Wendle I bet if you removed both the OpenGL and DirectX versions and just put the OpenGL one up (unannounced) but put alongside a minimum spec it would still get downloaded.
An interesting suggestion. Not one that I care to try, but it could be useful to see the results if anyone tried something like it: offering only a GL version (without specifying it) for a month or so, then switching to a DX (again silently), then back to GL or somesuch.
Also - of all the downloaded ones we don't know if any didnt get it to work and why (do we?).
Correct. As it happened, I had one problem reported during pre-release from a very casual gamer with an outdated machine that the DX version didn't run on. I sent him a GL compile and it ran. That's the main reason that I went ahead and offered a GL version for Windows.
I was surprised at how little it was chosen compared to DX. And, from a few, casual checks, at least part of those downloads of Windows OpenGL versions were done alongside DX downloads at the same time (presumably to see which ran better on the user's system?). Again, all of this is just a fairly small test, under less-than-statistically-pristine conditions, but I haven't seen any others (in this thread or elsewhere) with figures, so it's all I have to go on.
Also, thanks to everyone for the helpful replies. It looks like the situation is indeed murky for the next several months to a year in this whole area (not just Max3D, but Vista/DX10 and the future of OpenGL). I'm just planning to go with some other, currently existing solution for now (since I don't want to remain 3D-less in BlitxMax during that time), see how Max3D is doing in something like a year, and perhaps switch over to it then. This may turn out not to be the best approach, but I don't know that there's much certainty in any approach right now. Perhaps we can all share reports of how different methods work out in the upcoming year or so, which might reveal the best approach(es)?