<fanfare> Here comes captain obvious!

A model file in itself is simply a definition of rendering data. That is to say that when you export your model to "whatever format" from 3DS or any modelling program for that matter it saves a file that defines where the vertices are in relation to a specific point (eg 0,0,0 of the model itself), the relationship of the vertices (how to wrap them to make triangles) texture information, UV mapping and so on.

Now every file format can be a bit different in what it contains and how it contains said information but the important part to remember is that by some means you are simply loading the information from the file into memory (video or ram) for use by the video card. Once loaded the information is identical to what you would manually put in by code. There are different libraries that expose different means of interacting with this information after it is loaded in to memory and in my opinion this is where you want to base your decision.

"What file format contains the data I need?"

"What library / method loads this information in a way I am comfortable with?"

The programming language is simply the means of doing this, the library is just the previously written code that makes it easier to do this, the file format is just the way that this information is stored on disk. Know that and you are a little better equipped to move forward.