GZDoom 4.7.0 released

[Graf Zahl]

That whole post just reaffirms what my feeling about OpenGL are. It's a very crusty old API which absolutely does not map to how modern graphics hardware works and as time goes by will be increasingly more at odds with how to optimize the renderer.

Such blanket statements as "but its also not something that should bump the specs to where they are now, just for that effect alone." just show a gross lack of understanding of the problem here. The need to support OpenGL will have a profound impact of how the renderer needs to be structured and this *WILL* have a significant performance impact on modern hardware - or result in a compromised implementation as GZDoom's Vulkan backend, which simply can never play out its strengths because it's locked into a cage that's built upon how OpenGL works.

IMO it is absolutely unreasonable these days to expect that it is easy to keep support for such legacy hardware alive, especially for commercial projects where the time and effort needed to keep this stuff working stands in no relation to the benefits. All you got to deal with is people with old hardware that try to run the software on inadequate systems, and ultimately failing, will call support and drive up the costs. It doesn't really matter if these are 5 or 15% of the potential market - if they create 50% of the costs, they cannot be serviced adequately.

And I can already tell you one thing: GZDoom 5.0 will not be supporting OpenGL anymore. There's no ETA on that version but the next major version bump, whenever it comes, will require a modern rendering API - and I am also not sure about macOS then, too, because those tiny 2% of the market do not justify the compromises required to keep it alive, if it cannot be trivially supported.

[sinisterseed]

Oh hey, my account does still work. Seems a couple of pieces of confusion is floating around, let's clear those up

Ah shit, I goofed myself, whoops.

Good memory however, I was actually referring to you indirectly when I wrote that based on some comments on DW which I may have misunderstood since it's been such a long time, sorry for that.

[ReaperAA]

GZDoom 5.0 dropping OpenGL altogether is quite a revelation. I reckon quite a few folks will be unhappy about it. Then again, better Vulkan performance is something that I wouldn't mind at all.

Also hi Seed. Long time since I saw you :')

[Graf Zahl]

GZDoom 5.0 dropping OpenGL altogether is quite a revelation. )

That has always been the plan for the next major release. And if it happens there will be parallel releases for some time for sure - but then I could remove the stuff from the GL version that makes no sense on older hardware but affects performance. But be it as it may, the writing has been on the wall for some time - and Windows 11 dropping support for all affected hardware surely is a strong sign of how things will pan out.

It has been clear that there is no way to make OpenGL and modern rendering techniques coexist. It's either-or, if you favor one, you'll neglect the other.

[Redneckerz]

GZDoom 5.0 dropping OpenGL altogether is quite a revelation. I reckon quite a few folks will be unhappy about it. Then again, better Vulkan performance is something that I wouldn't mind at all.

Also hi Seed. Long time since I saw you :')

If it goes Vulkan-only then i can imagine that someone will fork the whole thing to keep the OGL 3.x render going, and perhaps in a few years GZDoom will move to a new and unknown API equally the same.

In the end how far can you push something that is rooted in rendering paradigms from almost 30 years ago when the alternative (A renderer rewrite on the same scale as the Ironwail quake port) is rather costly in terms of dev time?

[Graf Zahl]

You surely cannot push the playsim, but the renderer has been kept up to date as well as it could.
Actually, much of it is already in a state where it could fill the render command lists in parallel with the render item generation, the only reason why it isn't done is because OpenGL won't allow it. Some could be done with GL 4.5 or 4.6 if it could access the GL state from a secondary thread, but on OpenGL 3.3 or 4.0 you'd be toast.

Surely people would fork it and try to keep their zombie hardware alive but that won't go on forever. Windows 11 has already announced to require DX12/Vulkan capable hardware, macOS's GL support is as good as dead and it's only a matter of time until it gets completely removed, so where will that leave the people with old hardware? They are running out of options eventually.

[Gez]

Believe me, if I had the budget for, I'd have already replaced my decade-old laptop which is literally, physically falling apart. (Latest episode: one of the screen hinges broke.)