opengl and direct3d ... why both?

07-07-2010, 01:41 PM #1

I see that the windows version uses directx and there's also some opengl includes in the source (for liinux, I'm sure) but my question is...

why not just ditch Direct3D? doesn't that make development more difficult to juggle between two different graphics libraries?

ArarisValerian · (This post was last modified: 07-07-2010, 02:03 PM by ArarisValerian.)

Because Direct3D is currently dramatically superior to OpenGL in terms of Performance. If anything I'd rather have them ditch OpenGL, but that won't happen because OSX and Linux are dependent on it. Windows users depend on D3D and OSX/Linux depend on OpenGL, thus both versions need to be developed alongside each other.

Don't get me wrong, Windows users CAN use OpenGL, it'd just be a significant step back in terms of performance.

naoan · (This post was last modified: 07-07-2010, 02:17 PM by naoan.)

I'd prefer they ditch Opengl... but then Mac and Linux guys will be left with nothing. And development, as this is an Open Source project, depend heavily on developer interest and motivation, who knows maybe someday someone would be interested in joining the fray.

jumb · 07-07-2010, 02:48 PM #4

The developers are all free spirits, they program whatever they want.

07-08-2010, 12:45 AM #5

I wasn't aware of any major performance differences between the two.

But the Wii / gamecube aren't that graphically intensive, most of the bottleneck in performance would be in the machine emulator, no? To say that OpenGL would be considerably slower than Direct3D just seems.... almost unbelievable.

**NaturalViolence** · 07-08-2010, 02:55 AM #6

Quote:I wasn't aware of any major performance differences between the two.

But the Wii / gamecube aren't that graphically intensive, most of the bottleneck in performance would be in the machine emulator, no? To say that OpenGL would be considerably slower than Direct3D just seems.... almost unbelievable.

Try it. He's not kidding. It depends on the game, settings, and what revision but usually D3D is at least twice as fast as opengl.

**Xtreme2damax** · (This post was last modified: 07-08-2010, 03:07 AM by Xtreme2damax.)

Dolphin was originally Windows only, consider yourself lucky that there is even a Linux and Mac version and an OpenGL plugin. If it weren't for Dolphin going open source it likely would have never gone multi-platform. The Linux and Mac versions are also more unstable and slower than the Windows version, the Windows builds remain the best choice for now.

Also in most cases the DX9 plugin performs better than OpenGL, DirectX is just a faster API with less overhead according to feedback by the developers. Hopefully the DX11 plugin will be as fast as the DX9 plugin in the future.