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# OpenGL OpenGL - Where is SDK?

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I''ve decided to switch over from DirectX to OpenGL, but now that critical task of finding the library and header files confronts me ... Are they not public? After spending something like an hour searching through the OpenGL and SGI websites, I can''t find anything. What am I missing here? Is this some big conspiracy? - Ben

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In all reality, if you have a graphics card that supports OpenGL well, then that will provide a higher version than the default Microsoft implementation. It''s perfectly fine to get GL_VERSION, and present an error dialog if version is less than 1.3, for example.

Also, the OpenGL SDK (headers and libs) are part of the base platform SDK on Windows. It comes with most compilers for Windows. Just add opengl32.lib and glu32.lib, include and be happy! Same thing on Linux, more or less.

If you want to use > 1.1 version features, you may need to get some function pointers using the extension mechanism { wglGetProcAddress() } and define some tokens yourself { #define GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE ((GLenum)0x812F) }. This is typically boilerplate code you set up once and then don''t worry about. There are also various headers and libraries on the web to help out -- search for glext.h (warning: there are many versions, some newer than others!)

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