SDL + OpenGL + Boost : IDE ?

[E6CDizwU]

Hello everybody,

I would like to dev a game in 3D, developing on windows 8.1.
I have 2 ideas in mind :
Developing the game for : windows or/and android

Here is my question :

Which IDE should I choose to have an easy and smooth dev experience ?

I'm currently developing on : QtCreator/Visual Studio/Eclipse (a little)

QtCreator is easy to configure for OpenGL and SDL (I tried) but is a special IDE..

I think VS is the most configurable IDE, but I'm not sure. (work with it)

Would an expert of these IDEs tell me what to choose. :)

Thank you very much.
Bye

[Avilius]

Visual Studio is hands down the best C++ IDE imho. Pretty much every professional developing on Windows uses it, and the community edition is exactly the same as the professional edition (but free).

I'd also recommend using Direct3D. It definitely has way better support than OpenGL in my opinion, and it's well supported. It's pretty much the industry standard. You can easily get a D3D11 context set up with SDL2 without breaking a sweat.

[Spikerocks101]

While I agree with Visual Studio for development (I use Dev C++ mostly for code checking to see if other IDE's work nicely). As for DirectX vs OpenGL, I honestly prefer OpenGL, but might I add that I am not in any major industry. I would say both are good, but OpenGL, imo, has more potential for phone dev then DirectX, but DirectX is kinda the king pin of PC.

[E6CDizwU]

I agree, VS is quite good.
Is Direct3D more used into the industry ?
Is it harder (Direct3D) than OpenGL (API) ?
Is Direct3D specific to Nvidia card ? Or would it work on all graphics cards ?
OpenGL's API is quite easy to understand, that's why I'm wondering this.

Thank's anyway guys !

[Avilius]

Spikerocks101 wrote:

but OpenGL, imo, has more potential for phone dev then DirectX

If you're only planning on programming mobile (with not considering Windows), then Direct3D is more or less irrelevant. But desktop OpenGL and OpenGL ES are not the same things, and you're going to be considering much more things when developing for mobile (does my minimal target device have decent floating point speed, etc).

valgoku wrote:

Is Direct3D more used into the industry ?

Yes.

Is it harder (Direct3D) than OpenGL (API) ?

No, the learning curve is more or less the same. Direct3D definitely has a lot more dev tools, but OpenGL has a few good ones.

Is Direct3D specific to Nvidia card ? Or would it work on all graphics cards ?

It works on all cards. It's specific to Windows and Xbox at the time of this writing. It's trivial to port your D3D code over to OpenGL.

If you have plans on supporting both Direct3D and OpenGL in your code, then definitely learn Direct3D first. It's API is much more strict than OpenGL, so porting it over more or less directly will be trivial.

OpenGL's API is quite easy to understand, that's why I'm wondering this.

A general tip. If you see any OpenGL tutorials that have "glBegin" or "glEnd" and friends, run away and don't look back. Learn OpenGL 3.3+ and Direct3D 11.

I personally think you should start with Direct3D 11.