Comments on: Microsoft Drops GAPI, Replaced by Mobile DirectX – My Thoughts

By: Symbian Blogger

Symbian Blogger — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:07:52 +0000

I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.

By: gregd1024

gregd1024 — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:03:46 +0000

Pelle – Wow, good info. I haven’t tried any Direct3D stuff on my PocketPC yet, but now I know that it probably won’t be HW accelerated. My PocketPC is the HTC 8925 and I don’t think the graphics chip supports HW accelerated OpenGL ES either, but I could be wrong.

Thanks for the info.

Update: hey, just thought of something – do you know how well OpenGL ES is supported on the Brew OS? I’ve seen a 3D game (which looked pretty nice) running on some LG phone; I heard it was programmed with OpenGL but I didn’t get to see which OS it was running. I figured it could be Brew because that’s what I’ve seen on most LG phones.

-Greg Dolley

By: pelle

pelle — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:19:42 +0000

We’ve tried to use Direct3D (via the managed wrappers) but unfortunately someone dropped the ball. Hard.

The device story is a mess full of buggy software drivers, GPU’s without drivers or, even worse, super-buggy hardware drivers.
We spent several days trying to find a device (PDA or Smartphone) with HW-accelerated Direct3D but couldn’t find any.
MS has no web site resources linking to devices that work and blaims their partners and the device manufacturers don’t seem willing to divulge details about their devices to developers that want to develop for them.

The Symbian gang got this right BTW. All OpenGL ES stacks we’ve seen so far have been of good quality if not always super-performing.

Cf http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.pocketpc.developer/browse_thread/thread/b8c10cf3c0db613a/234f5f7b0ab315ba?lnk=st
containing the great quote “OEMs are idiots”.