Getting started opengl

Windows

If you are running Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista, the OpenGL library has already been installed on your system.

Remember that GL is a system component on Windows. DO NOT modify or copy OpenGL32.dll from one OS to another. The filename is OpenGL32.dll and is either in WINDOWS/SYSTEM, WINNT/SYSTEM32 or WINDOWS/SYSTEM32. This also means that you do not have to ship(推出) a copy of the library with your application since it will already be available on the system.

The standard Windows OpenGL32.dll library alone will not provide you with hardware acceleration for OpenGL. In order to get hardware acceleration, you will need to install the latest drivers for your graphics card. The second reason to install new drivers is to have the latest version of GL on your system (the max version supported by your GPU):

• AMD/ATI
• Intel
• NVidia
• S3 Graphics

Some sites also distribute beta versions of graphics drivers, which may give you access to bug fixes or new functionality before an official driver release from the manufacturer:

• Guru3D

GLU is also included in the system folder as glu32.dll This is also a system component. Updated DLL should be placed in your program's folder. You can get a GLU's source code from MESA3D. You can get precompiled lib from vmelkon's GLU; The current version is 1.3.

Other libraries like GLUT, freeGLUT, QT, etc are not part of the OS. These should be downloaded from the net. GLUT and OpenGL Utility Libraries

Windows 98, Me, 2000 support OpenGL version 1.1 as a software rasterizer implemented in OpenGL32.dll. There is no support for hardware acceleration therefore installing drivers is necessary. Windows XP supports OpenGL version 1.1 as a Direct3D wrapper in OpenGL32.dll. Since performance will be lousy, installing drivers is a good idea. On Windows 2003, you aren't suppose to use it as a desktop machine, but it is similar to Win 2000/XP. Windows Vista supports OpenGL version 1.4 as a Direct3D wrapper. Always install drivers. Once again, by installing the latest version of the video driver, you can get hw acceleration, you avoid the Direct3D wrapper, you get the maximum version of GL supported by your GPU.

64 bits Windows versions

If you are running the 64 bit version of Windows Vista or perhaps you are running Windows XP x64, you might be wondering if there is a OpenGL64.dll file. The answer is no, there isn't. On both of these Operating Systems, Windows/System32 contains all the 64 bit DLLs. It contains the OpenGL32.dll which is actually a 64 bit dll.

For 32 bit programs, Windows detects the exe as a 32 bit program and instead of using System32 files, it uses Windows/SysWOW64 which actually contains the 32 bit DLLs. WOW means Windows On Windows which is a backwards-compatibility layer.

To find your Windows' System32 directory, go to: Start, Run... and type in %WINDIR%/System32. The system will redirect you to the default System32 directory automatically; this is also true for the 32 bits versions of Windows.

 

This also means that you do not have to ship a copy of the library with your application since it will already be available on the system