Hi everyone,
I'm a relative newbie in gaming since it was only until recently that I got a new computer to handle today's games.

When playing games, I have the choice between OpenGL or Direct3D. I know my videocard supports both because I have menus in my display properties to adjust both of them.

What they hell are they first off, which do I choose and why?
Thanks for any help!
Andy

Basically D3D and OpenGL are two different ways that an application (game) can access the graphics processing hardware on your video card.
They're referred to as APIs. (Application Programming Interface)

Direct3D is Microsoft's gaming interface, OpenGL is a port of the most popular interface for 3D graphics applications on high-end systems. (Sun, SGI, etc.)

Which one to use depends on the game and your graphics card.

Some games can perform extra graphics effects through one interface or the other. Typically, the extra effects would be programmed through the OpenGL interface.

Most PC graphics cards are optimized for D3D, so you'd probably get a better framerate using D3D.

I'd try each and go with the one that looks better to you.
If you're determined to optimize, you could benchmark each API and see how they compare on your video card, but I think the time is better spent playing the game...

Agreed. It depends on the game.

Post what games you're talking about, and we'll help.

Thanks for all the help,
Well, the game I'm playing right now is Half-Life and Opposing Force.
I have an ASUS 32MB GeForce 2MX Pure videocard.