Differences between current version and predecessor to the previous major change of OpenGL.
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| Newer page: | version 5 | Last edited on Monday, November 15, 2004 4:41:46 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | |
| Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Tuesday, July 9, 2002 5:57:29 pm | by PerryLorier | Revert |
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
-OpenGL stands for Open Graphics Language
. It is a rather low-level interface for programmers to draw polygons into the computer graphics hardware. However, the abstraction layer it provides means it is very portable. OpenGL had little mindshare of developers a few years ago when the other graphics APIs
included Microsoft's Direct3D (part of DirectX) and 3dfx's Glide when one thing changed everything. That one thing was "
Quake"
, when JohnCarmack's id software chose OpenGL. Quake, combined with a Voodoo2 graphics card and the OpenGL drivers that came with it
+[
OpenGL]
stands for __
Open__ __G__raphics __L__anguage
.
+
+
It is a rather low-level interface for programmers to draw polygons into the computer graphics hardware. However, the abstraction layer it provides means it is very portable. [
OpenGL]
had little mindshare of developers a few years ago when the other graphics [API]s
included [
Microsoft]
's Direct3D (part of DirectX) and 3dfx's Glide when one thing changed everything. That one thing was [
Quake]
, when JohnCarmack's id software chose [
OpenGL]
. [
Quake]
, combined with a Voodoo2 graphics card and the [
OpenGL]
drivers that came with it,
was irrestible.
-As far as linux
is concerned, Xfree86
has supported OpenGL pretty well since the 3.3.x series, and the newer 4.x series has great support.
-the name
of the open source
OpenGL software implementation, while some
card manufacturers have release specifications that allow developers to write drivers to take advantage of hardware acceleration. Other manufacturers, notably NVidia
, have binary
-only graphics card drivers
.
+As far as [Linux]
is concerned, [XFree86]
has supported [
OpenGL]
pretty well since the 3.3.x series, and the newer 4.x series has great support. Mesa is a [Free] implementation
of [
OpenGL] in
software. Some
card manufacturers have release specifications that allow developers to write drivers to take advantage of hardware acceleration. Other manufacturers are not so cooperative
, notably nVidia
, and offer BinaryDriver~s. See [Nvidia OpenGL Configuration mini
-HOWTO | http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Nvidia-OpenGL-Configuration/] or our NvidiaDriverHowto for specific details and some more background to how [OpenGL] works with [XFree86]
.
-see
[HowToNvidiaOpenGLConfiguration
] and
[HowToLinuxGLQuakeWorldminiHOWTO
] for specific details
and some more background to how GL works with
[XFree86
].
+For anyone interested in programming using
[OpenGL
],
[SDL
] and [GLUT
] are highly recommended. They save you a lot of time and energy learning the intracacies of your particular platform and make your program portable
.
