[Minecraft News] Minecraft to push minimum OpenGL Support to version 2.1

[Riuga]

You know who else got rid of people with disabilities? Hitler. No longer holding back on new features for the sake of a tiny minority of users who don't keep up to date on their software is basically the holocaust. That's totally a suitable analogy.

But we've got bigger problems. Problems right here at home. The official feed-the-beast forums do not work properly on netscape or internet explorer 6! Why are the administrators trying to get rid of people with disabilities? So what if my computer is from 1997, running Windows 98? That's still discrimination!



And if you swap "GPU" for "dogs", then Mojang is basically drowning puppies in a river.

Yes. Hitler. The guy who's regime became an epic fail in the end?

Maybe the analogy of disabled people may not be the best. Lets try, say, you and a group of people are stranded in the ocean. there's the materials to build a make-shift raft to carry some people on it (its getting cramped on the main ship). Instead, you decide to throw some of the people overboard and let them drown to death, because you're lazy to build it (assume you are the only builder on board).

The things are right there, free of virtually any cost whatsoever.

(I do not understand your point with (?drowning dogs?))

@Person saying smt about supporting older hardware is costly

It's costly? Are you kidding me? Your workers must be ripping you off big time just to add support for VBOs, and Immediate Mode. If modern-day rendering had at least 6+ types of uploading and respective rendering, I could sympathize. However, that is many uncertain years ahead still.

 

[tedyhere]

So people with computers that are lets say 6yrs old or older have to update...well they probably need to update anyways since their computer is so far behind the curve I am surprised they can even open and internet browser nowadays.

Seriously I live on a tight budget, I saved to get a newer PC it cost less than 500 dollars to be able to play pretty much anything I wanted.

Update people...it's not as bad as some people make it out to be

 

[Hambeau]

If you plan updates with a good strategy it's fairly cheap. A few years ago I upgraded my AMD CPU to a dual-core AMD for about $80. The following year I upgraded the mainboard and got 8GB ram for about $200... The older ram wasn't compatible with the new board, and the board I chose was compatible with my current CPU as well as the then new Bulldozer CPUs. My old mainboard, dual core CPU and Ram (4GB) are slated to become a server when I get around to it, since they still function well.

Last month, for my birthday/upgrade I got myself an FX 8350 (8 cores, 4Ghz clock before overclocking) for just under $200. Granted, this may be overkill for Minecraft, but MC isn't the only game I play. My next upgrade will probably be to fill my mainboard to it's 32GB capacity so I can create a ramdrive to load the program(s) I want to run and not be limited to even SSD speeds.

For the cost of between 2 and 4 game system cartridges/year you can keep a PC pretty much in the top 25% performance bracket.

 

[dtech100]

what gpu is in your laptop?

Some shi.y on-board graphics. Simply i don't have GPU

 

[SteveTech]

Yes. Hitler. The guy who's regime became an epic fail in the end?

Maybe the analogy of disabled people may not be the best. Lets try, say, you and a group of people are stranded in the ocean. there's the materials to build a make-shift raft to carry some people on it (its getting cramped on the main ship). Instead, you decide to throw some of the people overboard and let them drown to death, because you're lazy to build it (assume you are the only builder on board).

The things are right there, free of virtually any cost whatsoever.

(I do not understand your point with (?drowning dogs?))

@Person saying smt about supporting older hardware is costly

It's costly? Are you kidding me? Your workers must be ripping you off big time just to add support for VBOs, and Immediate Mode. If modern-day rendering had at least 6+ types of uploading and respective rendering, I could sympathize. However, that is many uncertain years ahead still.

It's not free. Someone has to program it, someone has to test it, someone has to verify bugs, someone has to fix bugs, etc.

I presume Mojang is moving to 2.1 in order to get better rendering performance as well as to add new features. If they support two radically different versions then the task becomes quite a bit more difficult. Things could look different/behave abnormally between them and you'll have effectively forked your development.

It's not as though Mojang is asking for the the newest version. They are asking for one 7 years old, rather than the 15 year old one that they have been using.

Also, do you happen to have any sort of statistic as to how many computers are not OpenGL 2.1 compatible? I'm all for jumping to conclusions, making wild accusations, and crazy similes. But every once in a while I prefer some facts before assuming the world is coming to and end.

 

[dtech100]

delete

 

[Grydian2]

By the time this comes out wont most computers be able to run? I guess macs are the really only issue here and honestly its time apple fixed that problem. I dont see why mojang has to hold its self back for old tech that is dying. Like I said by the time MC 2.1 comes out there wont be many affected.

 

[mk16]

i really dont see what all the fuss is if you dont have a card that supports open gl 2.1 you can get one for $30 but, then some thing that comes to mid is 2.1 has been out since june 2006 same time as the core2 which is the oldest intel cpu that can run MC at a respectable fps. so really anyone that still can play MC should have a card that can play it too.

 

[Riuga]

It's not free. Someone has to program it, someone has to test it, someone has to verify bugs, someone has to fix bugs, etc.

I presume Mojang is moving to 2.1 in order to get better rendering performance as well as to add new features. If they support two radically different versions then the task becomes quite a bit more difficult. Things could look different/behave abnormally between them and you'll have effectively forked your development.

It's not as though Mojang is asking for the the newest version. They are asking for one 7 years old, rather than the 15 year old one that they have been using.

Also, do you happen to have any sort of statistic as to how many computers are not OpenGL 2.1 compatible? I'm all for jumping to conclusions, making wild accusations, and crazy similes. But every once in a while I prefer some facts before assuming the world is coming to and end.

Supporting 2+ versions. If you are doing it correctly, then its a one-time-thing to code. Unless you are an OGL Programmer, please don't try to make excuses about "the task becomes quite difficult".

My personal OGL Render engine checks for extensions at startup, selects VAO, VBO, or Immediate accordingly, Renders, and everything is fine. I don't regret anything about supporting not 2, but 3, different versions. I do not see why Mojang cannot do the same. I want to make sure virtually everyone can enjoy my games.

And, They (Mojang) can also rid spam reports on forums about "OmG mc doesnt start smt about 21 ogl version" by doing so. Supporting multiple versions is in every way beneficial.

 

[CascadingDragon]

Supporting 2+ versions. If you are doing it correctly, then its a one-time-thing to code. Unless you are an OGL Programmer, please don't try to make excuses about "the task becomes quite difficult".

My personal OGL Render engine checks for extensions at startup, selects VAO, VBO, or Immediate accordingly, Renders, and everything is fine. I don't regret anything about supporting not 2, but 3, different versions. I do not see why Mojang cannot do the same. I want to make sure virtually everyone can enjoy my games.

And, They (Mojang) can also rid spam reports on forums about "OmG mc doesnt start smt about 21 ogl version" by doing so. Supporting multiple versions is in every way beneficial.

Do you actually code? Depending on the differences between the versions, it can be messy and time consuming. I mean, having to fix bugs for both versions, having to test both versions extensively before release, etc... It's a nightmare, and as someone who has to fix users' script code for 3 different versions of a software, it's not fun.
Well you may have found it easy to support 2 versions on your renderer, what makes you think that it would be just as easy for Mojang?
All the logic I have seen from you is flawed, in my opinion.

 

[Riuga]

Do you actually code? Depending on the differences between the versions, it can be messy and time consuming. I mean, having to fix bugs for both versions, having to test both versions extensively before release, etc... It's a nightmare, and as someone who has to fix users' script code for 3 different versions of a software, it's not fun.
Well you may have found it easy to support 2 versions on your renderer, what makes you think that it would be just as easy for Mojang?
All the logic I have seen from you is flawed, in my opinion.

I, as implied, do. I have experience with mainly Java and C++, and am a 3D OGL Dev. I should being asking you that question.

By the way you talk, you don't seem to understand very much about the OGL API. Let me make this clear:

1) You do not need 3 different versions of minecraft to support 3 different OGL Versions (see what you said in your 4th sentence).

2) I can guarantee under 300 lines of code, which is normal, for a main render class that supports all 3 versions.

3) Theres something called Object Oriented Programming, and static functions, that can make the process of rendering usually ~1~ line of code

Look at me, I'm a single person. Mojang? Around 10. I could code said render engine, and so I would expect them to code it much faster, and make it easier for each person by reducing their workload. I expect it to be easier for mojang, not just as easy.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Supporting 2+ versions. If you are doing it correctly, then its a one-time-thing to code. Unless you are an OGL Programmer, please don't try to make excuses about "the task becomes quite difficult".

My personal OGL Render engine checks for extensions at startup, selects VAO, VBO, or Immediate accordingly, Renders, and everything is fine. I don't regret anything about supporting not 2, but 3, different versions. I do not see why Mojang cannot do the same. I want to make sure virtually everyone can enjoy my games.

And, They (Mojang) can also rid spam reports on forums about "OmG mc doesnt start smt about 21 ogl version" by doing so. Supporting multiple versions is in every way beneficial.

I think it is less to deal with supporting rendering types to choose your level of shininess and more to do with dependencies. Basically, they want to make stuff in the game which requires 2.1, but that can't do that as long as they are supporting older versions.

Also, have you seen the rendering code in Minecraft? Ugh. What they are probably trying to do is get rid of that... mess... and start fresh with something clean. And then someone decided that since they're starting fresh to clean up the code anyways, they can go ahead and move to the 2.1 for the shaders to make Vanilla Minecraft look really awesome looking to attract new customers. However, they really can't do that if they are still supporting older versions of GL. Hence the move to update.

 

[PhilHibbs]

There are plenty of games that don't run on older hardware and O/S. I don't see what's so atrocious about this.

 

[Riuga]

Basically, they want to make stuff in the game which requires 2.1, but that can't do that as long as they are supporting older versions.

I'm getting extremely tired of repeatedly sending my same counterattack on this type of point. I will say this for the final time:

You can support 1.1, 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x in a single program.

if(extSupported("GL_INSERT_EXT_NAME_HERE"))
//do non-1.1 stuff here
else
//return; or provide a 1.1 compatible fallback here

EDIT:

Yes, I have seen part of the render code. Minecraft src as a whole is a Ghana dumpster.

@PhilHibbs

It's because MC is actually quite playable even on my old 1.4 OGL laptop. I sympathize w/ higher teir games, due to their nature, have many computations going on, that not even 1.1 nor 2.1 support can make it the least bit playable. Seeing that minecraft is still playable on lesser OGL versions, I don't think its fit to remove --2.1 support.

Also, its not like 2.1 will mess up 99% of their render code, its a fairly straight port compared to 3.1+

 

[PhilHibbs]

I'm getting extremely tired of repeatedly sending my same counterattack on this type of point. I will say this for the final time:
You can support 1.1, 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x in a single program.

Well I guess it's just because they are evil or incompetent then.

 

[whythisname]

So finally MC will be able to use a tiny amount of my GPU instead of being so CPU dependent? Yes please!

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm getting extremely tired of repeatedly sending my same counterattack on this type of point. I will say this for the final time:

You can support 1.1, 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x in a single program.

if(extSupported("GL_INSERT_EXT_NAME_HERE"))
//do non-1.1 stuff here
else
//return; or provide a 1.1 compatible fallback here

Assuming you have a 1.1 compatible fallback. Which they may no longer be willing to provide for content going forward.

 

[Riuga]

So finally MC will be able to use a tiny amount of my GPU instead of being so CPU dependent? Yes please!

OGL since day 1 was made to balance the workload between the GPU and CPU. Its really one of the only reasons that makes OGL > Software Rendering.

VBO's don't really offer much of a performance increase vs I-Mode. Don't expect ++30 fps increases or anything.

 

[egor66]

OGL since day 1 was made to balance the workload between the GPU and CPU. Its really one of the only reasons that makes OGL > Software Rendering.

VBO's don't really offer much of a performance increase vs I-Mode. Don't expect ++30 fps increases or anything.

Didnt you state your previous post was the last word on it, not even you can stop progress, ps if I dont like your post....

 

[SteveTech]

Supporting 2+ versions. If you are doing it correctly, then its a one-time-thing to code. Unless you are an OGL Programmer, please don't try to make excuses about "the task becomes quite difficult".

My personal OGL Render engine checks for extensions at startup, selects VAO, VBO, or Immediate accordingly, Renders, and everything is fine. I don't regret anything about supporting not 2, but 3, different versions. I do not see why Mojang cannot do the same. I want to make sure virtually everyone can enjoy my games.

And, They (Mojang) can also rid spam reports on forums about "OmG mc doesnt start smt about 21 ogl version" by doing so. Supporting multiple versions is in every way beneficial.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't see how it is necessary to support a standard that is 13 years old. If the computer is only capable of running OpenGL 1.2, i'd be shocked if it got more than 10 FPS. Just because you can make something run, doesn't mean it will run well. The play experience will be sub par.

It is not beneficial to make people think the game is laggy, especially if they paid $20+. So I guess if we stick to your line of reasoning, Mojang can get rid of spam reports and complaints on the forum about "OMG MC is so slow, I keep getting murdered because it's so laggy" by requiring people have at least a 7 year old computer.