Hi, im reading a openGl 4 tutorial that say that I have to upgrade my video card drivers (Nvidia or Ati) for get the libraries, the problem is that im learning to code in a netbook, so the cuestion is: Is posible to use the openGl libraries in a netbook?
OpenGL will run on almost anything, but the feature level will vary. Intel based netbooks report as OpenGL 1.4 I think but support extensions that almost make them OpenGL 2 compatible (most of the missing extensions are multisample related afair). I think some of the AMD based netbooks even had OpenGL4 support but don't quote me on that.
Yes, it's possible. I've an Acer Aspire One that I bring with me when travelling and it comes with a Radeon 6250 supporting GL4.2 and even some 4.3 extensions. It's not particularly fast - maybe good for up to and including a Quake 3 level of scene complexity - but the full shader/etc capabilities are there.
I don't know what the current state of play is with Intel netbook graphics, but if you can get something with a HD3000/HD4000 you'll have good enough GL3.x capabilities; again without being particularly fast.
In both cases you'll get better D3D support than GL support; particularly with Intel graphics where anything reasonably recent should support D3D10 or 11, but have GL support that's lagging a few versions behind.
In general the main bottleneck on these is going to be your CPU; for programming that's going to affect compile times, program startup times, IDE usage, etc. However, and if you can afford it, replacing the hard disk with an SSD can be a useful investment - not as good as with a more mainstream machine (that CPU bottleneck is just too much) but it does help make general usage a bit more pleasant.
I am coding for OpenGL 3.3 on my netbook, which has an ION 2 (GT210 based I think?) but ION LE netbooks also support OpenGL 3.3 (GeForce 9400M based).
Pretty much any AMD netbook (AMD CPU + AMD GPU combo) will give you at least OpenGL 3 support.
Aaaand for Intel, no idea. Its always hit n' miss from what I hear.
I can report for my notebook containing HD 5470, that using OpenGL (with recent drivers, I get all 4.2 features, and most of the 4.3 features) is quite fine. Of course the speed is like 15 times slower compared to HD 6770.
Anyways in my opinion it is also good to run your project on notebook GPU with good framerate (at least 30) on low/moderate details, it will make your project well optimized, and possible to run for people using notebooks (which is always good, as they also might buy it).
Hi, im reading a openGl 4 tutorial that say that I have to upgrade my video card drivers (Nvidia or Ati) for get the libraries, the problem is that im learning to code in a netbook, so the cuestion is: Is posible to use the openGl libraries in a netbook?
OpenGL 4 will probably be out of reach (unless your netbook happens to be AMD based), but OpenGL 3.3 may be possible, otherwise you'd be limited to OpenGL 2.1(in which case, I'd suggest possibly using Direct3D instead). It really depends on the CPU/GPU combination found in your particular netbook.....
Hold on. Let OP say what graphics card he's got.
If it is GMA3150 (like in my netbook), then he should say farewell to shaders. It is hard to say that GMA3150 supports even GL1.5, and it is light-years away from the GL 2.0. There is only 2 fragmet shader units, and vertex shader is supported only in software (for D3D). There is an interface to some prehistoric version of shaders, but there is no support even for GLSL 1.x.
Hold on. Let OP say what graphics card he's got.
If it is GMA3150 (like in my netbook), then he should say farewell to shaders. It is hard to say that GMA3150 supports even GL1.5, and it is light-years away from the GL 2.0. There is only 2 fragmet shader units, and vertex shader is supported only in software (for D3D). There is an interface to some prehistoric version of shaders, but there is no support even for GLSL 1.x.
At least under linux I can use GLSL 1.0 on my Atom N550 netbook (which has said GM3150). Performance is obviously questionable at best.
At least under linux I can use GLSL 1.0 on my Atom N550 netbook (which has said GM3150). Performance is obviously questionable at best.
Wow! That's a miraculous achievement of GM3150. 
Let's remember, GL2.0 requires GLSL 1.1 (or tu be more precise 1.10.xx).
GLSL 1.0 is a predecessor of GLSL exposed in the time of GL1.4 to announce arrival of new era. The interface to shaders is not the same as in GLSL 1.1 and other successors. That's what I meant when said ancient interface.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-3150.23264.0.html
The Intel 3150 is actually a D3D9/SM3 class part, so any capability failing in GL land is due to Intel's notorious driver quality. As was mentioned upthread, if the OP is using one of these then D3D is going to be a much better option than GL for accessing semi-modern features.
