opengl32.dll for OpenGL1.2?

Hello!

Why can’t someone else but Microsoft make an opengl32.dll with OpenGL1.2 functionality?

Osku

MS controls OpenGL on Windows. If you want to distribute a OpenGL library for Windows do you have to ask MS for permission. This was part of the Fahreinheit deal with SGI so they got it really cheap. This means that they can kill OpenGL any time if they want to.

A year ago, in the September meeting of the ARB, this was discussed (see http://www.opengl.org/developers/about/arb/notes/meeting_note_2000-09-19.html)..) Since the ARB notes are hopelessly out of date, I can’t tell what happened with this, which is a shame.

Since 1.2 hardware functionality is available with the 1.1 DLL, the old DLL is more of an inconvenience than a real problem, IMO.

actually if you have a more-or-less new 3d board you’ll have opengl 1.2 in hardware anyways. my geforce 2 mx is from summer/autumn 2000 (approx) and already has gl 1.2

I’ve got such a card myself (gf2 mx). Did the installation of the drivers replace opengl32.dll ?? Then it would be nice to have a 1.2 version of the opengl32.lib and header-files… are they available?

All recent cards offer 1.2 plus various opengl extensions (something like over 50)

No, they never replace the DLL. 1.2 is inside the opengl drivers. You use wglGetProcAddress to get the addresses or download some free library that does it for you.

MS can’t and won’t kill opengl. They simply don’t want to pay people to spend time on opengl.

V-man