OpenGL vs Directx

[wakim42]

hehe dont want to troll but

some of the greatest games of all time like Quake 4

dont you think its a bit excessive

[clbvda]

Originally Posted by wakim42

dont you think its a bit excessive

Probably, but I was just trying to get my point across about the capabilities of the OpenGL API. I had a friend ask me when I switched back to windows when he saw me playing Quake 4 one day. He thought it was written in d3d.
(I use Linux, btw )

[Smiley2k7]

I use DirectX but I'm not sure weither to change to OpenGL

[DuoMaxwell]

Both are features of graphics cards, games support one or the other usually, some support both depending on the design company, if the game runs on more then just windows it may support OGL on the windows version, but not always as in the case of Mac ports of some games, where the port comes out much after the orriginal release.

If you ask me game companies are shooting themselves in the foot a bit by not going for straight OGL so they can support any OS without much hassle. These days Apple doesn't use PPC cpus anymore, which is a shame for those of us that used them for their intended design, as for most demanding tasks it kicks the crap out of x86, but I guess you can always get a Sun Sparc station or an IBM Powerstation workhorse comp, but it's jst too much more exspensive...

but I digress, give OS X and Linux users a hand and tell game makers you'd like more ports and native OGL support. It's getting boring to me to have most of the OGL games that run on Linux are FPS games, I'd love some more varity with more decent MMOs, RPGs and whatnot, cause yet another doom like game just gets old...

[Ertial]

I think OpenGL has a grate base, but lacks a large amount of games taht use it. In Regnum online, the water reflects with DirectX and has an ugly texture with openGL. I think OpenGL could be very good, but developers put more effort in DirectX, because it's used more than OpenGL. I have ubuntu, so I don't have a choice.

[clbvda]

Originally Posted by Yest

I think OpenGL has a grate base, but lacks a large amount of games taht use it. In Regnum online, the water reflects with DirectX and has an ugly texture with openGL. I think OpenGL could be very good, but developers put more effort in DirectX, because it's used more than OpenGL. I have ubuntu, so I don't have a choice.

OpenGL used to be the major palyer of 3d graphics. It was a race between them and the old 3Dfx (anyone remember them?) Glide API. Back then DX was just in it's infancy and sucked pretty bad so no one really used it. Chances are if you bought a game in the early to mid 90's it was coded in OpenGL and probably supported Glide to some extent. But as DX grew and was polished and took pointers from OpenGL it got better and better. Not to mention M$ had the cash to make sure it got used in games. Oh yeah, Yest, the "texture" of the water isn't really a "texture". It's done with shader technology, and while I agree that it isn't the best looking, that comes down to coding. It can look a million times better, I've seen it done.