direct 3d or open GL

[swinger]

which one is better? which is faster and which has better graphics? i have never really been able to tell the difference between the two. should i be able to?

[Bulldog_UK]

Some people say open gl is better on the gforce ti cards but I play nascar 2003 alot and I tried open gl a few days ago and it was stuttering like mad and the graphics didnt look any better to me, I think 3dm is better but that is down to the games I play maybe, but like I say in nascar I can get 145 frames with all the settings on and 1024x768 res so for me 3d all the way, I have a barton 2500+333fsb cpu and ddr 333 so when it was stuttering in open gl I new it was that and not my system. But like I say its all down to the games you play I guess but give both atry and see what U think, allso I seem to have alot more options in 3d than I do in open gl with the 44.03 detonater drivers so maybe the is an extenstion for open gl to get more options and then maybe it will work better.

[ufuk21p]

openGL seems to demand a better overall PC performance, my opinion, on the other hand DX is more depending on the cards abilities. If u have a DX8 card, DX9 games play a lot worse. On the other hand openGL games play OK even in older cards.

[Bulldog_UK]

I am sorry I dont agree with you there mate, My ti4200x8 plays nascar 2003 witch is a direct x9 game better than a fx5600 256mb card dose as my brother has this card, I dont use the ti4200x8 anymore but I have it in my sisters machine and its better than the 5600fx256mb even in direct x9 games.

[Bulldog_UK]

I see your point though as if there was another nascar 2003 witch was dx 8 then maybe it would play dx8 one better but we will never know that one because they wont make to games with x8 and dx9 as they would lose to much money lol sorry I didnt meen to critasise you as I should have read your point more clear and thats why i have re rote this to explain what i think you mean ok thanks.

[minibubba]

I don't think one or the other is better, it just depends on what the game was designed to use. Many games can use one or the other, but most of them were designed with one of them in mind and will perform better with that one

personally, I'd like to see more openGL games (and more openGL deveopment)...but that's only because dX was designed by M$

[Woody_87th]

On my system Unreal Tournament (original) plays much smoother and faster with OpenGL. It also looks better.

[minibubba]

can you set ut2k3 to use either dx or openGL? I was looking around for the setting but couldn't find anything...:confused:

I know it was possible with UT, but I can't find it with 2k3

[Woody_87th]

I don't think you can with 2K3. But why would you? Original UT is based on DX7 and isn't very effecient with DX9 and the latest vid cards so it looks better in OpenGL. UT2K3 is very nice with DX9 and plays almost as fast as UT on modern cards.

[minibubba]

just wanted to try something different :)

[Mista K6]

Actualyl you can set it to run in open GL (it runs at lower fps for me, put the fps is more stable...). ALl you do is go to the UT2003/ system folder and find the UT2003.ini file (has a notepad with a gear on it for an icon). It's a script file that should open in notepad. Only a little ways down from the top you should see something that looks like this:

[Engine.Engine]
RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=Engine.NullRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice

put a ; in front of the D3D (Direct 3D) line and remove the ; in front of the Open GL line. Now the game will run in Open GL. Simple, wasnt it? :p . : peace2: Mista K6

[minibubba]

Now the game will run in Open GL. Simple, wasnt it? :p . : peace2: Mista K6

lol, ya it is, thanks :cheers:
...i should have been able to figure that out on my own :rolleyes:

[ufuk21p]

I assist running the university computer lab, we have P4 1.6GHz with TNT2 AGP cards but the system works on SD-RAMs.
Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Quake3 are on the limits of playability, we tried to turn the place into a lan house for one weekend and these games worked OK, but with poor graphics, 600 x 400 x 16 @ 40fps+. A friend of mine has this P3 slot 550Mhz at school for typing and stuff, we tried to install the same games there so he could join the party from his office, nope the games were simply unplayable, a mere slideshow, at even lower settings than we had previosly.
All these running on OpenGL made me think that on openGL stresses the system (cpu mainly) more than DirectX.
Graphics cards have vertex and pixel shaders which I believe are features of DirectX, easing CPU of more work. I might be awfully wrong about this so forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong.
DX 8 has pix.shad. and ver.shad. ver 1.1
DX 8.1 has pix.shad. ver 1.4 ver.shad.1.1
DX 9 has pix.shad. and ver.shad. ver 2.0
Sorry for the long post, I am an Open Source Guy :cheers:

[minibubba]

A friend of mine has this P3 slot 550Mhz at school for typing and stuff, we tried to install the same games there so he could join the party from his office, nope the games were simply unplayable, a mere slideshow, at even lower settings than we had previosly.
All these running on OpenGL made me think that on openGL stresses the system (cpu mainly) more than DirectX.

my first PC was a pIII slot 550 with an ATI Rage 128 and I played HL, Q3, UT, CS, ... on it just fine, and competed with my roomates all the time. I used openGL and half-way decent settings....if you couldn't play those games on a p4, then your problem lies somewhere else ;) :2cents:

:cheers:

[ufuk21p]

It was the P3 that we couldn't play the games.
Anyway, maybe the TNT he has is a PCI slot card and the others used in P4s are AGP. I'll check that out next semestre.