Thread: OpenGL not ported to Windows?

I'm no fan of MS
but have to pipe up when myths (or half-myths, in this case) are thrown around

I see this (or other varying statements) banded about all over the place
and it's simply not true

OpenGL is a standard
A standard for allowing software to communicate with the graphics card directly, cutting out the OS

OpenGL support therefore has little to do with Windows (or any other OS). It's the OS's graphics drivers that are key, here.

If you have OS drivers for your OpenGL capable graphics card and an OpenGL application, then you're in business.

Every graphics card manufacturer produces their own implementation of OpenGL to run on their cards, and this OpenGL implementation is contained within the OS drivers

Ever wonder why the Nvidia & AMD drivers are 50mb in size?
Everytime you update your graphics drivers, you are also getting the latest OpenGL implementation for your card.

As long as Nvidia & AMD continue to produce Windows drivers
You will have OpenGL on Windows
It has nothing to do with Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot "remove" OpenGL from Windows

Now....

What happens when you don't have a graphics card capable of OpenGL?
Are you unable to run OpenGL software?
No
Because as a fall back, OS's have OpenGL software renderers
Which allow OpenGL apps to draw graphics the traditional way (by going via the OS)
of course, this eliminates the performance advantages of OpenGL, which is why it's used purely as a fall back

It is Window's OpenGL software renderer that has changed

I don't know the details, but it's got something to do with the new "Windows Presentation Foundation" graphics subsystem in the new .NET 3

Software OpenGL is still there, it's just that MS have incorporated it into the WPF, rather than kept it seperate.

This does not affect hardware OpenGL
As stated above, your card manufacturer provides you with an OpenGL implementation for your graphics card
When you run games in OpenGL, your OS is not involved at all (that's the whole point of it)

In fact,
direct (no pun intended) from the horses mouth
http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_7/