Update OpenGL libraries on windows - windows

I'm using a 3rd party DLL which uses OpenGL. Right now that 3rd party does not work correctly as the display does not refresh correctly. I came to suspect that the OpenGL library isn't correctly installed or may be outdated.
Is there a way to update the OpenGL library on windows? Is there like an official site which will hold the correct opengl.dll file or something like that?

I believe the OpenGL libraries are just part of the drivers that ship with your graphics card. Upgrading your graphics drivers should upgrade your OpenGL stuff to the latest your card supports.

OpenGL should be up to date on Windows.
However, if you are getting display/refresh problems, and they're only occuring on windows, this is most likely an issue with your graphics driver.
Try updating to your latest OpenGL graphics driver. This fixes many OpenGL issues on Windows.

opengl.dll is part of your display card driver. Windows comes with a default opengl.dll that offers very little acceleration. Re installing the graphics card driver or upgrading to the latest version should take care of your problem.

OpenGL is implemented in the graphics driver. If you want to use the latest OpenGL version as a developer you download and use GLEW (http://glew.sourceforge.net/) as a normal library. This will give you access to cross platform OpenGL 4.1 or whatever version your card supports.

Related

Can I use pre-"profiles" OpenGL versions on Macs?

I want to use a deprecated GL function - glPushAttrib. Ideally, I'd do that by using the Compatibility profile of a recent GL version, but Macs don't support that. So I'm happy to settle for using an old GL version, from before GL profiles existed. My question, though, is: does Mac support that?
Note: Don't tell me that I shouldn't use glPushAttrib unless you're able to link to a good library that replaces it. I don't want to write my own, and using a full-blown engine would be much more trouble than it's worth for my usecase ;)
I found the answer in the OpenGL wiki:
MacOSX gives you a choice: core profile for versions 3.2 or higher, or just version 2.1

Unable to link OpenGL compatibility profile (EXT symbols not recognized)

I decided to use GLEW for handling extensions instead of requesting core profile and having to migrate my code.
I would like to add support for FBO's through the EXT profile as a first step.
The problem is gcc will not link my code (OSX 10.10), it does not recognize any gl*EXT() functions. For instance, glBindFrameBufferEXT()
flags as undefined symbol. (glBindFrameBuffer() was also
unrecognized...)
I link against GLEW and have tried using GLEXT or GLFW with compatibility profile, but nothing works! Am I missing a library? How do I tell gcc to use the right GL profile? Am I obliged to migrate to core profile?
In MacOS X GLEW is not doing a lot, because there are not a lot of OpenGL extensions on MacOS X and due to the way OpenGL is integrated in MacOS X all functions of the OpenGL version supported by the available framework are immediately available
… or not, if you're using an extension function that's not supported by MacOS X's OpenGL implementation.
MacOS X is the weird duckling in the OpenGL family: OpenGL is used at a very low level in the OS's core graphics routines, to OpenGL is very well supported by the OS. But it's built so deep into the OS that it hardly can be updated without updating the whole OS.
Solution: Don't use that extension. FBOs have been introduced with OpenGL-3.3 so you've to create a 3.3 core profile context and can use the functions (without the …EXT) directly.

Deploying Qt5 on Windows without Hardware Acceleration

Qt5 can use the OpenGL driver or the DirectX Driver by using ANGLE. As we cannot depend on an installed OpenGL driver, we need to use the ANGLE backend. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve all deployment problems especially on Windows virtual machines without hardware acceleration. On these systems, we're getting an error message saying that the creation of an OpenGL context failed.
Screenshot: Failed to create OpenGL context for format QSurfaceFormat
We're deploying all required libraries (libEGL.dll libGLESv2.dll libeay32.dll msvcp110.dll msvcr110.dll d3dcompiler_46.dll) but we're still getting this error message.
How do you deploy a QML application that needs to run on end user machines without OpenGL driver and on (virtual) machines without Direct3D Acceleration?
There is a page on the Qt wiki mentioning this problem, but that's not very helpful for solving it.
Update for Qt 5.4.0:
My findings so far are:
Setting QT_ANGLE_PLATFORM=warp -> creates a windows without content.
Setting QT_ANGLE_PLATFORM=d3d9 -> same error dialog, as expected.
Setting QT_ANGLE_PLATFORM=d3d11 -> same error dialog, as expected.
Setting QT_OPENGL=desktop -> same as QT_ANGLE_PLATFORM=warp.
Setting QT_OPENGL=angle -> same error dialog, as expected.
Setting QT_OPENGL=software + opengl32sw.dll (mesa for windows) -> unpredictable: May run, may crash, may show the error dialog.
Update for Qt Quick 2D Renderer
Although, Mesa seems to be a partial solution, the configration seems to be very crash often in Qt 5.4.0 .
Another fallback could be the Qt Quick 2D Renderer, but unfortunately this crashes too.
Copying softwarecontext.dll into /scenegraph + Setting QMLSCENE_DEVICE=softwarecontext -> crash
Update after some user experience:
Angle
Has some render bugs on some systems
Does not work reliable on all systems
Angle with Warp
Not reliable
Desktop OpenGL
The default implements OpenGL 1.1, which is too old.
Not reliable, even if the OpenGL version is ok.
Has render bugs, if used by Qt
QtQuick2dRenderer
Has some major render issues
Crashes, Freezes
Works on systems without HW acceleration
Mesa OpenGL Backend
Seems to be quite reliable at the moment
quite slow in general, very slow on some systems.
Heavy Deployment weight
Conclusion: there is still no real solution for these systems
Update for Qt 5.5
Anno 2015: Broken graphics drives are still broken.
My conclusion for the moment is:
Use QtQuick2dRenderer if possible.
Use Mesa backend otherwise.
Skip Angle, skip Desktop OpenGL, skip Warp.
QT 5 has huge compatibility issue with opengl on some hardware configurations
Combination of Intel HD3000 driver and Nvidia/ATI card won't work on Windows 10.
https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-42240
Intel drops support for this card but their drivers has bug that leads to crash.
You cannot rely on hardware opengl if you want to support customers with HD3000.
Under Windows, opengl32.dll is the default OpenGL driver. It implements OpenGL 1.1 (really old version).
ANGLE has a baseline of OpenGL ES 2.0 and needs DirectX 9/11 installed to map the calls into.
So if you got a video card that doesn't have an OpenGL driver installed, an OpenGL driver less than 2.0, and/or DirectX 9/11 not installed, your app is not going to work.
In regards to virtualization and 3D acceleration, these maybe worth a read:
Why does Qt Creator 3.0.0 Welcome Mode not work in VM?
https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-34964
Also, if you run a multi monitor Windows environment under VirtualBox, 3d acceleration will be disabled.
I re-checked this to see if these problems have been fixed by the latest release of QT 5.12.2, but no they have not. The function described in the QT wiki entry OP referenced
https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_5_on_Windows_ANGLE_and_OpenGL sounds good but in practice it simply doesn't work.
I conclude avoid OpenGL on QT in any form. It's just too unreliable.

OSX and OpenGL 4.x compatibility

I'm working on a portable application that should run on OSX-Lion as well.
From what I read here OpenGL/GLSL support seems to be 3.2/150 can someone confirm this?
My application requires at least GLSL ver 400. Is there a way to have it running on Lion? Some cards (i.e. ATI HD6770) are OpenGL 4.1 compliant. Does it mean it can go only as far as 3.2/150 under OSX?
confirmed by alternate source, osx opengl 4.x support is still TBA

How to do OpenGL 3 programming on OS X with a GeForce 9400

I have a MacBook Pro with a GeForce 9400 graphics card. Wikipedia said this card supports OpenGL 3.
But the header and library shipped with OS X 10.6 seems to be OpenGL 2 only (I checked the files in /usr/X11/include/).
I need to do some OpenGL 3 programming. Can I do it with my current hardware and OS? What do I need to get and install?
Sadly, I don't think you can yet, as detailed here.
I believe Lion will upgrade OpenGL to 3.2 for OS X though (which is still short of the more useful 3.3 unfortunately).
NB: I do not own a Mac, this is purely from trying to learn modern OpenGL on the windows side and digging around to understand how portable it would be.
Edit: this thread on the official OpenGL forums has more detail. Although (see comments below this answer) it may not be completely clear why vendors cannot provide OpenGL 3+ compliant drivers, it seems pretty clear that there is no way to use fully OpenGL 3.3 compliant code and shaders in OS X. Some workarounds are provided in that thread however, as well as in my first link.
The best place to check OpenGL support on the various OSX and Mac combinations is:
http://developer.apple.com/graphicsimaging/opengl/capabilities/
See the "Core" subpage for 10.7+
OpenGL 3.2 with GLSL 1.5 on 10.7.2 isn't too bad.
Your current hardware can support OpenGL 3, but not the OS. Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) should support OpenGL 3, which is a solution only if you can wait many months.
Your only option right now is to switch to a different OS such as Windows or Linux. You'll have to boot from this other operating system, because the virtual machine systems present a virtual video card to the guest operating systems, and none have OpenGL 3 compatible virtual video cards.
(Disclaimer: This information is based on taking Windows OpenGL and replacing wgl with glX. But I did verify that the corresponding extensions exist in GLX land)
You won't find OpenGL 3 support in any header files. Rather you need the GLX_ARB_create_context extension.
The other answers are probably correct about missing support in OSX, but even when support comes, you'll have to use glXGetProcAddress and load the extension. (Can't video card manufacturers add support for these extensions through their driver? Why does it require "OS support"?)
Windows OpenGL developer here. On Windows 7 only OpenGL 1.4 is officially supported, but everyone gets around this limitation by querying which functions are available at run-time.
On OSX I expect you can do the same thing. The easiest way to do this is with The OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library: http://www.opengl.org/sdk/libs/GLEW/

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