How hard is it porting ARMA from DirectX to Open-GL?

[ArmyCorps 10]

Hi, I Want to know, How hard would it be porting a Windows DirectX Game (ARMA) to OpenGL?

[JohnWayne 1]

The Difficulty isn't in the port. A good DirectX programmer can switch to OpenGL without much trouble. The difficulty comes in the fact that you now have two rendering methods to maintain & different methods for handling shaders. It really multiplies even more work for the developer.

There isn't really an economical reason to do so. Macs can now BootCamp Windows, or there's always Wine. DirectX has surpassed OPENGL when it comes to game related programming, it's only really used in Modeling/Animation programs these days.

[Kindling 1]

Not difficult, if developers have used an abstraction layer to interface to D3D (which is pretty much standard practice). It would be great if ARMA supported an OpenGL renderer.

[ric 1]

The Difficulty isn't in the port. A good DirectX programmer can switch to OpenGL without much trouble. The difficulty comes in the fact that you now have two rendering methods to maintain & different methods for handling shaders. It really multiplies even more work for the developer.

There isn't really an economical reason to do so. Macs can now BootCamp Windows, or there's always Wine. DirectX has surpassed OPENGL when it comes to game related programming, it's only really used in Modeling/Animation programs these days.

except ID still chose todo RAGE in OPEN-GL...looks real nice to me :)

http://www.rage.com/

[gossamersolid 155]

Are any of you guys programmers? Just wondering due to the answers I'm seeing in this thread.

[Kindling 1]

Are any of you guys programmers? Just wondering due to the answers I'm seeing in this thread.

Yes, though I'm not a graphics programmer.

The 'difficulty' is really besides the point and fully dependent on the skills, time and experience of the programmer. Looking at the economical benefit, around 9% (according to Wikipedia) of desktop users use Linux or Mac OSX. Taking the total number of Windows sales and dividing by 9 will probably be a good starting point for deciding whether it'd be worth hiring one or more OpenGL developers to write an OpenGL renderer.

Ontop of this Valve is looking to release a Linux version of Steam this year, Unity 4 will support Linux, and many indie games are also promoting Linux support. You could reasonably assume that Linux gaming will only increase in popularity, especially with the rise of Linux-based smartphones and tablets. There's also the fact that many countries are looking to adopt Linux for military and intelligence use - markets in which VBS thrive - and simulation hobbyists have always been hooked to Linux due to it's moddability and the ease of writing custom drivers for homebrew controllers and utility devices such as TrackIR-like projects, steering wheel controllers and even customized pneumatic-controlled simulated cockpits.

Implementing OpenGL would be a great first step towards a true multi-platform VBS/ARMA.

Edited June 20, 2012 by Kindling