What the Direct x and OpenGL are and how they differ

Bring up graphics processing and graphics-related content, especially when playing computer games (usually installed) Many people are not easy to think of a familiar noun called direct X, usually what direct 9.0c and other things are necessary to play the game. So, do you know what Direct X is? Besides, do you know a noun like OpenGL?

This article will briefly introduce and contrast them, hoping to learn more about Direct X and OpenGL, which are closely related to the graphics card.

What is Direct x?

Direct X is a shorthand for direct extension, which can be further shortened to DX. For Microsoft's multimedia programming interface, currently only supports 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 WINDOWS7/8, the latter is the standard of Windows XP. For many new games, direct X 11 is the interface. Direct X has a number of API interfaces that can be grouped into the following sections:

Direct draw and Driect 3D as the main display section. Direct draw is responsible for the display of the plane, and direct 3D is responsible for 3D operations. Typically, a large 3D game uses the direct 3D section (and, of course, if Direct X is used as a rendering).

A DirectSound-dominated sound section

DirectInput input equipment, keyboard and mouse remote sensing and other game control equipment input is here to complete

Based on the DirectPlay network wave points, convenient network games and other operations ...

Direct X has occupied quite a large market with Windows downwind, but only the drawbacks of supporting windows are prompting other operating systems to do their own multimedia programming, the most powerful of which is OpenGL.

What is OpenGL?

OpenGL is a free 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 also very complex to use, open source community for any operating system to provide OpenGL support, so the scope of application is quite wide. Many games are developed using OpenGL as a rendering method, which can be easily ported to Linux and OS X platforms.

And another super programming language Java has also completed and OpenGL integration, means that the use of Java 3D written 3D program, etc. can achieve OpenGL integration. Of course, using the Java 3D can also call Direct X for acceleration.

In non-Windows platforms, only OpenGL is currently available for acceleration, and video features can be done by DirectX or OpenGL on the Windows platform. Due to the different choice of developers, the usual hardware is the support of two types of acceleration. Objectively, the support for OpenGL on super high-end hardware is better.

Under the Windows platform, Direct X has a slightly better rendering performance for 3D than OpenGL under regular hardware (not server-level), especially on WINDOWS7/8. However, the rendering of OpenGL under the Linux platform is more powerful than the rendering of OpenGL under Windows.

Overall, the direct X performance is better under Windows, but the open GL is not bad. But also OpenGL is better than Windows rendering under Linux,os x.