.x compliant. Fewer discrepencies in APIs make it much easier to develop on multiple platforms. At my company we work on next/current gen mobile, pc, and console products and it is is a constant struggle to keep cross platform libraries clean. Being able to move between things like ATI Imageon 238x and Playstation 3 (almost) seemlessly would just make life easier.

Thanks.

PSGL is compliant with GL ES 1.0. It is very close to be 1.1 compliant, but not quite (Some features added to the fixed pipeline are not useful to a full programmable hardware). It has all the features of GL ES 2.0, but using the Cg language and runtime instead of GLSL ES (therefore not compliant with ES 2.0)

We share your need for fewer discrepancies in APIs, so we are working closely with nVidia on Cg. For instance Cg 1.5 will be identical on PS3 and all the other platform supported by this run-time and language (OpenGL on Windows, DirectX on Windows, OpenGL on Linux, OpenGL on Mac, OpenGL on Solaris).
Since everything is about shader nowadays, we are also very interested to find out how to create a cross-platform COLLADA FX profile, rather than the multi-platform support that we currently have.

Regards

– Remi

PSGL is compliant with GL ES 1.0. It is very close to be 1.1 compliant, but not quite (Some features added to the fixed pipeline are not useful to a full programmable hardware). It has all the features of GL ES 2.0, but using the Cg language and runtime instead of GLSL ES (therefore not compliant with ES 2.0)

We share your need for fewer discrepancies in APIs, so we are working closely with nVidia on Cg. For instance Cg 1.5 will be identical on PS3 and all the other platform supported by this run-time and language (OpenGL on Windows, DirectX on Windows, OpenGL on Linux, OpenGL on Mac, OpenGL on Solaris).
Since everything is about shader nowadays, we are also very interested to find out how to create a cross-platform COLLADA FX profile, rather than the multi-platform support that we currently have.

Regards

– Remi[/quote]

I share MikeJM’s interest in full compatibility with GLES 2.x, for a couple reasons:

  1. Cg is not as cross-compatible as GLSL; in particular, it’s seriously lacking on ATI graphics cards. And since ATI is an unavoidable block of the PC game market, we have to support both brands of graphics card, and GLSL fits the bill better than Cg, as it is equally supported on both.

  2. GLSL is an open standard, so in the long run, if Sony switches to a different provider for their graphics card (for the PS4, for example) then presumably that card will have solid support for GLSL, and the old titles can take advantage of the new card just as easily.

  3. There are a lot of resources for programming in GLSL. Schools are more likely to teach GLSL than Cg. With Microsoft pushing DirectX so hard, there need to be platforms where OpenGL/GLSL rules unquestioned; otherwise, DirectX will keep edging out OpenGL, which is bad for Sony, while a Dev platform that puts a check on Microsoft’s dominance by providing OpenGL is a very good thing for them.

  4. Nvidia provides all their PC-market chips with support for OpenGL 2.0, which means they already have GLSL compilers and support . I can’t imagine it would take much to port it over to the PS3 firmware.

  5. I happen to like the syntax and style of GLSL better than CG/HLSL

Even if GLSL runs sub-optimally on the PS3, it still seems like the benefits of supporting GLSL are worth it. Anyway, just my $0.02

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