Directx, vulkan, openGL???

[FOSHIZZLE]

im new to pc stuff so could somebody explain these. what are these things for and can they help improve gaming?

[2FA]

They are APIs which allow your GPU to render an image. DirectX is a Microsoft exclusive, Vulkan is multiplatform and is a direct successor to OpenGL. I'm not going to pretend I know how they work but I understand their effects.

[Timmy-P]

DirectX, Vulkan, and OpenGL are all Graphics APIs.  It sort of acts like a moderator between your computer's hardware and the game you're playing so that your hardware can work properly and efficiently as it can to put stuff on your screen and run the game.

 

DX is for Windows, OpenGL is multiplatform, and Vulkan stems from OpenGL.

[FOSHIZZLE]

1 minute ago, Timmy-P said:

DirectX, Vulkan, and OpenGL are all Graphics APIs.  It sort of acts like a moderator between your computer's hardware and the game you're playing so that your hardware can work properly and efficiently as it can to put stuff on your screen and run the game.

 

DX is for Windows, OpenGL is multiplatform, and Vulkan stems from OpenGL.

how will i know which one of these am i using and can you have 2 api's in a computer

[Starelementpoke]

6 minutes ago, FOSHIZZLE said:

im new to pc stuff so could somebody explain these. what are these things for and can they help improve gaming?

To explain what they do simply, they´re essentially translators, taking what the game needs, and putting it into the most efficient language the GPU can understand.

[Timmy-P]

1 minute ago, FOSHIZZLE said:

how will i know which one of these am i using and can you have 2 api's in a computer

For the moment, you can tell by the system requirements.  Most games use DirectX (or DX), only a few games use OpenGL (OGL).  Vulkan is a selling point at this time, so you'd know it uses Vulkan.

 

You can indeed have multiple APIs in a computer, that's handled by the driver which can have all of those no problem.

[FOSHIZZLE]

1 minute ago, Timmy-P said:

For the moment, you can tell by the system requirements.  Most games use DirectX (or DX), only a few games use OpenGL (OGL).  Vulkan is a selling point at this time, so you'd know it uses Vulkan.

 

You can indeed have multiple APIs in a computer, that's handled by the driver which can have all of those no problem.

thanks

[typographie]

11 hours ago, FOSHIZZLE said:

how will i know which one of these am i using and can you have 2 api's in a computer

Short answer is yes, your computer's hardware and software support a number of graphics APIs.

 

Long answer: some versions of DirectX are tied to certain Windows versions (i.e. Windows 10 is required for DirectX 12). Generally speaking, each API also needs some support at the hardware level, so there are some video cards that do not support certain APIs (i.e. you need a Geforce GTX 400-series card or Radeon HD 5000 or later for DirectX 11). Support for Vulkan was added relatively recently to Nvidia's driver (possibly AMD's too), so you will need to be running an up-to-date version of the driver to make use of Vulkan.

 

Just make sure to keep your video driver up to date, and don't try to play new games on decade-old video cards. The bottom line is that if you're running Windows 10 and you have a video card from the last ~4 years with an up-to-date driver, your system should have at least baseline support for every major API you're likely to encounter.

[Delicieuxz]

DirectX and OpenGL are APIs (application program interface) that have been around for a very long time. Open GL used to be popular, but over time DirectX became better by receiver continued development and documentation by Microsoft. Now, Open GL is more something of the past, for gaming - but it's still present in lots of older games.

 

Vulkan is a new API, developed by the same group that developed Open GL. Vulkan is an extension of Mantle, which was another API that AMD developed, that served as a proof-of-concept initiative for communicating with graphics hardware at a low level, meaning less overhead work for graphics cards, which means increased efficiency, which brings improved performance from a graphics card in games and applications. Mantle was a great benefit in games that used it, like Battlefield 4, and its performance gains led to Microsoft implementing the same low-level hardware communication into DirectX 12.

 

Meanwhile, the developer group that handle Open GL received Mantle from AMD, and have developed it further into Vulkan, which is now effectively replacing Open GL, and is a modern API that can be used alternatively to DirectX 12, and which has some advantages over DX12, which include:

- Vulkan is open-source, meaning that anyone can modify, and add to its code, while DX12 is proprietary, and owned by Microsoft

- Vulkan is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8(.1), 10, Linux, Android, and possibly more, whereas DX12 is only compatible with Windows 10

 

Basically, DX12 and Vulkan do the same things, but DX12 is owned and controlled by Microsoft, and is only available on W10, while Vulkan is open-source and available for all common OSes.