Id Software prefers directX

[Dragnadh]

http://www.techspot.com/news/42827-id-software-co-founder-directx-is-better-than-opengl.html

id Software co-founder: DirectX is better than OpenGL
By Emil Protalinski, TechSpot.com
Published: March 15, 2011, 1:13 PM EST

Software co-founder John Carmack built his popular game engines around the cross-platform OpenGL API. It therefore may be a surprise to learn that he considers Microsoft's DirectX to be a superior API.

"I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today," he told bit-tech. "Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns. Direct3D handles multi-threading better, and newer versions manage state better."

That being said, Carmack won't be switching away from OpenGL anytime soon. Despite the advantages of DirectX, OpenGL is rooted deeply in the company's game and tool code and transitioning to the Microsoft camp would involve a lot of work. It could complicate supporting platforms like the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Apple Mac.

"It is really just inertia that keeps us on OpenGL at this point," Carmack said. "OpenGL still works fine and we wouldn't get any huge benefits by making the switch, so I can't work up much enthusiasm for cleaning it out of our codebase. If it was just a matter of the game code, we could quite quickly produce a DirectX PC executable, but all of our tool code has to share resources with the game renderer, and I wouldn't care to go over all of that for a dubious win."

[deanjo]

http://www.techspot.com/news/42827-i...an-opengl.html

id Software co-founder: DirectX is better than OpenGL
By Emil Protalinski, TechSpot.com
Published: March 15, 2011, 1:13 PM EST

Software co-founder John Carmack built his popular game engines around the cross-platform OpenGL API. It therefore may be a surprise to learn that he considers Microsoft's DirectX to be a superior API.

"I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today," he told bit-tech. "Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns. Direct3D handles multi-threading better, and newer versions manage state better."

That being said, Carmack won't be switching away from OpenGL anytime soon. Despite the advantages of DirectX, OpenGL is rooted deeply in the company's game and tool code and transitioning to the Microsoft camp would involve a lot of work. It could complicate supporting platforms like the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Apple Mac.

"It is really just inertia that keeps us on OpenGL at this point," Carmack said. "OpenGL still works fine and we wouldn't get any huge benefits by making the switch, so I can't work up much enthusiasm for cleaning it out of our codebase. If it was just a matter of the game code, we could quite quickly produce a DirectX PC executable, but all of our tool code has to share resources with the game renderer, and I wouldn't care to go over all of that for a dubious win."

The title is misleading, he doesn't say he prefers DX, but he does admit it is better. They do however prefer to stick with openGL because of their current codebase. Just because something is better doesn't make it necessarily preferred as other factor fall into play as he eludes to here.

[RealNC]

This isn't surprising. Since DX10, many OpenGL developers stopped the usual "Direct3D sucks" talk. It used to suck, but not anymore. Which is why there's a Direct3D Gallium state tracker, btw. It's a very nice API.

[crazycheese]

Thats very old article! I remember that interview being taken from Carmack at Quake4 era! Could I be they just stole the text or something?


Also:

"I wouldn't care to go over all of that for a dubious windows."
corrected.

[deanjo]

Thats very old article! I remember that interview being taken from Carmack at Quake4 era! Could I be they just stole the text or something?

I don't think that's the same article but he has been saying basically the same thing since OGL stalled at 2.1 a few years back (at least back to the first previews of IDTech5).

[crazycheese]

I don't think that's the same article but he has been saying basically the same thing since OGL stalled at 2.1 a few years back (at least back to the first previews of IDTech5).

This is Carmack. If it was him questioned again, he would give a "pointer".