Thread: About DX and OpenGL

  1. #1
    The Defective GRAPE Lurker's Avatar
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    About DX and OpenGL

    I really wanna start on game programming, expessially with OpenGL and DirectX. How DO I start? Do I have to buy a program? Download some include files? Where can I do this, and where are good tutorials for both? Thank you all !
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    For DirectX: Well I recommend you find a book or find a real good web site, like this one: http://gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=24 (new DX9 is DirectX Graphics, although DirectDraw and Direct3D 8 and under still work).

    Download the DirectX 9.0 SDK. There are a few different versions, the complete SDK which includes everything (a very large download), or just download the C++ version which is smaller. Then download their documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...st/directx.asp

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    The Defective GRAPE Lurker's Avatar
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    Thanks......anyone else have other recommendations and info on OpenGL?

    Also, does DirectX == Direct3D?
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    DirectX is composed of:

    DirectGraphics: everything graphic oriented, 2D and 3D
    DirectInput: deals with keyboard, mouse, joysticks, etc
    DirectSound: sound files and effects
    DirectMusic: midi, music and nice effects for it
    DirectMedia: things like webcams and video

    These are older components to DirectX that are still supported but no longer updated. These two components merged into DirectGraphics as of version 8 (I think):

    Direct3D: 3D graphics
    DirectDraw: 2D graphics

  5. #5
    Pursuing knowledge confuted's Avatar
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    I believe Speedy5 was right about those components being merged into DirectGraphics w/ version 8.

    Anyway, I might get flamed for what I'm about to say, but that's not my intent. Personally, I like NeHe a lot more than NeXe simply because there are a ton more tutorials and more information in general on NeHe. (NeHe is OpenGL, NeXe is DirectX) However, OpenGL is getting old, and only does graphics (see Speedy5's post for what DirectX can do). I haven't seen any serious games recently that use OpenGL - it seems like it's either dead or dying for Windows systems. I'm not trolling, but if you want to eventually get a job developing "cool" games, it would probably be most beneficial to you if you learned DirectX and ignored OpenGL (unless of course, you want to develop for Linux, in which case you probably wouldn't have posted about DirectX anyway)
    Away.

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    Where is the OpenGL? Is there a SDK for that too? I havent found good links yet.....anyone?
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  7. #7
    Where is the OpenGL? Is there a SDK for that too? I havent found good links yet.....anyone?
    If you are using a modern compiler and IDE you probably already have OpenGL. Most compilers these days come with it. If you don't have it, do a web search on google for OpenGL Implementation Download.

    I started out on DirectGraphics 9, and I hated it. It is just about the worst organized API I've ever seen. I don't think M$ will ever find a programmer with designing ability. It's better than it used to be, but the only API in DX that is even half-decent is DirectDraw.

    Everything in OpenGL seems to be much more organized, and it's open source. You can use it on virtually any OS, and using GLUT you won't have to change a single line of code most of the time. I made my first full 3D program in OpenGL in like 3 days, where it took me about a week to do that in DX.

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    OK, thanks all. BTW im using the command line Borland compiler....does that have OpenGL in it already?
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  9. #9
    Which version are you using?

    edit: I don't think it does. It's only like a 6MB download for most implementations of OpenGL. My advice would be to also download something called GLUT. GLUT takes care of all the window stuff, that way you can use the same code on Linux, Windows, MacOS, etc. NeHe has versions of their tutorials for GLUT, if you go to the bottom of the tutorials it says "Download for GameGLUT". It may seem like a lot of code when you use the Win32 stuff to make an OpenGL window, but with GLUT, I can make a working program with a rotating triangle in like 40 lines.
    Last edited by frenchfry164; 07-07-2003 at 11:12 AM.

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    From an OpenGL perspective, check out "www.opengl.org". This site posts demos by people etc, and has some documentation on developing in opengl. You can download an nvidia sdk from "developer.nvidia.com" or an ati sdk from "mirror.ati.com/developer/index.html". These sites also have plenty of demos and documentation. I also recommend NeHe.

    As for opengl being dead, well just to name a couple: IL-2 Sturmovik and Doom3 are written in OpenGL. 3Dlabs is working on OpenGL2 which includes the ogl2 shading language, but it still will be a bit of time before it gets to mainstream cards (much like the first OpenGL back in 93). Ogl2 shading language compares to the current Microsoft HLSL and Cg shading languages. ATI's RenderMonkey is an SDK for high level shading languages and supports HLSL and I think it might support Cg aswell, not sure. But it will support ogl2 shading language soon.

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