What's the difference between D3D and GL versions?

Andreas Raab Andreas.Raab at gmx.de
Sat Nov 24 12:19:25 UTC 2001


Leo,

The difference between the two versions is which low-level API is used for
3D accelerated rendering. While OpenGL is the "cleaner" API to use it is not
as well supported for various graphics cards (in particular older ones - on
my Laptop the drivers are so poor that the reliably crash my machine). D3D
in contrast is the proprietary MS API for 3D acceleration.

Which one to use depends on your machine. If you _can_ use the OpenGL
version (e.g., if your machine has proper drivers installed) I would
recommend using it. If it doesn't then I'd use the D3D version. The way to
find out is simply by starting a standard Squeak with either VM, then hop
into the "Squeak in 3D" project and turn on the "enable hardware
acceleration" item from the camera's red halo menu. There are three possible
responses:

a) Your machine locks up or everything looks totally weird. This means your
drivers don't work correctly - choose the other VM.

b) Everything looks okay, but moving the bunny around is not significantly
faster than before (or even slower). This means that your machine has no
hardware acceleration for this API (both OpenGL and D3D fall back onto
software rendering if no HWA is found) - choose the other VM.
[You may have to resize the camera window in order to judge the effect]

c) Everything looks okay and the bunny is noticably faster. This means that
everything is working fine - that's the VM you want to use.

Notice that in _theory_ both version should result in c) in which case it
doesn't matter which one to use. If so, I would recommend using the OpenGL
version.

Hope this helps,
  - Andreas



> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> [mailto:squeak-dev-admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org]On Behalf Of Leo
> Burd
> Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2001 1:18 AM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: What's the difference between D3D and GL versions?
>
>
> Guys,
>
> What's the difference between the D3D and GL Squeak versions?
>  Is there any
> easy way to find out which one is the best for my system?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Leo
>
>
>
>





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