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I'm looking for the absolute most fastest 3d graphics engine/driver that I can get for free. (For the windows platform ofcourse, if it can run else where thats fine.) The only requirement I can think that I would need are basic depth testing and texturing (maybe some blending), I don't need things like lighting.
Right now I'm using OpenGL, but I guessing (and hoping) that there is somthing faster avalible.
OpenGL is pretty fast if you use the right things. Of course, how fast it is depends on what hardware you have.
Other libraries usually don't have any hardware support at all, so whilst it may be faster in pure software to use other things, it immediately looses to OpenGL when you start using hardware that supports even minimal 3D accelleration.
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Mats
OpenGL and DirectX are the only 3D engines installed on most of the computers. If you want to try something else, then you have to deal with compatibility issues and force people into installing drivers and other stuff like that... and probably there are few drivers for specific hardware when dealing with rarely used engines...
I'm also a performance freak and I would also gladly use something that is fast, but I've never got the idea to search for a new 3D rendering engine...
I think I'm going to googelize abit now. :D
Hmm... google doesn't seem to understand I want stuff that are in the same group with DirectX and OpenGL. :o
Why would you want the fastest library available? Sure, right now, that might seem like the most desirable feature in a graphics library. But later on, when you modify your code, maybe you'll decide that you want those lighting effects or whatever . . . and if you use a really fast but few-featured graphics library, you'll just have to convert your code to work with OpenGL or something.
All I'm saying is, a fast library is obviously a nice thing to have -- but don't sacrifice other things like portability or extensibility just to have a library that's 2.4% faster, unless you're aware of what might happen if you do.
There are no viable 3d hardware interfaces aside from OpenGL and DirectX. Glide only ever worked with Voodoo cards, and there simply isn't anything else. Unless you find a way to low-level interface with the vendor drivers, and guess how much documentation is available for that.