What and what is the difference between Direct X and OpenGL

Excerpt from: http://mtoou.info/directx-opengl-shenme/

Bring up graphics and graphics, especially when playing computer games (usually installed) many people are not immediately reminded of a noun called direct X, usually what direct 9.0c and other things are playing games necessary. So do you know what Direct X is? Besides, do you know what a similar term OpenGL is? This article will briefly introduce and contrast them.

Bring up graphics and graphics related content, especially when playing computer games (usually installed) many people are not very easy to think of a familiar noun called direct X, usually what direct 9.0c and other things are playing games must. So do you know what Direct X is? Besides, do you know what a similar term OpenGL is?

This article will be a brief introduction and comparison, I hope you know and graphics card closely related to direct X and OpenGL.

What is Direct x?

Direct X is shorthand for direct extension and can be further abbreviated to DX. multimedia programming interface developed for Microsoft , currently only supports the Windows platform , although Linux and other platforms rely on wine and other programs can also achieve DirectX but the performance is very poor.

Direct X has grown to 11 generations now, with two direct X 11.1 and direct 9.0c being the most commonly used. The former is the standard configuration of the WINDOWS7/8, the latter being the WindowsXP standard. For many new games, direct X 11 is the interface. Direct X has a number of API interfaces that can be divided into the following sections:

Direct draw and Driect 3D are the main display parts. Direct draw is responsible for the flat display, while the direct 3D is responsible for the 3D operation. In general, a large 3D game uses the direct 3D section (of course, if you use Direct X for rendering).

A DirectSound-dominated sound section

DirectInput-based input devices, keyboard and mouse remote sensing and other game control equipment input is done here

To DirectPlay-based network wave points, convenient network games and other operations ...

Direct X has occupied quite a large market with windows, but the drawback of just supporting windows is prompting other operating systems to plan their own multimedia programming, and now the most powerful is OpenGL.

What is OpenGL?

OpenGL is a free and open source Multimedia programming Interface provided by the open source community, the full name of the open Graphics Library. OpenGL is very powerful, but it is quite complex to use, and the open source community provides OpenGL support for any operating system , so the scope of application is quite wide. Many game developers use OpenGL as a rendering method, which makes it easy to migrate to Linux and OS X platforms.

And another super programming language Java has completed and OpenGL integration, meaning that the use of Java 3D written 3D programs can be achieved OpenGL integration. In Java 3D, of course, you can also call Direct X to speed up.

Under the non-Windows platform, only OpenGL can be used for acceleration at this time, and video can be done by DirectX or OpenGL under the Windows platform. Because of the different choice of developers, the usual hardware is the supporters of two ways to accelerate. Objectively, there is better support for OpenGL on ultra-high-end hardware.

Under the Windows platform, Direct X has a slightly better rendering performance of 3D than OpenGL, especially on WINDOWS7/8, under normal hardware (non-server level). However, OpenGL rendering under the Linux platform is more powerful than OpenGL rendering under Windows.

Overall, Windows Direct X performance is better, but open GL is not bad. But the same is true for OpenGL to render better under Linux,os x than under Windows.

What and what is the difference between Direct X and OpenGL