Open GL??????????

[MrT]

I am getting confused here. I borrowed a game "Sin" made by Activision based on Quake II technology. Ok here's the deal. There is an area in the game setup where you can choose (here's the list)
Software renderer
Default OpenGL
3dfx OpenGL
PowerVR OpenGL
Verite OpenGL
Riva OpenGL
ATI Rage OpenGL
when I first started playing the game I left it on Software renderer. It looked alright. then I went into the menu and chose Riva OpenGL (have a Riva TNT based card) and the graphics are unbelievable!!!!!!!! Smooth, perfect, totally clean!!!!!!! It's like I have a different card in the machine. What I was wondering is why doesn't it automatically use the OpenGL for the card instead of using 'software renderer'. And why don't all games use this???
Help, not understanding this OpenGL stuff Just yet.

[800XL]

Its not exactly trivial for a game to detect if a suitable OpenGL driver is available. If it did automatically pick something that was wrong, it would be tough to get in and correct it. Starting up in Software mode gives the user control of things and lets you make sure the game will work in OpenGL mode before you take off and run with it.

OpenGL drivers still are not exactly clear cut and easy to use like they should be. There is a move towards better driver installs for OpenGL and that may help in the future. ID Software seems to be working a lot with GLSetup ( www.glsetup.com (http://www.glsetup.com) ) in this direction. The latest beta of GLSetup can be had at www.quake3arena.com (http://www.quake3arena.com) .