OpenGL or DirectX ?

Frobozz · Post by **Frobozz** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 7:44 am

Andreas wrote:What did bill ever do to you?

He made Windows ME!

But more seriously, everything Microsoft does is an attempt to dominate the market. Even if it consists of not following standards like with Internet Explorer. Once it started to dominate, they stopped improving standards support.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 8:15 am

But more seriously, everything Microsoft does is an attempt to dominate the market. Even if it consists of not following standards like with Internet Explorer. Once it started to dominate, they stopped improving standards support.

bullshit

bami · Post by **bami** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:24 pm

GFXstyLER wrote:
stuff
bullshit

Agreed, Win 95 was utter crap, ME was utter crap, but XP is a leap forward, its stable, and it works like it should.

Anyways, off with the off-topic ness.

I like OGL better, since the graphics are on each system the same. With directx, some stuff looks different, while OpenGL will look the same, and if the hardware doesn't support it, it will just go into software mode.

WToma · Post by **WToma** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:36 am

If I had to start programming 3D graphx from the scratch, I'd prefer OGL since it is much more programmer-friendly. On the other side, I don't have to. SO I use DX in Irr because it produces higher FPSes.

Toma

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:27 pm

Those M$ lovers are all from the US. Every normal other User from the rest of the world seems to prefer OGL. By the way for noobs OGL is easier cause DX displays only 16-bit colors at default which gives some stripe banding. It only lacks of the stars yet, maybe thats why.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 3:02 pm

Those M$ lovers are all from the US

weird, i thought i would live in germany

WToma · Post by **WToma** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 4:25 pm

GFXstyLER: You live in the Matrix

Toma

JoeCoder · Post by **JoeCoder** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 4:15 pm

Does Irrlicht OpenGL support VBO's? If not, then that may be one of the reasons for a big performance difference. I've done lots of OpenGL coding on my own and only a little bit of D3D. I think D3D automatically stores your mesh in gfx memory while OpenGL will reupload a new copy of it to gfx memory every frame for every instance of the model--unless you use the VBO extension. Of course, for animated meshes, you're going to have to send a new version every frame since it's changing. (Unless you do some on-card animation using vertex shaders or something) Perhaps a new mesh type--Static Mesh that's optimized for static rendering.

I need to DL the DX9 SDK and run some tests myself. Also, I'm a newbie to Irrlicht so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

genesisrage · Post by **genesisrage** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 4:42 pm

my $0.02 are that both have there ups and downs. DX from what i have seen does have more advanced features, the down-side is that it is M$ and not as stable. OGL is more stable, but have noticed many low-mid-end video cards dont support OGL as much as the higher end models.

but like many have already said, on Linux or Mac... you have to use OGL... but for Win based systems, just give the user an option to switch. or make a small test-app to check speeds of DX and OGL, and automatically selects which one is faster on their computer.

AcidFaucet · Post by **AcidFaucet** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:53 am

For me on an nVidia 7800, the difference is pretty massive.
OpenGL is usually 50% faster than DirectX. That's a pretty huge difference. Except for some reason when it comes to shadows, which is weird. Projective textures with OpenGL don't hit the framerate, but use shadows and then it will run slightly slower than DirectX. Really odd, because I've always thought that projective textures and dynamic shadows were pretty much the same thing.

Per Pixel Lighting Demo:

DirectX9.0 = 30 - 40 fps
DirectX8.0 = 40 - 50 fps
OpenGL = 100 - 130 fps

Really odd too that DirectX8 runs it faster than DirectX9, though it doesn't look as good.

For me at least, I'm using OpenGL, oh yeah I hate Bill too

BlackNinjaGames · Post by **BlackNinjaGames** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:01 am

AcidFaucet wrote:For me on an nVidia 7800, the difference is pretty massive.
OpenGL is usually 50% faster than DirectX. That's a pretty huge difference. Except for some reason when it comes to shadows, which is weird. Projective textures with OpenGL don't hit the framerate, but use shadows and then it will run slightly slower than DirectX. Really odd, because I've always thought that projective textures and dynamic shadows were pretty much the same thing.

Per Pixel Lighting Demo:

DirectX9.0 = 30 - 40 fps
DirectX8.0 = 40 - 50 fps
OpenGL = 100 - 130 fps

Really odd too that DirectX8 runs it faster than DirectX9, though it doesn't look as good.

For me at least, I'm using OpenGL, oh yeah I hate Bill too

Thats very odd. On an nVidia 7800 and only 30 frames per second [DX9]? Thats really low. My grandmother's computer is a normal run-of-the-mill computer. Its integrated Intel something can handle that just fine...

AcidFaucet · Post by **AcidFaucet** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 7:11 pm

yeah it is, maybe DirectX doesn't take overclocking too well. I know doom3 doesn't handle it well at all, and it is pretty dependent on direct x. If I set my clock rates at more than +10 on the core clock and +30 on the memory clock doom will crash every time. Though there's no point in overclocking a post-doom GPU anyways when playing doom.

Irrlicht's implementation maybe? Hell, maybe I wasn't paying attention and had other stuff running in the background while doing the DirectX tests.

ThommyE · Post by **ThommyE** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 8:01 pm

if you're using win and an ATI card- directx more resonable (cause ATI drivers arent very opengl-tuned)
running win + NVidia.. almost the same
running lin = opengl

thats my experience. using opengl on ati cards !MAY! result in 50%fps or even less!.
a simple model loaded in irrlicht gave me (lin+gf4200) 120 frames, my friend running win+much better ati only got around 60
i remember the old times- tried to play UT in opengl with ati-rage 128pro, unplayable.
my neighbour played it fine with voodoo3300. but ut was fine with dx.

@armen138
well am getting better fps running irrlicht thorugh wine (but still with openGL).
about 0.3-0.5% more fps. dunno whats the cedega performance with dx.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:24 pm

All the Microsoft products are great.

Yeah.

Think about Windows.

Its buggy, really unsecure, it cost's so much that with the money i spend for win, office and co., i could buy a new Computer.

Anyway, Linux is less buggy, doesnt crash all the Time, the most Distri's (Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, Debian...) are free and is better configurable.

Back on Topic:

Im a Linux Programer (i just switched from Win to Linux, i have some problems with the IDE's). Im using OGL.

DX is not really better. The biggest Problem is, that the Code is very expensive. And it is only available for one platform. That suxx.

wfg, Sindwiller

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 11:42 pm

This is NOT intended to inflame anyone, just my opinions.

Im a Linux Programer (i just switched from Win to Linux, i have some problems with the IDE's). Im using OGL.

Funny. I'm a Linux/UNIX programmer going to MS. I finally gave up on the "religious wars" surrounding the whole MS/Linux scene. It's ridiculous and counter-productive, at least to my efforts.

I've grown tired of hearing "MS wants to control your desktop" and Windows is buggy, blah, blah, blah... Rubbish. There have been problems and there will always be problems. Sun Microsystems would be just as pleased to own your desktop as MS would.

And for those who don't think LINUX/UNIX systems don't have their share of woes, I'd say "you just don't know." Spend 15+ years working in it and you'll see.

The facts remain that if you want to publish a game, that is, make *real money* and not just pursue a hobby, the MS platform is where it's at. They own about 90% or better of the desktop market, they have the XBOX and MS has put a lot of effort into .NET. The DX SDk is fantastic, MS has the tools and formats already available. Take a close look sometime inside the DX SDK directory tree and you'll find an enormous number of auxilliary applications, useful for building games.

Is DX huge? You bet. but there's so much "good stuff" to use if you can survive the learning curve.

The whole .NET framework is very cool. The ability to program in a language that is comfortable for you (C. C++, VB, etc) and compile your code to MSIL is incredible. Java was close, but I honestly believe MS has found the keys to the kingdom. I found Eiffel.NET for instance. IronPython is developing and there are many others.

If you can't stand MS, try Mono. It's a happening technology but still very immature.

OGL is a great API and OGL ES has wondrous possibilities for the mobile market but that market is still emerging. And you can bet your bottom dollar that MS will carve out a part of the mobile as well using DX.