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Thread: OpenGL vs DirectX
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04-07-2004, 01:23 AM #1Web Hosting Master
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OpenGL vs DirectX
What are your opinions on this topic, considering my game is in planning stages and will be starting programming in the next week or so, Im wondering what would be better for a very highly graphical (MMORPG) game, planning to top EQ2, MEO and Blizzard as our first major game, It hasn't been announced yet but im wondering what are the avantages / disadvantages to each and why should i pick one of over the other, Thank you for your opinion.
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04-07-2004, 01:27 AM #2Web Hosting Master
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DirectX.
All the major game companies can't be wrong.--
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04-07-2004, 01:44 AM #3Poooooonnyyy :*
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DirectX is fine if you are only targetting windows. Though, if you want to go cross platform, OpenGL is the only way. If you plan for going cross platform at the beginning, then it costs very little extra (according to the UT guys anyways).
OpenGL is supported very well on older cards too remember. OpenGL has most (and soon to be all) of the pluses that directx provides, yet, it'll be a lot quicker.
As for which one is easier to program for, I don't have a clue
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04-07-2004, 02:52 AM #4Web Hosting Master
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Yeah my main target is windows, i dont care about the difficulity to program, thats what we were going to use anyway. Thanks for your input.
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04-07-2004, 04:28 AM #5Web Hosting Master
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DirectX for sure
Depends what you want though, for Windows only, DirectX for the most support, OpenGL
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04-07-2004, 05:10 AM #6Web Hosting Master
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OpenGL!!!! Please god OpenGL.
All us mac users get shafted the minute anyone says DirectX, because of course MS won't releast DX for Mac or Linux (or any OS other than windows)
OpenGL works just fine for everything, and is 100% cross platform. Hell, the whole of OS X is rendered in OpenGL where possible.
Us mac users have little enough MMORPGs as it is (Lineage2 wasn't brought to mac, even though they are using the unreal engine, everquest is far too old, all the korean games (Ragnarok, Mu, etc.) are coded for windows only, even though many *cough ragnarok *cough* gravity *cough lazy *cough could be ported to mac in a matter of days, simply because they use Granny or similar, which is a multiplatform graphics abstraction layer. They simply have to change a flag, factor in big/little endian differences and convert their code from WinSock to unix sockets (which are far more logical.)Gone.
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04-07-2004, 07:52 AM #7Web Hosting Master
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I'm sorry to say this but DirectX is better for now, and you dont have to use OpenGL to make your game run on linux. just dont use the very latest DirectX (9) elemnts, and it should run under wineX... maybe a little tweaking...
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04-07-2004, 08:26 AM #8Web Hosting Master
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webster, winex is not the solution. For a start it only runs on certain linux distros and support for games is pretty poor (sure, some major games work, but a lot don't)
Secondly, there's no DirectX for mac.
OpenGL is simpler to use, and portable across almost every architecture and operating system in existance. Write portable network classes and do a few ifdefs for big/little endians and your game will run on all those platforms and architectures.
Whereas with DirectX you are stuck in x86 and the windows platform. Your graphics code will also be around double that of OpenGL The learning curve is incredibly steep compared to OpenGl as well.
What do you think's so special about DirectX that makes it any better than OpenGL?
Code portably in the firstplace, and you will reap the rewards as linux, mac, and even irix etc. users buy your product (you will sell a lot on these platforms because not so many developers make games for them)Gone.
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04-07-2004, 08:32 AM #9Web Hosting Master
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phision I'm not saying that openGL is bad, its great, however most games are sold for windows. thats one point... another point is that openGL is not as powerful right now. (will be soon )
He said that its for a "a very highly graphical (MMORPG) game, planning to top EQ2, MEO and Blizzard as our first major game." so for him, for now, thats probably the way to go.
Personally I'll be making my game in openGL, but thats just me. as for wineX, it runs directX 8 games for me just fine... guess I'm lucky. but I do see your point.IWDN - Really smart web developers... and me!
More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads.
One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction.
Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
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04-07-2004, 08:34 AM #10Web Hosting Master
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OpenGL is just as powerful as Direct3D, if not moreso.
Gone.
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04-07-2004, 10:03 AM #11Poooooonnyyy :*
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Originally posted by phision.com
*cough ragnarok *cough* gravity *cough lazy *cough
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04-07-2004, 12:31 PM #12Web Hosting Master
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How long would you expect it to take to convert a Direct X 9 windows game to be compatiable with Linux / Mac OSX
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04-07-2004, 12:39 PM #13Web Hosting Master
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Months and months. It would have to be converted into OpenGL. If it was done in OpenGL from the outset, then it would most likely work with a little tinkering, providing you used cross platform network, sound, input etc. APIs (of which there are many). If you can have, for example, a FBSD box, a Linux x86 box, a Linux PowerPC box and a Mac OS X box to test compiles on, and test+fix code up for them all daily, then you will be able to have a simultanious launch date for all versions.
Gone.
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04-07-2004, 12:40 PM #14Poooooonnyyy :*
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uh, a very long time, since you'd need to pretty much redo the entire code. If you have any intentions to be portable, then do it in OpenGL in the first place
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04-07-2004, 02:04 PM #15Web Hosting Master
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Sadly ive aready got a basis of an engine finished in directx, is it worth completely recoding just for cross compatibility, or should i just leave it to windows users and keep the code i have (Its very good)
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04-07-2004, 02:22 PM #16Junior Guru Wannabe
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Originally posted by websterworld
I'm sorry to say this but DirectX is better for now, and you dont have to use OpenGL to make your game run on linux. just dont use the very latest DirectX (9) elemnts, and it should run under wineX... maybe a little tweaking...
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04-07-2004, 02:54 PM #17Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by Tee
Sadly ive aready got a basis of an engine finished in directx, is it worth completely recoding just for cross compatibility, or should i just leave it to windows users and keep the code i have (Its very good)Gone.
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04-07-2004, 02:57 PM #18Poooooonnyyy :*
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Originally posted by Tee
Sadly ive aready got a basis of an engine finished in directx, is it worth completely recoding just for cross compatibility, or should i just leave it to windows users and keep the code i have (Its very good)
You also gotta ask the team, how much is that otehr hunk of the market worth to you? Sure,you're argueing over like, 7% or something? But (from what i've seen of course) if you take the time to make it cross-platform, the non-win people will be very loyal (heck, i've seen a bunch be loyal to companies that put out just flat out bad games).
On top of this, you'd need to learn how openGL works, as compared to DirectX. It'll take time, i'm sure (assuming the core is a decent size, and not just like, a couple hundred lines of code).
EDIT - *note* Wanted to clear up something. The 'professional' comment is more about how big hte team is that's working on it. If it's just you and another person or so, then i doubt you would really need to spend weeks doing the analysis part. Please don't take it as a burn or anything
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04-07-2004, 03:08 PM #19Web Hosting Master
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What you have to realise, is that apple have around 10-15% installed base (not market share, as macs last a lot longer than PCs). And there are less games to choose from on the mac, mainly because of situations similar to this - people can't be bothered to write clean, portable code, so they write their ugly bloated, hackish code for a microsoft operating system with many of the same properties. As there are less games to choose from, you will probably end up getting 25-40% of your total sales from macintosh and linux users, as instead of having a choice of 100 games similar to yours, they may only have 20 to choose from -- and thus making your chance of getting picked much higher.
Another gripe of mine: I can understand not porting a game which is a long way into development, and porting would mean a major code overhaul. However, what 'piddles' me off is when games which could be ported so easily (Lineage 2 for example uses the unreal engine - portable over 3 platforms and 2 architectures and porting it would be a matter of setting a flag in the config file and converting the client-side network code, not hard if you have already written good OO code). RagnarokOnline by Gravity Corp. is another example of lazyness. Porting their game is much the same, they use totally cross platform tools from www.radgametools.com for the client, and the network code isn't too extensive either.
If you don't want to code in OpenGL yourself, you could always strike a deal with a company like Destineer // www.macsoftgames.com who work with you in development and port the code over for you (for a fee, of course - they publish the your game for the macintosh)Gone.
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04-07-2004, 05:06 PM #20Disabled
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Originally posted by Tee
Sadly ive aready got a basis of an engine finished in directx, is it worth completely recoding just for cross compatibility, or should i just leave it to windows users and keep the code i have (Its very good)
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04-07-2004, 06:26 PM #21Web Hosting Master
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Directx is the key!
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04-09-2004, 12:30 AM #22Web Hosting Master
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HostQuest: Ill do that, thanks for the advice