What are the best OpenGL alternatives?
OpenGL is described as 'is the premier environment for developing portable, interactive 2D and 3D graphics applications' and is a very popular app in the development category. There are more than 10 alternatives to OpenGL for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Online / Web-based and Android. The best alternative is Vulkan, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like OpenGL are WebGL, Bevy Game Engine, Microsoft DirectX and Allegro.
Vulkan is a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs used in a wide variety of devices from PCs and consoles to mobile phones and embedded platforms.
Vulkan vs OpenGL opinions
Because Vulkan is OpenGL's successor.
I spent half a year studying this wretched API and was very disappointed, it is not designed to work with graphics.
This API is made only for implementation in ready-made solutions on opengl to slightly increase the number of frames per second (+5 - +10) in exchange for really titanic efforts (unreadable code in> 10,000 lines).
Unfortunately, Vulkan API - fail. Better try DirectX.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust. Free and Open Source Forever!
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms.
Bundleware
Bundled with Bing Bar.
Allegro 4 and Allegro 5 are cross-platform, libraries mainly aimed at video game and multimedia programming. They handle common, low-level tasks such as creating windows, accepting user input, loading data, drawing images, playing sounds, etc.
No screenshots yetGDI++.dll is a replacement for the Windows default font rasterizer, which gives you a better font-smoothing capability, just like Mac OS X.
Discontinued
Abandoned since 2006... : http://drwatson.nobody.jp/gdi /download-en.html
Amethyst uses gfx-rs to render graphics with Vulkan or Metal. It is meant to be used for 2D and 3D, with various utilities for both types of games. It should be beginner friendly but also allow more advanced uses such as custom render passes and GLSL shaders.
No screenshots yetMetal provides near-direct access to the graphics processing unit (GPU), enabling you to maximize the graphics and compute potential of your apps on iOS, macOS, and tvOS.
Mantle is a graphics API specification; the software component that makes it easy to apply programming techniques and optimizations written for consoles to PCs with Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture.
No screenshots yetCrystal Space is a mature, full-featured Software Development Kit (SDK) providing real-time 3D graphics for applications such as games and virtual reality. It is free (LGPL) and cross-platform (Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X).
Discontinued
Discontinued since July 2012 : http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/Download
Crystal Space vs OpenGL opinions
Crystal Space is a software using 3D rendering/drawing APIs. OpenGL is a rendering/drawing API.