Return of rendering to the CPU (Article from 2008)

[Zach]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/ ... erview.ars

I came across this while I decided to randomly google "OpenGL vs DirectX". Pulled from a random comment on a Toms Hardware article about the subject..

I have been thinking about OpenGL/DirectX for a while, as OpenGL kind of evaporated from the forefront years ago and I wanted to know why... However this article about the eventual return of Software Rendering in general purpose programming on future multi-core CPU's really sparks some interest in me.. I had actually forgot about Unreal Engine 1, and what it was able to accomplish in software.

What do you guys think of Sweeney's predictions about returning to CPU driven software rendering and ditching cumbersome/restrictive graphics APIs?
I remember how cool Delta Force was when it came out, with the Voxel engine. Low res as it was, what it did with the shaping of terrain was really awesome because you really did get "rolling hills" and not a bunch of sharp jaggy-edged triangles.

I've always been kind of intimidated by the Direct3D/OpenGL API's but maybe I am just fantasizing that software rendering of games would somehow be easier on me as a "fumbling developer" trying to make some sort of game. Either way it is a pretty interesting read I think.

[idle]

I don't think they'll do away with the Api's just introduce more middleware and even more esoteric api's.
Probably one of the reasons we haven't seen GPU's/CPU's on the main board is partially due to the lack of suitable tools to generate efficient code for all the cores. It makes me wonder if National Instruments would consider turning Labview into a general development platform since G makes parallel coding dead easy, actually coding in general but only once you've slapped yourself in the face with a kipper a few dozen times!

[DarkDragon]

Larabee was canceled:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10409 ... icksArea.0

[Zach]

The initial offering yes, but this is something even the GPU manufacturers have been looking at for a while now. I don't think the Industry is going to give up on it just yet. Maybe not for the immediate future, but I think we may still see something out of this down the road.