Submission + - GameApi aims to replace OpenGl with a higher level API. (koti.soon.fi)
tp_xyzzy writes: Current trend has been that new libraries are providing lower level hardware accelerated primitives for games. Games programmers want to spend more time playing with the low level details, in order to finish their games later. GameApi is going against the trend and providing higher level api to replace OpenGL. The approach mixes C++'s centralized memory management and functional programming tricks to move abstraction level towards higher level primitives. The claims include "Empowering beginners to create games" and "Shortening the time-to-market for mini-games". Hilariously the provided api is full of completely independent primitives, with no logic whatsoever in their organisation. The library just moved from pre-alpha status to alpha status in sourceforge. Just in time for april 1st.
Why would this replace OpenGl? Opengl is lower level interface, with all kinds of memory management problems caused by C language. GameApi instead uses C++ and can significantly improve the steps required to create games. Instead of allocating buffers with malloc(), GameApi does all buffer allocation automatically, calculating the required amount of memory without programmer needing to specify it explicitly. Data structures required for high performance graphics is hidden behind the api, creating more power for programmers. All the small details no longer need to be handled by programmer explicitly, since the library handles it automatically. Lazy evaluation and pure functions are borrowed from functional programming languages, bringing state of the art primitives for games programmers.
Games rely on hardware acceleration to get performance. This usually involves moving all the heavy lifting from the frame loop to the precalculation step in the game initialization. This way all the operations required in the critical game loop are hardware accelerated primitives. GameApi's approach is to carefully document all the dependencies in the api, in order to make all hidden dependencies explicit. All combinations of the provided primitives are working, and the functionality is split to small pieces which makes it easier to move unwanted functionality outside of frame loop.
Why would this replace OpenGl? Opengl is lower level interface, with all kinds of memory management problems caused by C language. GameApi instead uses C++ and can significantly improve the steps required to create games. Instead of allocating buffers with malloc(), GameApi does all buffer allocation automatically, calculating the required amount of memory without programmer needing to specify it explicitly. Data structures required for high performance graphics is hidden behind the api, creating more power for programmers. All the small details no longer need to be handled by programmer explicitly, since the library handles it automatically. Lazy evaluation and pure functions are borrowed from functional programming languages, bringing state of the art primitives for games programmers.
Games rely on hardware acceleration to get performance. This usually involves moving all the heavy lifting from the frame loop to the precalculation step in the game initialization. This way all the operations required in the critical game loop are hardware accelerated primitives. GameApi's approach is to carefully document all the dependencies in the api, in order to make all hidden dependencies explicit. All combinations of the provided primitives are working, and the functionality is split to small pieces which makes it easier to move unwanted functionality outside of frame loop.
