Minimum Required OpenGL Version
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:35 pm
As you have probably already noticed, we have been recently doing a quite significant refactor of our rendering pipeline, in order to bring it closer to today's standards. Thanks to the efforts initiated by Mauiby de Fug and tsoj, we now have a working render-to-framebuffer system under stress testing and it all looks like it will be hitting master soon.
However, this modernization of the graphics pipeline means that the absurdly low OpenGL requirements we had until now can no longer be maintained. The techniques used in the new rendering system imply that we will need to revise the minimum OpenGL version required to run the game. Today, officially, Oolite will refuse to run if the OpenGL version on the system is less than 1.1 (i.e. ancient). But once the new changes hit the master branch, this requirement will have to be upgraded to OpenGL 3.3.
Now, normally this should be no reason for worries. 99.9% of all gfx cards that came out in the last ten years or so already support this version out of the box and even Apple, who have to all intents and purposes killed OpenGL in their product lines, have 4.1 as the last supported version on Macs. Still, it would be good to give advance notice and maybe ask straight up: Is there anyone who runs OpenGL version lower than 3.3? If so, is an upgrade to a newer version (usually by means of new drivers) feasible? Let us know here, preferrably before the rendering refactor becomes part of the official code, which would probably be sooner than later.
I don't expect problems with this, but it's not a bad idea to be sure ahead of time.
However, this modernization of the graphics pipeline means that the absurdly low OpenGL requirements we had until now can no longer be maintained. The techniques used in the new rendering system imply that we will need to revise the minimum OpenGL version required to run the game. Today, officially, Oolite will refuse to run if the OpenGL version on the system is less than 1.1 (i.e. ancient). But once the new changes hit the master branch, this requirement will have to be upgraded to OpenGL 3.3.
Now, normally this should be no reason for worries. 99.9% of all gfx cards that came out in the last ten years or so already support this version out of the box and even Apple, who have to all intents and purposes killed OpenGL in their product lines, have 4.1 as the last supported version on Macs. Still, it would be good to give advance notice and maybe ask straight up: Is there anyone who runs OpenGL version lower than 3.3? If so, is an upgrade to a newer version (usually by means of new drivers) feasible? Let us know here, preferrably before the rendering refactor becomes part of the official code, which would probably be sooner than later.
I don't expect problems with this, but it's not a bad idea to be sure ahead of time.