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Should I learn OpenGL or DirectX?
The competition between those 2D and 3D graphical programming interface is almost as bad as
the Apple versus Microsoft wars.
Apple won that one.
Microsoft is doing a good job with DirectX.
How many people do you know with a Microsoft phone? I could find more people with Blackberries.
The latest version of DirectX has a unified development kit now, as well as a greater
flexibility.
OpenGL already lets people build good, interactive games on mobile devices, gaming consoles and
personal computers.
Windows DirectX is Windows compatible.
OpenGL is faster than it, even on a Windows machine.
Those trials were surprising, especially given that the OpenGL team had only been tweaking
it to run on Windows for a few months.
Whereas DirectX has had a decade to figure out how to run smoothly, efficiently and quickly
on Windows.
OpenGL has the advantage of being cross-platform. It runs on Sony, Android, Playstation, Xbox,
Microsoft PCs and i-everything.
And DirectX is proprietary. That means it costs more to learn, through Microsoft's classes.
It means Microsoft hosts a lot of classes in addition to learning resources, because
they want developers to create games in their API.
It sounds like OpenGL is the clear winner.
Not necessarily. OpenGL has security holes that are being filled slowly, though some
of them are through Google's ANGLE project.
That's always a risk with open source. Then again, proprietary systems didn't keep Target
and Sony and other companies from losing millions of credit card numbers.
If you go through a list of features like parametric curves and two sided lighting,
OpenGL wins.
And there are a few like motion blur where they are equal. In everything else, DirectX
is inferior.
So what are you going to do?
I'm going to learn OpenGL, because that will lead to more job opportunities.