Render In Software Mode?

Check out Mesa3D, it's an open source implementation of OpenGL that can run in software mode.

When initializing OpenGL, if a hardware implementation is not found by the library, it will automatically default to the software implementation provided by Microsoft, which implements the 1.1 OpenGL Specification. You won't get all the bells and whistles with 1.1, but basic rendering is available. Besides, even if you had Shader support in the software driver, it would be painfully slow.

One thing someone else may be able to comment on is whether there's a newer software implementation provided by Microsoft in Vista (perhaps an OpenGL to Direct3D wrapper supporting 1.4)? I have an NVidia Geforce 8600 GT with Vista and everything is hardware accelerated on my part.

Thanks, how do I know what version of OpenGL I am running on my game engine? How do I upgrade to say 3.0?

Quote:

Original post by ajm113 Thanks, how do I know what version of OpenGL I am running on my game engine?

Do you mean:
a) How to check at runtime what version of GL the end-user is running?
b) How to check at compile time what version of GL you're linking against?

Quote:

How do I upgrade to say 3.0?

Install the latest Beta graphics drivers from NVidia or ATI.

Yep, I was asking 'b'.

EDIT, I would like to know A as well, wouldn't hurt too know something else I didn't know.

alright then, is it in Beta mode?

B is mostly irrelevant because GL is based on extensions. Check out Promit's explanation of how GL works. Usually on windows you'll only be compiling/linking against v1.4, but you can still use all the functionality from v2.0 (or v3.0 if you install some beta drivers) by using extensions. A library like GLEE is very useful for this.

For (A), you can query the actual GL driver at runtime using glGetString. This lets you find out how capable the end-user's implementation of GL is (depending on their graphics card and currently installed drivers).