OpenGL 4.1 announced!

[kappa]

Khronos announced OpenGL 4.1 source.

The super cool thing with this release is that OpenGL 4.1 introduces full compatibility with OpenGL ES 2.0. Should be super easy to write code on desktop PC's now (provided they support OpenGL 4.1) that works and easily ports over to things like Android, WebGL, etc.

[princec]

Android, irritatingly, appears to be OpenGL ES 1.0, which is compatible with bugger all.

Cas

[kappa]

Android, irritatingly, appears to be OpenGL ES 1.0, which is compatible with bugger all.

Cas

yeh bit annoying but luckily its mostly just the older android stuff, expect almost every new phone from now to be OpenGL ES 2.0.

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[Orangy Tang]

The ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time

Well that's about bloody time. Other than that and ES compatibility there doesn't seem to be much of interest though? Or am I missing something?

[Spasi]

The next LWJGL build will have OpenGL 4.1 support, details here. ARB_debug_output is pure win!

[kappa]

The next LWJGL build will have OpenGL 4.1 support, details here. ARB_debug_output is pure win!

awesome work, LWJGL gets support for OpenGL 4.1 before any graphics driver does

Guess there is no longer a need for the much requested LWJGL ES anymore.

[EgonOlsen]

Android, irritatingly, appears to be OpenGL ES 1.0, which is compatible with bugger all.

Cas

I've never seen a device that couldn't do at least 1.1.

[princec]

Phew.

Soon find out what it's like. My googlephone should be arriving this week.

Cas

[kappa]

Well that's about bloody time. Other than that and ES compatibility there doesn't seem to be much of interest though? Or am I missing something?

Well even if there isn't much new, the OpenGL 4.1 release has had a pretty cool effect on OpenGL's image. It certainly now feels as if OpenGL is back in the game, regular updates, massive crossplatform support behind it, seems even better now that ES and OpenGL are unified. Also with some of the small changes in 4.1 we can see Khronos are now starting to weave OpenCL much more closely into OpenGL too.

Khronos dropped the ball a little with 3.0 release but seems they've made up for most of it.

OpenGL now looks far better then DirectX both technically and in terms of support behind it.

[Spasi]

If you have 50 minutes to spare, you may watch this presentation for a great overview of what has been added in GL 3.3, 4.0 and 4.1. The interesting part starts at 08:25 (skip the intro).