Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

Post by troupo » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #31

troupo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will never get the same quality of fundamental material If you're looking for fundamental material, the last thing you want is learning a very (not slightly) outdated and weird API. > Vulkan and DX12 are currently flawed APIs that are unnecessarily complex and doesn't even match the performance characteristics of current-gen hardware And OpneGL is worse

> If you're looking for fundamental material, the last thing you want is learning a very (not slightly) outdated and weird API. I've never seen a more detailed tutorial than LearnOpenGL that actually goes through the concepts of graphics programming thoroughly and actually make things other than just "learn how to use the API". That alone should be enough to cement the site's longevity. > And OpneGL is worse It's nev…

    #version 330 core
    struct Material {

Post by mschuetz » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

hmry wrote: post #59

m-schuetz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I would recommend WebGPU to people who want to get into graphics programming. Unfortunately WebGPU is like 5 years behind OpenGL 4.6, which is already 8 years old. WebGPU is pretty ancient.

WebGPU only got started in 2021, so Im not sure what you mean. Could you explain? (Or are you thinking of WebGL?)

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 7:18 PM UTC

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #36

fp64 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenGL is limited to 4.1 on Apple platforms if I am not mistaken, and will not get updated ever. So you will run into missing features eventually on some platforms, e.g. SSBOs are really nice but you can't them use on Apple devices. For me, a much stronger argument against OpenGL is that is requires a global state. This often leads to bad design, is miserable to multi-thread, and is rather tedious to port to Vulkan.…

I think if you're trapped in the Apple ecosystem then Metal is your only production-quality option. But beginner-level learning material for it is quite sparse, so it's better to transition from OpenGL to Metal rather than learning Metal from scratch. (If you're an experienced graphics dev, you should be able to follow up on Metal by just reading their example source code)

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

flakiness wrote: post #39

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android smartphones are notorious in having low-quality Vulkan drivers full of bugs and spec violations... (I'm looking at you Qualcomm!) A data point: SDL3-GPU maintainers announced that they will not give a shit about Android support, since there's just too many devices that haven't properly implemented the Vulkan spec. ( https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/issues/12652#issuecomment-... ) Another data point: the curr…

Is the GL driver any better? (It sounds like it is?) It's Direct3D on windows all over again :-(

Post by raincole » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #60

raincole wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually read the linked site beyond its name? The site is about fundamentals. Yes, it contains OpenGL code, but what it covers is the fundamentals of real time graphics, not just OpenGL API.

> Have you actually read the linked site beyond its name? The site is about fundamentals. Is it? All the fundamentals are tied to how it's done in OpenGL with somewhat sparse explanations in between. And many "fundamentals" are literally something like #version 330 core struct Material {