Direct3D is a proprietary API by Microsoft that provides functions to render two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) graphics, and uses hardware acceleration if available on the graphics card.In more detail, the two computer graphics APIs are the following: Windows Embedded, Windows CE (through Direct3D Mobile) Most notably, OpenGL is the dominating graphics API of Unix-like computer systems.įrom an application developer's perspective, Direct3D and OpenGL are equally open full documentation and necessary development tools are available with no restrictions. OpenGL implementations exist for a wide variety of platforms. The OpenGL API is an open standard, which means that various hardware makers and operating system developers can freely create an OpenGL implementation as part of their system.
