Advantages of OpenGL?

what would you say the biggest Advantages of OpenGL are? as in why should i start program with that?

Well, the first thing I’d ask is advantages over what? DirectX? OpenRT? Okay, that’s just me being picky. I’ll assume you’re asking for advantages over other APIs for realtime rendering… all of those others being Direct3D =P.

  • OpenGL has lower CPU overhead for draw calls and state changes than Direct3D (in general this is true, but it is really dependent on who is supplying the implementation).

  • OpenGL has more detailed documentation than Direct3D (for the most part… some now obsolete areas had some bad stuff. Also, “more detailed” doesn’t necessarily mean easier to use. The D3D docs are definately better in the ease of use department).

  • OpenGL now has more functionality than D3D9. It also currently has some of the D3D10 functionality (assuming you own a GeForce 8800 =).

  • OpenGL is portable… well, more so than D3D anyway.

Kevin B

  • Easy to begin with.
  • Learning curve scales from totally simple to most complex realtime 3D graphics.
  • Cross platform (Windows, Linux, Mac, even some handheld devices).
  • Stable interface (Ok, some bigger changes next year.)
  • Extensible, new hardware features exposed quickly.
  • Third party toolkits help managing first window management hurdles and the wealth (uhm, jungle) of add on features.
  • Lots of tutorials.
  • Great discussion and help forum. :wink:

most of “real” flight simulation, military simulation, astronomical/space simulation, etc - which runs on the dedicated machine, eg. onyx) using opengl.

havent found any that run on directx yet.

opengl covers beginners in 3d up to the most serious serious business in 3d.

Originally posted by MZIskandar:
most of “real” flight simulation, military simulation, astronomical/space simulation, etc - which runs on the dedicated machine, eg. onyx) using opengl.
Not to mention most of the non games that use 3d in some way use openGL.
And as far as i know dx9 is mostly used in games with only a handful of exceptions.

And you have good (commercial and/or opensource) game engines and scene graphs built on top of OpenGL. Quake 1 , to Quake 3 , Ogre , OpenSceneGraph to name a few. Sometimes good to learn from others.