Question about DirectX, OpenGL and Vulkan

[Jugginator]

So, I have a general idea on what the differences are between DirectX and OpenGL, kinda. Not so much with Vulkan. I am curious: which one should yield better results on a lower-end system for 7 Days? I looked it up, but got nothing but conflicting arguments and that it pertains to how the game was designed.

 

I noticed that Steam offers caching for OpenGL and Vulkan games, but upon running 7 days in OpenGL for a bit, it cached nothing. I noticed, using OpenGL, I had a very slight increase in FPS; I noticed sunlight had more of a god-ray style, which was nice, but whenever I turned my camera to new/unloaded textures I had fluctuations in FPS.

 

DirectX had more of a stable FPS, at a very very slight decrease.

 

Vulkan I know isn't fully supported yet, so I haven't tried.

 

Also, as long as detailed shadows or lighting arent heavily displayed, my integrated GPU generally performs rather well (long as I keep my laptop on my cooling tray I made for it). I know 17e has some optimization planned to be done, but I've noticed a few things.

Reducing texture size generally has a performance hit attached to it; although in 17e, it seems shaders/shadows/lighting (shiny stuff) increases the higher the texture size goes. Half size is less FPS than Full, but only if I'm not encountering heavy lighting/shadows and etc, lower than half has the same effect, lower FPS general but better in shadowed/lighted areas. Half seems the be the happy medium. Also, I noticed the LOD option doesn't have much effect on my FPS, which was strange to me. Could it be that it's harder for the game to load smaller textures/keep reducing/increasing textures based on distance? It seems zombies have no effect on my performance, I've encountered 20-30 hordes with no drop at all on FPS. Just those pesky shaders

 

Anyway, I rambled on; my main question is which of the three would give a general performance increase on lower-end systems lol.

 

Thanks -- happy slaying!

[Yoghira]

As far as i undertand. DirectX is Windows only except for emulation like WINE for Linux.

OpenGL runs on every (most) Operating Systems.

And Vulkan is to replace OpenGL and Will compete with DirectX. Tests shows that Vulkan is up to 20% faster than DirectX. (peak)

So lower-end hardware should run Vulkan.

 

I tried 7D2D with Vulkan but it results in Blue Screen. - Geforce 1060 6GB with drivers 397.31 and also 416.94.

[Jugginator]

Ah right on, thanks for the info!

[Pichii]

So, I have a general idea on what the differences are between DirectX and OpenGL, kinda. Not so much with Vulkan. I am curious: which one should yield better results on a lower-end system for 7 Days? I looked it up, but got nothing but conflicting arguments and that it pertains to how the game was designed.

 

I noticed that Steam offers caching for OpenGL and Vulkan games, but upon running 7 days in OpenGL for a bit, it cached nothing. I noticed, using OpenGL, I had a very slight increase in FPS; I noticed sunlight had more of a god-ray style, which was nice, but whenever I turned my camera to new/unloaded textures I had fluctuations in FPS.

 

DirectX had more of a stable FPS, at a very very slight decrease.

 

Vulkan I know isn't fully supported yet, so I haven't tried.

 

Also, as long as detailed shadows or lighting arent heavily displayed, my integrated GPU generally performs rather well (long as I keep my laptop on my cooling tray I made for it). I know 17e has some optimization planned to be done, but I've noticed a few things.

Reducing texture size generally has a performance hit attached to it; although in 17e, it seems shaders/shadows/lighting (shiny stuff) increases the higher the texture size goes. Half size is less FPS than Full, but only if I'm not encountering heavy lighting/shadows and etc, lower than half has the same effect, lower FPS general but better in shadowed/lighted areas. Half seems the be the happy medium. Also, I noticed the LOD option doesn't have much effect on my FPS, which was strange to me. Could it be that it's harder for the game to load smaller textures/keep reducing/increasing textures based on distance? It seems zombies have no effect on my performance, I've encountered 20-30 hordes with no drop at all on FPS. Just those pesky shaders

 

Anyway, I rambled on; my main question is which of the three would give a general performance increase on lower-end systems lol.

 

Thanks -- happy slaying!

 

In very, very short...

Directx=draw system intel uses. Most common tool for drawing shapes on a PC.

OpenGL=Draw system, old, legacy, widely supported, low functionality (cant draw advanced shapes as easily or at all as other 2)

Vulcan=Optimized for AMD graphics. Least common compatibility and makes AMD cards function better as they are optimized for AMD.

 

DirectX will work best on Intel and almost all sytems.

OpenGL works on low end machines or for backwards compatibility so to speak.

Vulcan is specifically for AMD. Tho AMD supports DirectX as well (Or vice versa unsure on that specific)

[Jugginator]

In very, very short...

Directx=draw system intel uses. Most common tool for drawing shapes on a PC.

OpenGL=Draw system, old, legacy, widely supported, low functionality (cant draw advanced shapes as easily or at all as other 2)

Vulcan=Optimized for AMD graphics. Least common compatibility and makes AMD cards function better as they are optimized for AMD.

 

DirectX will work best on Intel and almost all sytems.

OpenGL works on low end machines or for backwards compatibility so to speak.

Vulcan is specifically for AMD. Tho AMD supports DirectX as well (Or vice versa unsure on that specific)

 

Ahh right on, thanks. Didn't know Vulcan was specialized for AMD, interesting. Makes sense now when I used OpenGL it had frame drops when turning too fast and sunlight was way over-bright.

[one_each]

Vulkan is an open standard like OpenGL and is not limited to AMD. AMD created Molten which was donated to the OpenGL foundation and became the basis of Vulkan. Vulkan (and Apple's Metal) are lower level and require/allow the developers to have more control over the GPU.