| Direct3D | OpenGL | Java 3D | |
| 1) PC Driver Support for graphic accelerator cards | Good | Poor | Very Poor. It is designed to run on top of the other APIs, so should be a superset of them when all are supported in a PC environment |
| 2) Speed | Good | Excellent | Poor. Interpreted. |
| 3) Ease of Coding | Poor | Good | Fair |
| 4) Multi-Platform support | Very Poor (PC-only) | Good | Excellent |
| 5) Java support | Very Poor - Microsoft has thrown in the towel on Java. | Poor | Excellent |
| 6) Documentation | Fair - Books are 2-3 years old. Microsoft has yet to produce Direct3d documentation, and maybe won't now that Fahrenheit is in the works! | Fair - Books are 2 years old. OpenGL Superbible is recommended over OpenGL Programming Guide for Windows 95/NT. On-Line GLUT documentation is up-to-date. | No programming guide, only a specification(available on web, no need to buy it in bookstore!) |
| 7) Ease of Drawing Text | Good | Poor in base standard - you have to use bitmaps. Good if you use GLUT. | Fair | 8) Ease of Running in a Window | Excellent | Poor. The 3dFX driver doesn't support it. | Not really applicable |