The thing is, I''m starting to make a 3D-engine, butt, I''m not sure witch is better OpenGl or Direct3D? Please reply!

Well witch is faster?
OpenGl or Direct3D?

Its a matter of preferences as to which is better but whether or not to marry a 600 pound woman is a matter of preference too, so that doesn't mean preferring direct3D can't be considered insane by the rest of us.

So its a matter of preference, but whatever you decide never be seduced away from OpenGL by the shit storm of bad publicity surrounding OGL extensions. Nvidia claims that there texture shader extension for OpenGL is "a bit more powerful" than Direct3D's pixel shaders. why is this? I guess its because Nvidia can write there own standards for their own hardware with OpenGL. Of course when ATI comes out with some hardware that can do texture shading, then OpenGLer's will have to deal with 2 extensions until texture shaders get unified into an EXT or ARB class extension. But OpenGLer's will be able to expose the nuances of both the ATI and NVIDIA texture shaders where as the Direct3Der's are stuck with whatever the 3D graphics geniuses at Microsoft think should be standard. BTW texture shaders are easy to use in OpenGL*. so dealing with the extension, and God forbid 2 extensions for the same thing, is no big deal; getting the most out of the hardware is a good thing and the extension scheme lets you do that . That's just texture shaders though; I guess you should find out as much as possible about both API's. Here's a good site for OGL: www.opengl.org. I'm sure you've seen the DirectX msdn site www.msdn.microsoft.com/directx; if not you can download the documentation and see what that's all about.

* there aren't any new functions, just several new constants that you pass as parameters to some already existing functions so putting together a texture shader is fairly easy you could probably get something going from scrath in one afternoon on your first try. Coming up with something that looks good might be difficult but thats a matter of art not API.

Edited by - grady on August 21, 2001 6:17:52 AM

This sounds like a smooth way to start a Direct3D vs. OpenGL war. For all the previous ones, do a search of "Direct3D or OpenGL" threads.... You''ll find a very good amount of them.

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Trent (ShiningKnight)
E-mail me
Shining Darkness- A division of Chromesphere Studios

Allright, this is the fourth time i answered this SAME EXACT question in the last 24 hours. Direct X is better if you are trying to make 2D games because 1)there are barely any tutorials on making 2D games in opengl 2) there no books on making 2D games in openGl. OpenGL is goood because it is multiplatformed. If you want to learn opengl, then read kevi and Daves(members of the GDNet staff) book called OpenGL Game Programming. For direct X, andre lamothes Tpis and Tricks of the Gurus or something like that, so i am told. 2D games can be made with OpenGL, but good luck finding out how, I have been trying for almost 20 days, searching al over the net, but all I can find is NeHe''s 21st tutorial. And yes, direct x does make 3d games, they can do everything the same way, just 2D with openGL is harder to find out how to do, and to do in general. If you are looking to get into the Game Development bussiness, I would suggest learning Direct X first, then OpenGL, knowing both would reallly help.
Good Luck.

"I''''ve sparred with creatures from the nine hells themselves... I barely plan on breaking a sweat here, today."~Drizzt Do''''Urden