Do moderm PC Games use DirectX or OpenGL?

[Rigel]

Do most 3d games nowdays use mainly DirectX or OpenGL?
Which one is easier to learn?

[wien]

All ID games (Quake 3, Doom 3 etc.) and derivatives use OpenGL. Just about all others use Direct 3D. (At least on the windows platform)

As for ease of use, it's no big difference. They are equally easy to learn, and use many of the same techniques. Direct 3D is object oriented though (COM), something OpenGL isn't, and that might make it a little easier to get along with. But as I said.. There's no real difference in ease of use.

What really should determine the choice of API, is the requirement for portabillity. OpenGL is portable to most platforms, and is therefore the obious choice in such cases. Direct 3D is windows only.

[Rigel]

Why do I hear so often that Direct3D is harder to learn and use?
Or is this information outdated?

[dolomighty]

by my point of view:

the underlying concepts are the same, but i would say opengl is easier to learn than dx for the reason that dx code is way uglier than equivalent opengl code.

... but beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder, so it all comes down to a matter of taste: surf the net and see wich code you like the most, then pick that api.

[wien]

Why do I hear so often that Direct3D is harder to learn and use?
Or is this information outdated?Direct 3D was a pretty complex and difficult API to get along with, but since version 8, Microsoft has cleaned it up considerably and as it stands, it's a pretty clean API.