The OpenGL renderer supports more/older computers....
# compose-desktopd
David W
03/30/2022, 5:45 AMThe OpenGL renderer supports more/older computers. What is the argument for not making OpenGL the default renderer for my CfD application, rather than DirectX 12?
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Michał Kalinowski
03/30/2022, 6:58 AMI'm not sure what you mean by CfD. Anyway OpenGL is old and does a lot of "magic stuff" underneath. When it was created it was not known how much graphics cards will evolve.
Nowadays, new graphics APIs like Vulkan or DX12 not only introduce modern rendering concepts, make renderer analysis easier (no magic there), get rid of bugs (e.g. Vulkan through validation layers),
but allow for much better performance. You can even use async or multithreading, which opengl doesn't allow.
Usually they also significantly reduce the CPU load. Of course it all depends on implementation, if skia doesn't use potential of such api as DX12 then it may not be much different.
I would say that if you care about performance or memory usage then you should check it out. If you care about platform (OpenGL is deprecated for Apple) then that may be a factor as well.
In any case, you have to answer that question for yourself.
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mikehearn
03/30/2022, 11:08 AMThe usual reason is because OpenGL drivers on Windows are often poorly maintained and buggy.
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David W
03/30/2022, 2:54 PMCfD = Compose for Desktop. Maybe I'm just making that acronym up, whoops. It seemed reasonable since the phrase is used here <https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose-desktop/>.
David W
03/30/2022, 2:54 PMThanks, great answers.
David W
03/30/2022, 2:56 PMI will probably switch to OpenGL then, only because my application is a mod manager for a game that uses an ancient version of OpenAL (and yes, it runs like crap on AMD GPUs on Windows), so it stands to reason that if players can play the game, then using the same renderer for the mod manager is safe.
For anyone else, stick to the defaults 🙂
David W
03/30/2022, 2:58 PMI'll also note that a user yesterday had a white window caused by their iGPU not supporting DX12, and Compose didn't fall back to OpenGL or Software. I left a comment on the relevant github issue with their CPU model.
I had them switch the renderer to OpenGL and they were off and running.
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