Anybody knows where can i find some good articles about that?. i want to read a good comparison.
thanks
what for ? generaly nobody even cares about such comparisions, if you asked me i would use opengl (more portable) and diertx for other stuff (like keyboard, joystick,sound etc)
check out the forums on www.gamedev.net - this question is raised all the time! But you may be disappointed with the answer. It depends on what you prefer - neither of them are better than the other!
the limits of Direct3d and Opengl are your programming experience and effort. Its possible to do anything with them.
I think OpenGL is the way to go. I’ve read articles on it, and many programmers hate Direct3D. Besides, resources on OpenGL is more than in Direct3D.
Take into account that recent DirectX cannot be run on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0!!! But OpenGL is available on all Windows.
see http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/defa…xml&frame=true
Microsoft DirectX 8.1 Software Development Kit
…
Important notes:
Requires Microsoft® Windows® 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 or Windows XP
Does not support either Windows® 95 or Windows NT 4.0
I started using DirectX and have stuck with it. But recently Ive been playing around with OpenGL and it makes it easier to get started with. Unless you already know Windows, you are going to have to learn a little about that as well. Its seems that the differences are trivial once you start coding for large projects. If I started with OpenGL, I would have stuck with that as well.
Originally posted by ocioso:
Anybody knows where can i find some good articles about that?. i want to read a good comparison.
thanks
I was going to do a critical analysis of OpenGL and Direct3D as tools for learning 3D graphics for my final year project.
The only problem was that DirectX SDK 7 and 8 wouldn’t install on Win98 Win2000 or WinNT4. You’ve got to hand it to the guys at Microsoft.
SGI can come up with an API that can run on just about anything, while Microsoft struggle to get their API to run on what it was designed for.
From what I’ve tried of it and heard about it, DirectX is a twisted and bitter API and is mostly only used by twisted and bitter individuals.
Good l*ck to all those X-Box programmers. You’ll need it.
Here is a link you might be interested in. http://www.azillionmonkeys.com/windoze/OpenGLvsDirect3D.html
And check out Chris Hecker’s web page at http://www.d6.com/users/checker/#opengl
Keep in mind these are very old articles.
But really, if you do a comparison between D3D and OGL I think you will find that they are very similar in terms of functionality and performance. They both do the same stuff in the core language. OGL has an edge with extensions so you can get access to the new hardware functionality right away. But many think this is the problem with OGL and that OGL needs a full time owner to update it quicker.
Personally, I like OGL because I think the code is more readable and because it is portable. I like the extensions too. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that DX people are bitter people. DX is used by many companies in the game industry including the big companies like Blizzard, Verant, Interplay and Bioware. Halo is programmed using DX also, and so is No One Lives Forever and just about any Lithtec game.
BTW I think Xbox will have OGL support on it very soon if it already doesn’t. It should be easy to implement.
[CHILDISH FLAMEWAR MODE]
Just to be devils advocate…
I read alot of criticism about the Lithtech engine, so it doesn’t mean DX is good. Often relating to performance issues…
Look at the number of games spawned from the Q2, and Q3 engines, all in gl… 
2 more words… “Doom 3” !
[/CHILDISH FLAMEWAR MODE]
Nutty
Yeah!! OpenGL is easest than DirectX, and is more portable too. Cause direcxt is a micro$oft tecnology and don’t have support to others plataforms. I recomend that you try to read some introduced tutorials under internet to choise a better one!
DirectX8 and openGL are pretty much the same. DirectX is very different when you use it, some things people may say are long winded and a waste of time, but its just different. OpenGL is fairly easy to understand, and quite an elegant language, but saying its better than directX is a little bit ott.
The openGL engines produced by carmack are very good, but that is due to the skill and experiance of those who programmed it, not due to its openGL usage. The fact that you can name some examples of bad directX engines hasn’t really got much to do with DirectX. Nutty - 4 words, Dead or Alive 3. All DX, very nice.
I often hear that openGL is better cos its portable. In my experiance, there’s as much hassle porting an openGL app to another platform as there is converting an openGL app to use D3D. When porting stuff you still have to change over the platform specific stuff and usually alter chunks of your openGL code to utilise extensions for different cards etc.
ok, OGL is really portable (e.g. Linux,indeed there are not really good games, so i know) and it’s easy to understand.
but it’s a dying tech. for example (that is what i konw) wickedgl is used to “translate” OGL to DX commands. and nearly all available G-cards use DX, and OGL, but only for compatibility.
Originally posted by LeQoq:
ok, OGL is really portable (e.g. Linux,indeed there are not really good games, so i know) and it’s easy to understand.
but it’s a dying tech. for example (that is what i konw) wickedgl is used to “translate” OGL to DX commands. and nearly all available G-cards use DX, and OGL, but only for compatibility.
Now hold on there a minute. OpenGL dying? I highly doubt that. If it does die it would take something more than D3D to kill it. Not everyone uses Wintel machines, and there are plenty of people out there who use OpenGL. If nothing else, OpenGL will always have its niche, but right now I would say its very popular and that it looks to stay that way.
BTW WickedGL is only for 3dfx Voodoo cards. And if I remember correctly it is an OpenGL mini-client driver that converts OpenGL to Glide. Not to D3D.
Also whenever hardware vendors create a new feature, like Nvidia with their T&L stuff, OpenGL supports it first. With DX you have to wait for the next update. So OpenGL still has an edge over DX.