Sven Olensky wrote:

> just wanted to ask if it is planned to support OpenGL with Povray.
 
OpenGL support could help POVRay (contrary to popular beleif), but the
help would be so miniscule (maybe save a second on geometry processing)
that it isn't worth bothering. The reason for this is because the only
part of OpenGL that is helpfull for final rendering is that if you use
OpenGL to store your seen, and the OpenGL functions to manipulate that
scene, then if you video card support geometry acceleration (card with
the GLINT Delta chip do this, the Oxygen x02 cards do this, and the
RealiZm cards do this, I don't know of any others), then there will be a
slight speed increase.  Also, POVRay may get some help from geometry
intersection.  Most 3D cards offer nothing that would help POVRay, and
if the POVTeam did add OpenGL support, you would still be better off
buying a Dec Alpha with the money instead of buying a fancy OpenGL card.

Now, my understanding is that RenderGL offers some extenions to OpenGL
that could be usefull to POVRay, but I am not sure what they are
exactly.  I just know that RenderGL is supposed to accelerate rendering
in 3D Studio Max R2, and Lightwave 5.5.   Maybe it offers some more
generic 3D algorythems such as speeding up trig functions, or something
like that. Also it my understanding that only Intergraph cards support
RenderGL.

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