Extension Q

OpenGL OpenGL: Basic Coding
1

hey everyone i’m sure you get this question a lot, but how can you take advantage of the extensions, I know some are vendor specific, like NVDIA and ATI, but when you download the drivers for your video card that supports the extensions, how can you take advantage of them in your code? Do you have to get an updated header, or is there just a header you download to specify the extensions, and where can you download these headers? Also you have to link to the opengl libraries to compile, so do you have to update these also? Don’t laugh, but I have posted these questions recently but I can’t find my post,you may call me a dumbass if you like. any info would be appreciated, thanks

2

Well, you asked for it : you are a dumbass

Basically, yes you need a recent glext.h (and maybe wglext.h or glxext.h), you can get them from the extension registry : http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/

Then, you don’t need an updated lib, you just ask at runtime for a function pointer (if the driver has it actually) :
MYwglCreatePbufferARB = (PFNWGLCREATEPBUFFERARBPROC) wglGetProcAddress( “wglCreatePbufferARB” );

I you will find a more precise tutorial on nehe.gamedev.net, lesson 22 : http://nehe.gamedev.net/lesson.asp?index=05

Have fun !

3

thanks!