OpenGL vs. DirectX
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Honestly, I'm new at most of this. I've read many of Nehe's tutorials so I can do some stuff in OpenGL if I set my mind on it, but I really haven't actually finished anything. I just don't want to spend the time to learn one of them, only to find out that the other is better, etc. So what I understand is they're both basically the same in difficulty and functionality in the long run. But as for Dev-C++ it is the compiler I am using as well. Does someone have a suggestion for a better one?
Quote:Original post by GMX
But as for Dev-C++ it is the compiler I am using as well. Does someone have a suggestion for a better one?
Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, or if you can't or won't get that, then the Express Edition. I've been using the Standard Edition I got for free last year, and I definitely enjoy it. Perhaps it takes a bit of time to get use to it, but I've been using various versions of Visual Studio for a long time, so VS2005 was simply similar but better.
It sort of reminds me of a similar thing with OGL/D3D, where with OGL it takes very little code and comprehension to get something on the screen, but it takes a bit more code and comprehension to do the same with D3D. Similarly, some IDEs might make it easier to quickly build a very basic program from a single source file, but VS2005 is very nice when working with any project of a more command and realistic size.
One thing to be aware of. Video card manufacturers tend to focus on their Direct3D drivers before their OpenGL ones. Not a problem with ATI or NVIDIA, but I've had the dubious honour of trying to develop a modern OpenGL renderer on Intel accelerators of which there are a hell of a lot of out there. Their OpenGL implementation is bad.
They only support OpenGL 1.4 so no GLSL despite having pixel shader 2.0 hardware. Non-power-of-two textures are not supported (yet are in their Direct3D drivers). Render-to-texture is buggy and uses the old pbuffer system. Using auto-mipmapping caused driver crashes. And this from their latest drivers as of two months ago.
Unless you're planning on cross-platform support, just stick with Direct3D. As much as I love OpenGL, its poor support and its terrible render-to-texture system that has only just been fixed but not before holding back the API for years (something over which John Carmack once said almost made him switch to D3D), simply make it hard for me to recommend for a big project.
They only support OpenGL 1.4 so no GLSL despite having pixel shader 2.0 hardware. Non-power-of-two textures are not supported (yet are in their Direct3D drivers). Render-to-texture is buggy and uses the old pbuffer system. Using auto-mipmapping caused driver crashes. And this from their latest drivers as of two months ago.
Unless you're planning on cross-platform support, just stick with Direct3D. As much as I love OpenGL, its poor support and its terrible render-to-texture system that has only just been fixed but not before holding back the API for years (something over which John Carmack once said almost made him switch to D3D), simply make it hard for me to recommend for a big project.
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