Why is DX9/10/11/12 more popular than OpenGL/Vulcan?

[BeastyBaiter]

Title says it all. I'm teaching myself Vulkan atm and it occurred to me that OpenGL games are virtually non-existent these days. They used to be common but I can't remember the last time I saw one. Just curious as to if there is a reason other than "because everyone else uses DX." In the off chance a BoX developer poke his/her head in, why did you choose DX9 and then DX11? Was there a specific feature of DX or was it a simple coin toss (how I decided on learning Vulkan over DX12 )?

[II./JG77_Manu*]

 

 

In the off chance a BoX developer poke his/her head in, why did you choose DX9 and then DX11?

 

 

I am pretty sure they chose DX11, because you need it for Oculus Rift. As for the rest, i'd be interested in an answer as well.

If i had to guess i'd say compatibility, and the trend that 90% of the games use one of the very few market-leading engines (Unreal, Cryengine, etc)

[BeastyBaiter]

Oculus Rift works with OpenGL. Here the reason for DX11 is because it was DX9 before, but why DX9 all those years ago?

[coconut]

DirectX has traditionally been popular on the Windows platform, and I suppose it might feel safer to use that there. You know Microsoft is behind it, NVidia and AMD are behind it, and there's plenty of dev tools too. Add to this that DirectX isn't just rendering, it also provides access to input devices and sound, which OpenGL and Vulkan do not.

 

Capability-wise there isn't really any difference between DirectX and OpenGL. Some devs will prefer one API over the other but ultimately it's a matter of taste. Most of the challenging bits of renderers are in shaders, which I believe are pretty much identical across DirectX and OpenGL.

 

Note that the PC platform isn't as significant as it once was around the turn of the century. Consoles and mobile/tablet games make up an increasingly large part of the market, and most of those do not support DirectX. On these OpenGL is usually the API that is used.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Title says it all. I'm teaching myself Vulkan atm and it occurred to me that OpenGL games are virtually non-existent these days. They used to be common but I can't remember the last time I saw one.

DOOM  aka DOOM 4 realse date 2016 :-)

 

 

 

http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/download/Boot%20Dec%2097%20ogl%20vs%20d3d%20sm.pdf

 

or

http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2013/05/08/opengl-vs-d3d/

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-server/direct3d-vs-opengl-continues-id-and-alex-st-john-strike-back

 

This

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/john-Carmack-DirectX-OpenGL-API-Doom,12372.html

 

and now

http://news.softpedia.com/news/developer-of-doom-and-quake-john-carmack-says-vulkan-shows-great-promise-499125.shtml

 

As you see from 1997 to 2016 things changed.

Edited January 16, 2017 by 307_Tomcat