Posted by Mike Wheeler on December 23, 1998 at 18:33:39:
In Reply to: Accelerator Cards posted by Gary Veasy on December 19, 1998 at 22:10:39:
Hello Gary,
OpenGL is a 3D rendering engine, like Direct3D (for Windows), or RAVE. RAVE is part of QuickDraw3D, which is what DesignWorkshop uses.
The cross-platform issue is a moot point for OpenGL in comparison to RAVE/QD3D because QD3D is fully cross platform for Mac and Windows.
QuickDraw 3D has many more capabilities than OpenGL or Direct3D, it is a much "higher level" API.
THe new ATI cards look promising. We will post results of our testing as soon as it is complete. The new Nexus card will have a 32 bit Z buffer, all previous (and all the other new) ATI cards have a 16 bit Z buffer which tends to create rendering errors in some situations. In addition the new Nexus card will have 32 MB of RAM and the Rage 128 chip, and it will support RAVE and OpenGL. It looks to be a very impressive card for $299.
Mike WHeeler
support@artifice.com