opengl or directx

[Kendrel]

i have played around with opengl a little a i like it so far, but i have read in some other forums that more and more people switch to directx, and i wonder why.

from what i have seen, directx seems to be harder to learn, and good tutorials (like the one from nehe for opengl) are missing for beginners...

now i dont want to use blitzbasic anymore and try all that 3d stuff myself... but what is the best solution for now and in the future... opengl or directx...

so long
kendrel

p.s. i have seen some open gl things in purebasic, but never something like that in directx... how comes... seems it should be possible with that includes from codemonger

[Shannara]

PB supposily (?) uses DirectX in windows and OpenGL in linux, which IMO, is a very bad thing as you really dont know if your game/app will look and work the same on both platforms since they are using two totally different SDKs. AFAIK, there will be no native OpenGL support for windows.. ergh.

[Kendrel]

yes you are right, but iam not talking about native support.
since it is possible to use opengl or directx in purebasic, i simply wonder what people would learn... and why

[Megaborsti]

I tried both and prefer DirectX.
I may be a bit complex to learn but OpenGL isn´t much easier. If learned it, the Syntax of DirectX is easy to understand and use (I hate the OpenGL syntax).
If you want to work on many or bigger projects, I think DirectX is a good solution because the DirectXSDK has LOTS of examples and a really big dokumentation (also with tutorials).
And because DX is from Microsoft (do not understand me wrong, i do not like mircrosoft), there sure will always be new versions with the latest technology.

[legider_pb]

It is just a matter of preference. But, from experience I enjoy coding OpenGL over DirectX for a few reasons. One, I enjoy the syntax much better because I just do and I believe while writing the syntax you learn much more about how 3D really works. Second, I like to support the largest audience, which OpenGL allows me to do with it's cross-platform support. Contrary to DirectX which is only supported on the Windows platform. And also both API's are updated constantly so the latest technology is always available no matter what platform you choose, although OpenGL may have the heads up on the new tech end because of the large companies associated with the OpenGL ARB and the third-party programmers writing for it.

What is comes down to is preference... but if you need help with OpenGL then you can find me on irc.