Target = Linux + Windows : LWJGL or JOGL ?

[Orangy Tang]

My only "anti-LWGL" concern is that it is hardware-only rendering.

There's a flag you can set to allow LWJGL to not filter out non-HW display modes. It's described in the 'hidden switches.txt' in the build IIRC.

[Matzon]

If I'm following this trail correctly, JOGL should be able to handle resolution swapping on Linux as well as it does on Windows if running a 1.5+ JVM, but is crippled on 1.4, correctl?  Hmmm....

no, it's 1.6+ !

My only "anti-LWGL" concern is that it is hardware-only rendering.  About 75% - 90% of my game is being designed really as just a standard 2D strategy game with only a couple parts that may take advantage of 3D capabilities.  I know that most machines in the public hands now do perform accelerated 3D as hardware rendering and that by early next year it will be an even higher percentage, but, for example, the laptop I'm working on now does it's 3D for Linux in software.  Since 3D is not even the biggest feature of the game I hate to limit a target audience by requiring that.  If this was a fast-paced shooter that's an understandable target, but a trun-based simulation is very different story.

LWJGL supports software mode fine - we just fail unless you explicitly enable it via the

-Dorg.lwjgl.opengl.Display.allowSoftwareOpenGL=true

VM property

[beowulf03809]

Curse you, Orangy Tang!  As soon as I think I found a technical reason to help me make my decision I am presented with a work around!!!

I guess I just need to set down this weekend and try some raw LWJGL stuff to see if it works on my three environments ( W2K and JDK 1.4, Linux w/ hardware acceleration and JDK 1.5, and Linux without hardware JDK 1.5 ).

-L

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[beowulf03809]

And curse you too, Matzon!   

-L

[Jeff]

The two biggest differenes AFAIK between the APIs are these:

(1) JOGL requires AWT and is buitl with AWT more in mind.  LWJGL does nto require AWT and may not integrate as well with it if you want that. (To be fair most games dont)

(2) LWJGL gies you a single integrated package with OGL, OpenAL support and input support.  JOGL is designed to be used with OpenAL or Jinput if you want those, or any other chpice you make for those functions.

[elias]

The two biggest differenes AFAIK between the APIs are these:

(1) JOGL requires AWT and is buitl with AWT more in mind.  LWJGL does nto require AWT and may not integrate as well with it if you want that. (To be fair most games dont)

Note that recent LWJGL versions have got the AWTGLCanvas class to bridge AWT and LWJGL, and it works similar to the JOGL canvas. We don't have the swing equivalent of GLJPanel, so the support is not as complete as jogl. In return you  get to choose between SWT, AWT and the LWJGL internal implementation of fullscreen/windowed + pbuffer drawables.

 - elias