APIvsAPI

The API flamewar begins, read the forum FAQ's this isnt allowed, but before this topic gets closed i will state my own preferences. I PREFER OpenGL, mostly for cross platform compatibility, direct3d is just fine though, i use both and only prefer openGL over it by a little bit, direct3d is fast becomming the standard for gaming on the PC. (note directx is a whole SET of API's not just a graphics library like OpenGL is) Both have their merits as far as im concerned, another thing thats nice about direct x is the D3DX library which helps you do everything, including wipeing your ass. OpenGL i definitely believe to be more newbie friendly though because of immediate mode (though i am seriously considering implementing a d3d version of immediate mode like (i believe it was) promit did

long story short, their equal, dont ask, choose which one fits your style better
hope that helps
-Dan

hmm crap! sry about the title.

So ill try both and see whats best for me

Thanx

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Original post by The3DGameEngineNoob I heard somewhere that OpenGL is alot better than DirectX but i think the article was old and i dont know what version for both of them they were talking about.

You hear many things. All are subjective.

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Can you help me on this: What does one have that the other doesent? List of features.

In principle, nothing.

But that's not to say, that a given vendor has not implemented a given feature in one but not the other. This is fairly likely.

So capabilities of each on specific hardware are driver-related.

Likewise, any performance claims of X vs Y are more likely due to the driver rather than anything else.

Mark

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1775.asp

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Original post by markr Quote: Can you help me on this: What does one have that the other doesent? List of features. In principle, nothing.

Except platform. Xbox and windows for directx, everything except xbox for opengl. and I think there's gl-dx wrapper someplace that means gl code would still work on xbox.

Pretty much unless you're specifically targeting the xbox, OpenGL would probably be better than Direct3D. (since the technical capabilities are equivalent)

As i said i prefer OpenGL, but i must make a concession that openGL (to the best of my knowledge) does not support hardware instancing, which is a pretty big deal. Though if we dont already have it, we probably will soon, im just pointing that out

thanks
-Dan

there was a debate recently about how great hardware instancing would be on the OGL.org forums, part of what came out of it is that you wouldnt see such a big gain for OGL as you would for D3D as OGL's drawing commands cost ALOT less (there is a graph on page 28 of D3DTutorial3_Pipeline_Performance.pdf which shows OGL's batch sending rate to be from 2.3x, with 10tris per batch, to 1.7x, with 200tris per batch, faster than D3D).

the biggest difference between OGL and D3D that I can think of off the top of my head are;

- D3D doesnt have an immediate mode system
- OGL lacks a standard pre-DX9 class hardware method of using fragment shaders

Thats pretty much it afaik (it used to be the case that OGL didnt have a sane Render-to-texture interface but thats been fixed and we are just waiting for drivers with it in now), so as someone said earlier give 'em both a go and see which you prefer to work with.

OT: I was wondering what is hardware instancing and how it works in hardware?

I haven't tried DirectX myself, but from what I've seen you can really achieve the same end results with either one, but OpenGL is cross platform capable.

That comes from the older days. Direct3D had a bad rap because it literally changed entirely between several versions. The early Direct3D (DirectX 6) WAS total shit and I think anyone would agree on that.

Also - the end user needs to install DirectX, OGL comes with their graphics card drivers (which should be up to date, but not everyone knows how to do it)

Neither does d3d9. You don't want to use 1.1/1.3 on r200 core. Instead, you want to use 1.4 ps with r200. Remember, it has those nifty 2 phase architecture and less than 1.4 ps are just emulated and slowly at that.

The biggest problem with gl was render to texture but that is fixed now. Let me put it this way, only serious ie. people who care about 3D use opengl. D3D lacks so many things that it's not funny. Really sad though. It just shows you that you can't expect coming out of Redmond to be tip top shape. Strong lesson about competition in apis is learned here.