OpenGL 4.0 Comes Out To Play
March 11, 2010 at 09:05 AM EST
With Microsoft becoming increasingly marginalized in areas like mobile media, DirectX is becoming less of a must-use toolset and more of a gaming-specific one. The other side of the coin is, of course, the increasing relevance of standards like OpenGL, OpenAL, and OpenCL: powerful cross-platform systems for graphics, audio, and parallel processing . You may remember OpenCL from its debut on the Mac in Snow Leopard, and OpenGL ES of course powers the UI on the iPad . OpenAL is still a ways from being brought under the public eye, but it's getting there. In the meantime, OpenGL 4.0 was announced today at GDC, and clearly it has DirectX in its sights.