Hi,
Is there a way to use a Virtual Machine as a work around for a hardware limitation?
My computer only has hardware support for OpenGL 2.1 (DirectX 11 is just fine - oddly enough, but can't go above OpenGL 2.1)
I want to develop with SDL 3.X and OpenGL 4.X
This is only for simple 2D and 3D game development when performance is not critical.
Crazy thought - you could just use SDL and D3D for your game.
You'll lose out on a handful of irrelevant platforms at first... until you port your game later to GL when you have the hardware, if for some reason you find that you need to target a platform that forces GL down your throat.
Extra bonus because the D3D development tools are better than anything available for GL meaning that with D3D you'll spend more time making a fun and interesting game and less time wrestling with undiagnosable renderer bugs and questionable drivers.
</opinion>
Only has hardware support for GL 2.1? Maybe you just need to update your hardware to something made in the last 10 to 15 years, because it's likely your GPU is out of support and a simple driver update won't be possible any more.
Seriously, if you're trying to develop game on something made in 2006, you're going to run into plenty of other problems starting with Windows XP no longer being supported.
If your hardware is newer, it probably does support OpenGL 3 or later. You need to query the driver to find out what it supports, and you probably need to use an extension wrangler library like GLEW to wrap calls.
I have a laptop with Intel integrated graphics of some sort. I used the Intel driver update utility and also the OpenGL detection utility. I am stuck with OpenGL 2.1
My impression was that this hardware will never support anything higher than OpenGL 2.1 for whatever reason, according to the Intel website.
There have been so many driver or compatibility issues with Intel that I am almost done with products from that company. It just outrageous to me that I can have DirectX 11 but nothing higher than OpenGL 2.1 Ironically, there is some older Intel hardware which is updatable to OpenGL 3.X or 4.X Acer (laptop manufacturer) does not handle the issue in this case with this particular laptop model and referred me to Intel. (UHG!)
Does Visual Studio have an OpenGL detection ability? Can I still develop with OpenGL 4.X in Visual Studio and test in another computer?
@Home I have OpenGL 3 (or was it 4.2, cannot remember) via Gallum under VMware workstation with vmware drivers under Ubuntu with nVidia 960m(and intel HD graphics). This is working on Windows 7.
Your options:
1. Make OpenGL 3 or 4 work on your hardware - If your hardware supports Direct3D 11, it also supports OpenGL 3 or 4 with all important extensions. Hardware itself does not usually does not care, if you control it with GL or D3D. Yes, drivers might be a problem. I never heard of similar problem (only opengl 2), I think that it should be solvable. Ihis would be ideal solution if you make it work.
2. Linux - Graphics drivers are known to be problematic on Linux, but thanx to mesa and its software gl implementation, you can get at least non-accelerated opengl even on livecd. I personaly develop both on win and linux and I consider Linux to be much better for development. I would suggest this solution.
3. virtualization - vmware, virtualbox or other. I think that these do not emulate graphics hardware, so if you run windows in it, you will not get hardware acceleration. Running Linux in vmware will give you at least emulated acceleration. You can pick this solution, if you consider development on Linux but you do not want to switch immediately to linux. It is not ideal definite solution.
4. use direct3d instead of opengl - SeanMiddleditch highly recommended this, but I disagree with him. "You do not need those platforms and if you will, you can still switch to OpenGL." is retarded advice in my oppinion. DirectX works only on Windows and XboxOne. OpenGL works on most platforms except xboxOne and mobile platforms (works on Windows, linux, mac, ps4, somehow on Wii). OpenGl ES works on almost everything except xboxOne. I would not suggest you to use Direct3D.
5. Use a library with higher level API - do not write directly in opengl but rather use some graphics engine. Graphics engines are usualy part of a game engine / game framework. SDL allows you to do some rendering operations without using opengl directly. Graphics engines tend to have multiple backends (opengl 2, opengl 4, direct3d 9, direct3d 11, opengl es). I use cocos2d-x (it has 3d support too), but I only use it only for graphics rendering and scene tree and low to mid level input dispatch. Ogre3d or irrlicht might be an option for you. I can suggest this option. If you want to learn some opengl, just try some tutorials (to learn how the opengl pipeline works - vertex arrays, buffers, shaders etc) and then switch to some graphics engine. Even when using an engine, you will have plenty opportunities to work directly with opengl.
Hi,
Is there a way to use a Virtual Machine as a work around for a hardware limitation?
My computer only has hardware support for OpenGL 2.1 (DirectX 11 is just fine - oddly enough, but can't go above OpenGL 2.1)
I want to develop with SDL 2.X and OpenGL 4.X
This is only for simple 2D and 3D game development when performance is not critical.
Am I seriously going to be the only guy that questions what this guy has that only gives him access to OpenGL 2.1... but it's perfectly ok with Directx 11?
