OPENGL

 

Hehe, a little less simple maybe Like, why ?

Please don't tell me its all to do with the amount of embedded hamsters required again. Those damned hamsters

 

I have no idea Opengl just works better for me.
All I know is DX was developed by MS as an easier way for game developers to program under a windows environment. So MS involved gotta be cack

 

From the 5 mins of research that I did on Google, it would appear there is a general hatred of DirectX from a 3D programmers point of view. They favour OpenGL because its easier to use and gets better results more quickly. Personally I couldn't care less cos I'm not a games programmer

Which runs my games better and faster ?

 

Tricky one.

Parts of DirectX (including D3D) were actually developed under another name by a third party, who MSoft bought out and continued to develop into DirectX.

As to which is better, well it depends what you need it to do. OpenGL is supposed to be cross-platform which in theory makes software developer's lives easier, and Direct3D is windows specific.

Trying to not get too technical, Direct3D functions can be either supported in software or hardware, depending on your video card. Supporting D3D functions in the video card hardware means that the functions are performed much, much faster.

Generally, the more hardware supported D3D functions you have, the more impressive your games will be under a given frame rate (the speed at which the screen updates). If you use too many software only functions, your games will crawl.

I don't know if the same situation applies to OpenGL.

So performance depends on how your game was developed and the specification of your video card.

 

Mike P - Thanks

I think thats what I'm getting at. Trying to decipher which uses more of the cards onboard resources and which relies more on processor and memory useage.

 

surely it depends on what the producer optimised the game for?

 

DJ

There's a diagnostic tool called DxDiag that gets installed with DirectX. It tells you a bit about what's going on with your machine.

I think you can dowload the DirectX SDK (System Developers Kit)from Microsoft. It has a more comprehensive diagnostic tool that tells you what functions your card supports, which might be of use.

 

havent looked at this in ages, what version DX are we on now? Think V8 is the latest & is supposed to be a vast improvement.
On previous versions there was no contest which was better. Just look at the graphics/speed of DX then look at opengl - opengl is way better. Just depends on how many features of each application has been coded into the game

im way out of touch so ive no idea what im talking about, i'll go now.....

 

Dunk,
What development enviromnent are you using? If you are writing a windows game, using MS dev tools you gotta target DX8.

They are both API's for abstracting the gunge of hardware driver level coding away from the developer. Basically the developer writes down to a common API, and the card vendor provides a driver which exposes that common API.

What is best comes down to (as stated above) your target audience. High end graphics cards tend to have a very strong OGL implementation with more workstation type optimisations for transforms and lighting (3d rendering and design)
DirectX if used more in games and is the first to market with snazzy new features. Momentum behind DX is growing, and the API is much more mature than it used to be.

There is lots of legacy hatred directed at MS for all of their products. A lot of the products have changed totally since the knockers formed their opinions.

EDIT: and there was me thinking that you were writing some s/w. Apologies Dunk. If you want to find out which setting to use when playing the game it seems that most games have a very directed development, so either the DX or the OGL implementation will be strongest. Take a look at both, the difference may be very apparent.

And another thing. Most graphics card manufacturers have more software engineers than hardware. Such is the importance of the drivers.

[Edited by MrDeference - 6/12/2002 5:42:06 PM]

 

Currently? If you have a new generation nVidia card (GeForce 3 or 4 non-MX) then DirectX 8.1. OpenGL is now lagging behind in support for nVidia's programmable rasteriser, and the standards body governing OGL was still trying to decide which of the roadmap options to ratify in order to get that support added, last I checked.

I should mention here that unless this particular circumstance affects you, OpenGL is undoubtedly at least equal to D3D in performance on pretty much any supported video card. Just don't expect all the fancy bells and whistles that you *may* get on a game under D3D if running an nVidia GPU based card.

It comes down to personal choice in the end, I just leave the game using whatever renderer it defaults to

Derek

 

Sitting down and doing the nitty gritty programming (if thats you intention), I found OpenGL to be far more intuitive.

DirectX8 is far more evolved and nicer than the pig it used to be apparently.

John Carmack (the biggest name in 3D games programming) chose OpenGL over DirectX and still refused to write a D3D renderer to this day. Maybe's that explains something. I must admit I HATE Microsoft's implementation of ANYTHING - if they're not fu**ing up Java, they're altering SQL or creating crappy ASP (try coldfusion or php and you'll wonder why you wasted so much time with ASP/ADO)

-DV

 

Thanks peeps. Like I said I'm not a programmer, was just wondering what the pros and cons are of the two languages.

Thanks for all you help, you've clarified a lot

 

If you want some more feature comparisons, I stumbled across this.

 

Anyone played Unreal Tournament using the S3Compressed textures and the new-ish supported OpenGL DLL from epics website?
It looks very schweet!

 

Which is the more preferable option ?
What are the advantages or disadvantages of either ?


Keep it simple though please

Edited to add - From a games perspective.

[Edited by DJ Dunk - 6/12/2002 3:41:16 PM]