I'm sure the ARB is working on something not entirely unlike this for a core feature in a future spec. As you probably noticed from the name, it is an NVIDIA extension and not core. Bindless rendering (GL_NV_vertex_buffer_unified_memory) is probably the biggest performance enhancement if that is a bottleneck for you. There isn't much that one could easily use to boost performance that is unique to 4.1. However, this specification is so poorly specified that I'm not sure that anyone even can use it, let alone should. The main exception to this is shader subroutines, which is limited to 4.x hardware. Both are supported on 3.3 hardware NVIDIA even extends these all the way back to GeForce 6xxx chips. In particular, I'm talking about program separation (GL_ARB_separate_program_objects) and retrieving binaries of compiled programs (GL_ARB_get_program_binary).
#Opengl 4.4 vs 4.5 code
Since they are core extensions, you don't even have to change your code to remove the "ARB" suffix from your 3.3 code to use them in 4.1 code. The vast majority of the API improvements, the ones that aren't based on new features, are available to 3.3 implementations as core extensions. These don't allow the hardware to do anything you couldn't before they just make it easier for the programmer or let you get faster performance. For me, "workflow" means API improvements and things that make performance better. If your question is "How can the workflow be better in 4.1", that's simply not what 4.1 is about.įirst, a quick definition, to make sure we're talking about the same thing.
#Opengl 4.4 vs 4.5 64 Bit
Another would be multiple viewports to render to. One of the bigger workflow differences would be added GPU programing steps in the pipeline via the new tessellation shaders. 4.1 has added GL ES 2.0 compatibility however and some nice features. Choosing between OpenGL 3 and 4, 3.3 may be a better choice sometimes. OpenGL 3.3 was made to compliment OpenGL 4.0 to incorporate as much of the functionality as they could into older hardware. What key differences does OpenGL 4.1 offer compared with OpenGL 3.1 that warrant it to be classified under a new major version?īonus: Do any of the differences provide performance increases in any situations over G元 or just accessibility?Įdit: Some extra findings based on answers
#Opengl 4.4 vs 4.5 series
OpenGL 3.x and 4.x introduced backwards-incompatible API changes and then OpenGL 3.2 and 3.3 are said to be specifically branches of the 3 series which are not forward compatible while 3.1 is compatible with 4.1+ In previous releases of OpenGL, minor version increments upward until substantial changes accumulated into a new major version. With both being essentially released together, it can be difficult to understand the rationale for OpenGL 4.0/4.1. I understand that OpenGL 4 and 3 are fairly similar, especially 3.1 and 4.1.