I'm going to have to disagree. Fact is, OpenGL is being faded out, especially since Windows Vista plans to drop it. The only place where I can see OpenGL prevail in the future is in Linux.

Out of all the games you mentioned, you listed some good ones, such as Quake IV and Riddick. However, this is a "Current and Future" benchmark, so CS: 1.6, CS: CZ, DoD, Q3 and CoD are silly to be mentioned, because they can be run perfectly on hardware from two or three gens ago.

Saratoga, California USA – January 18, 2006 – Continuing forward in the development of advanced game performance benchmarks, Futuremark announced today the release and immediate availability of 3DMark06. A more comprehensive and unrestricted benchmark than previous versions, 3DMark06 includes an array of 3D graphics, CPU and 3D feature tests for overall performance measurement of current and future PC gaming systems.

Again, this is a current and future gaming tool, it's meant to be hardcore. Nobody uses the latest version of the program to get an idea of what type of FPS they should expect out of a five year old game. Hell, I had Q3 run at 100FPS on my K6 333MHz.. I didn't need a next-gen tool to tell me this.

You point to the Valve statistics page, but once again the games you are pointing out are from many gens ago. It doesn't matter that the game still has a massive fanbase and is still one of the most popular FPS games in the world, we do not need a tool to tell us how great it will run

/throws on flame suit

The new OpenGL API (Doom 3/Quake 4) is not like Q3.

Hi Deathspawner,

You won't need your flame suit on with me, as you raise some interesting points in a respectful fashion. But I do disagree with some of them
I would suggest that John Carmack will disagree with you here. Do you really think he would spend so much time on the Doom3 engine, an engine that will be licensed to many different games developers, if it was going to be phased out within a year or two? Let's face it, Doom3 the game was considered to be a bit of a letdown - it was the amazing new engine behind it that was the real talking point.

Microsoft has to be very careful how they treat gamers. Gaming is one of the few last major areas where Linux can't compete with Windows - do you think they would risk alienating so many of their customers this way? If you can't play OpenGL games at all in Windows Vista how many gamers are going to upgrade to it?

Windows XP is still doing a very good job, so Microsoft would be mad to drop all support for OpenGL as the backlash would be too much even for them (yes you do have to listen to your customers sometimes).

Well if that's the case it must also be silly to list 3DMark01, 03, and now even 05 scores when doing current video card reviews because those versions of 3DMark were based on hardware from two or three or more gens ago as well. Yet it remains the accepted practice of hardware review sites, Techgage included.

There are still plenty of current and future games being released using OpenGL; until it is officially dead and buried it has just as much right to be considered part of a "gamers' benchmark" as DirectX.

Don't kid yourself my friend, virtually nobody uses 3DMark to honestly assess how current or future games will run on their machine because it takes so long before games are released which are as visually appealing and performance demanding as that benchmark. Have you ever seen a game which looks as good and as detailed as the Mother Nature test for example (which is 4 years old)? Not to mention that "hardcore" gamers would have upgraded by the time those games come out anyway.

The real reason people use 3DMark is to test their hardware, plain and simple. Some people like tweaking it to the max, some people like trying to make world records, and some people just use it to stroke their e-penis.

Regeneration's point is that 3DMark is touted as being "the gamers' benchmark", yet it is not representative of all games and thus needs to be looked at . Until the time comes when ONLY DirectX is used for all games (which will be a very sad day indeed) then it is very hard to argue with him on that.

Hey Cool Barn,

You also bring up some valid points. Yes, Carmack loves OpenGL. I admire the fact that he uses OpenGL for his games.. it's the main reason I can run Quake IV in Gentoo. Carmack is a smart man, and he must like OpenGL for a reason, but it's evident that it's an extreme minority.

As for the Windows Vista dropping OpenGL support, this is just speculation, and I hope it does not prove true, for the reasons you mentioned. Knowing MS, they will release an 'emulator' of some sort if they ever did drop it. On the business side of things though, they are trying to pimp up DX as much as possible.

Well if that's the case it must also be silly to list 3DMark01, 03, and now even 05 scores when doing current video card reviews because those versions of 3DMark were based on hardware from two or three or more gens ago as well. Yet it remains the accepted practice of hardware review sites, Techgage included.

It's not silly at all. We use 3D Mark 01 because it's an excellent CPU benchmark. Not because it's hardcore, but because the score is highly dependent on it. We will no longer use 03 now that 06 is out, but will continue to use 05 and 06 together in our GPU related benchmarks.

The reason we still use older versions of 3D Mark, is because new hardware will still affect the scores, and give people a general idea of how far we are moving along. We don't run them because it will show that someone can now achieve 310 frames a second in Counter-Strike.

Don't kid yourself my friend, virtually nobody uses 3DMark to honestly assess how "future games" will run on their machine. Otherwise even with the very latest hardware we'd be all getting 10 frames per second at 1024x768 at lowest detail in all the current games like we initially will with 3DMark06.

I made that exact statement in my article of the program, so I agree. That doesn't disregard the fact that nobody uses the tool to find out how 5 year old games run. The main reason I spoke up to begin with was due to the mention of those old games. It just rubbed me the wrong way I suppose

The real reason people use 3DMark is to test their hardware, plain and simple. Some people like tweaking it to the max, some people like trying to make world records, and some people just use it to stroke their e-penis.

I agree.

Regeneration's point is that 3DMark is touted as being "the gamers' benchmark", yet it is not representative of all games and thus needs to be looked at . Until the time comes when ONLY DirectX is used for all games (which will be a very sad day indeed) then it is very hard to argue with him on that.

Aye, and I still stick with my original comments. OpenGL is still in the minority, and I'm not sticking up for FM, but I would have chosen the same route. They included HDR tests in this new version, because that's a technology that is becoming popular extremely fast, while OpenGL seems to be the opposite right now.

[Edit: I also want to point out that I am not completely against Regen. He's a smart bastard and raises some great points. They are just ones I found odd this time around. <3 for Regen.]

Hey man, no need for a flame suit here

Regen is a smart bastard and I'm a noob.