Say you are writing a game, then DirectX is viable, but which version? Use 9c and you miss out on new effects and are associated with a obsolescent platform (WinXP), choose DX10 and only the small percentage of the market with Vista use your stuff (not everyone upgrades their computer at a rate faster than 3 years). Say you are writing a CAD application, should you use DirectX? Perhaps not. While DirectX is available on fewer, especially since various versions of DirectX are only compatible with specific versions of Windows. What I’m saying is that any program written for OpenGL will run on 100% of platforms (although it may not always be accelerated, so perhaps it isn’t worth it). I believed OpenGL could run accelerated on the xbox after hearing Quake III ported to xbox but after research it appears it’ll be software only, see The difference is between choosing 100% percent of the market or 90% percent of the market when you develop.Īfter some additional research I am corrected. Using DirectX excludes you from anything except Windows.

With DirectX it is Windows only (and you are pretty much limited to games only, since DirectX lacks some of the CAD-friendly things such as picking). Using OpenGL doesn’t exclude you from Windows in the slightest, although admittedly you have to use other libraries such as OpenAL for game-related things that are in DirectX but not in OpenGL. With OpenGL you are developing for Linux,PS3, MacOSX *AND* Windows (and possibly Xbox). The difference between OpenGL and DirectX is the different between logical AND and OR.

That is a common argument that is made, but it is also incorrect. If I was a game developer and had my choice between OpenGL and Direct X (At least now) I would go with Direct X just for the fact that my game that I developed would be published on Windows and Xbox360 with virtualy no extra effort of porting.

Direct x for win xp