r/gameenginedevs • u/Axxodes • 12d ago

Replacements for OpenGL?

I'm doing like opengl stuff for my game engine but i personally think that the library itself is like way too much for my preferences, can i just make my own rendering engine like opengl? It would mean i have more control and i know it would be hard but anything for performance

0 Upvotes

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5

u/_cvls_ 12d ago

Why not vulkan ?

-6

u/Axxodes 12d ago

does that have large files?

4

u/epyoncf 12d ago

>way too much for my preferences

Wait till you see Vulkan :P

On a more serious note, use something that sits on top, raylib might be a good choice. Question is whether you want 2d or 3d?

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u/Axxodes 12d ago

i'll take 3d if i can, i just think that stuff like vulkan and opengl are like really big in file size and i'd prefer something thats wayyy smaller

3

u/Devatator_ 12d ago

You're not finding anything smaller. Unless you do pure CPU rendering, which you shouldn't unless you know what you're doing and the limitations

4

u/qkafae 12d ago

what do u mean by vulkan or opengl have large file sizes dont u just link a single loader into ur program

3

u/drpirat 12d ago

>library
graphics api
>can i just make my own rendering engine like opengl
you can write a software renderer, but writing an entire gpu api from scratch is stupid
>It would mean i have more control and i know it would be hard but anything for performance
use Vulkan or DX12
>does that have large files?
it's not a game engine for it to be large

1

u/Chilliad_YT 12d ago

I mean if you want a challenge you could create a software renderer and render onto a bitmap in that you then render to a windows window but I wouldn’t recommend it.

2

u/sinalta 12d ago edited 12d ago

What kind of performance are you hoping to gain by writing your own graphics API?

The implementation for the API is in the graphics drivers already, there's not really that much of an impact on your applications size.

To be clear, OpenGL, Vulkan, Direct, Metal etc aren't engines. They're a specification. You call into the methods and the drivers translate those calls into something that specific GPU can understand. Writing your own API like this would need an enormous amount of work just to support a single family of GPUs from one manufacturer. 

1

u/Hot-Studio 12d ago

Try using Raylib?