Server side off-screen rendering with basic GL

Hi everybody!

I was wondering if it is possible to do server side rendering with OpenGL. That is, I gather data, send it to remote server, server renders picture and sends pixel data back to client PC.

The OS is windows so I guess I cannot rely on anything more than unextended GL 1.1.

If I remember correctly, then glreadpixels returns junk if the screen is partially covered by other windows, so I guess I will receive junk if I render to service desktop station as well.

Has anyone attempted anything like that, is it possible? I heard MesaGL is something that might help, but I’m not too sure either.

I have had same experience with offscreen rendering via framebuffer extension and WGL extensions for pbuffers, but I can’t remember much of that as it was like 2-3 years ago.

I am afraid you will have to write your own wrapper for it. On Unix systems, newer drivers do accelerate indirect rendering, but I doubt it works for an X Server over a network.

[quote="M/\dm/
"]
I was wondering if it is possible to do server side rendering with OpenGL. That is, I gather data, send it to remote server, server renders picture and sends pixel data back to client PC.
[/quote]

Check out: