John Carmack says D3D better than OpenGL

Legendary first person shooter pioneer and graphics genius John Carmack admitted that Microsoft’s Direct3D API is "rather better" than OpenGL.

While younger PC gamers may wonder what all the fuss is about, Carmack’s iconic id Software development studio had long advocated the cross platform OpenGL API to deliver the 3D graphics in games from Quake to Doom 3.

The use of OpenGL was at the expense of Microsoft’s proprietary DirectX. Such was the importance of games made by id Software, and other games made from id’s graphics engines, that 3D graphics vendors had to produce special OpenGL drivers.

Speaking to bit-tech in a forthcoming Custom PC feature about OpenGL and PC Gaming, Carmack said: "I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today."

Microsoft’s practice of making incompatible changes to the Direct3D API meant that the API was now better than OpenGL at multi-threading and ‘state’, he said.

Despite the admission, Carmack said that id Software has no plans to migrate to the Microsoft API. "OpenGL still works fine," he said. 

In June of 2009, id Software was acquired by ZeniMax Media, placing the studio in the same stable as of Fallout 3 developer Bethesda Softworks. 

Unlike id’s previous famous ‘when its done’ release schedule, the developer’s next game Rage has been dated for release in September 2011.