OpenGL is actually not all that common on Windows anymore -- D3D is more performant, and having a a DX11 compatible card isn't as big of a hurdle these days. Al

OpenGL is actually not all that common on Windows anymore -- D3D is more performant, and having a a DX11 compatible card isn't as big of a hurdle these days. Also, the big engines all support both for cross-platform reasons, but most devs will default to D3D on Windows because it's more likely to work consistently across various permutations of hardware/OS/peripherals (IMO this is more because Windows sucks; but Microsoft is well versed in the very specific ways that Windows sucks so they can work around them). : When I say "Windows sucks", I'm just talking about the complexity inherent in dealing with a consumer operating system designed to run on arbitrary 3rd party hardware. APIs like DirectX/Direct3D provide an abstraction layer that make the complexity more manageable; and they have a benefit in that they are provided by Microsoft.