Availability
Direct3D application development generally targets the Microsoft Windows platform. The OpenGL API is an open standard, and implementations exist for a wide variety of platforms.
| Desktop Support | Embedded System Support | License | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct3D | Microsoft Windows only | Windows CE through Direct3D Mobile | Proprietary |
| OpenGL | Cross-platform | Cross-platform through OpenGL ES | Open standard (some features patented) |
In more detail, the two computer graphics APIs are:
- Direct3D is a proprietary API that provides functions to render three dimensional graphics, and uses hardware acceleration if it is available on the graphics card. It was designed by Microsoft Corporation for use on the Windows platform. It can also be used on other operating systems through special software such as Wine, although the subset of features provided is not as complete as the reference implementation.
- OpenGL is an open standard API that provides a number of functions to render 2D and 3D graphics, and is available on most modern operating systems including but not limited to Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Note that many essential OpenGL extensions and methods, although documented, are actually patented, thus imposing serious legal troubles to implement them (see issues with Mesa).
OpenGL and Direct3D are both implemented in the display driver. The following compares the two APIs, structured around various considerations mostly relevant to game development.
Read more about this topic: Comparison Of OpenGL And Direct3D
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