Science fair question!

I’m thinking of doing a comparetive study of OpenGL and Direct3D rendering for a science fair topic. What do you guys think? Is there anything I should be aware of, to compare/contrast these two API’s? Keep in mind, I have no experience with either, and I’m only now learning Visual C++ :stuck_out_tongue: I think I can do it, though. In order to compare these two, I’ll have to use software rendering, so the video card isn’t a variable, right? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

wow…

big task
You should become good into both 3D hardware and software.

You should take into account the availability of divers and their quality.

You should test OpenGL and Direct3D on windows to make some comparisons with and without hardware acceleration.

You should use OpenGL SGI implementation and MS implementation.

You should test OpenGL accelerated/unaccelerated on other platform such as BeOS and Linux, all with the same PC.

You should compare in how many lines you coulw do the same things in both API.
You should comment on the docs available and what the authors tried to tell the user.

(sofar D3D only told how to, while OpenGL tell why and try to educate you and tell you how to)

This is just a little list, you will probably find plenty of other things to do to make a fair comparison.

Good luck.

ouch!!
If you can pull it off it would be a great accomplishment!
It seems that for a beginner it is a little too much to pull off. I am not sure how much programming experence you have, (you might be able to punch out 1000 lines of code in a few hours!! ) but it seems that unless you have a lot of time on your hands (and no social life), this may be too big of a project!!
I myself am triing to learn openGL, and I have noticed that even some of the smallest tasks can be a pain if you are not used to the syntax.
Also NOTE: no matter how much you test the software on you own, when you have it in front of people for the first time it will not work!! :stuck_out_tongue: - it’s the way of the code gods pissing you off!!

Have fun
Roach

Yeah, I admit, it does seem like a huge task. My only programming experience is in basic, to tell the truth. I’m learning C, and I figured “What the hell?” :stuck_out_tongue: I have no social life, and yes, I do have PLENTY of time on my hands! Thanks again, to all of you! You can bet you’ll see a LOT of questions from me in the next month or so. :slight_smile:

Thanks again!

Get an opengl fanatic, and a D3D fanatic and make them write the code for you.