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Upon successful compilation of a recent program I wrote from the openGL-book using openGL 4.0 I wasn't able to run the program due to an error that stated " error XX - unsupported hardware.."

However according to a previous question I asked if I could compile/run openGL programs on my computer I got an answer that I could:

Wiki claims you can do GL 4.0 with your HD 4000 [Graphics Chip] on Windows.

My question is - is that I am using the libraries freeglut 2.8 and GLEW 1.10 (newest versions) but the tutorial I followed used functions that came with 4.0 could the reason that my program does not run follow because I am linking modern versions of openGL libaries?

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Jebathon
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    did you have upgraded graphics drivers? – ratchet freak Jan 13 '14 at 15:42
  • @ratchetfreak yes I think Windows does it automatically since its a built in chipset. – Jebathon Jan 13 '14 at 15:44
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    @BDillan: The drivers Windows installs automatically *always* lack proper OpenGL support. Microsoft strips the OpenGL part from them on purpose and you'll fall back to OpenGL-1.4 emulation (on top of Direct3D). For proper OpenGL support you always must download the drivers from the vendor directly and install manually. – datenwolf Jan 13 '14 at 16:14

1 Answers1

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Things you have to check to run modern OpenGL:

  • Graphics driver: Do you have the latest and most up to date drivers?

  • Graphics card/chipset: Can your graphics hardware support the latest OpenGL even with its most recent drivers?

  • Using Proper Hardware: Some laptops come with a low powered graphics chipset and a high powered alternate graphics card/chipset. The low powered one may not support new stuff, but the high powered one definitely should. Have you instructed your computer to use the right one?

  • Libraries: Have you properly linked to something like GLEW that gives you the ability to use modern OpenGL?

Since you're on Windows, do note that they purposefully don't give you preinstalled access to modern OpenGL, so you have to do it yourself. Usually that just means checking your drivers and downloading GLEW.

From your error message, it looks like your graphics drivers aren't up to date or the graphics card/chipset/whatever you're using doesn't support the OpenGL version you want.

GraphicsMuncher
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