OpenGL: What's the deal with deprecation?

Question

OpenGL 3.0 and 3.1 have deprecated quite a few features I find essential. In particular, the use of fixed function in shaders.

Can anyone explain what\'s really th

Answer 1

It should be clarified that a feature that is marked "deprecated" is not actually removed. For example, an OpenGL 3.0 context has all of the features - nothing is gone. Further, some vendors will ship drivers that can create 3.1 and 3.2 contexts using a compatibility profile which will also enable the deprecated features. So, look closely at what vendor hardware you are going to support and ask about the ARB compatibility mode for old features. (There is also the "core" profile as of 3.2, which allows vendors to create a more lean and mean driver if they wish to make such a thing)

Note that any current card really doesn't have an FF hardware section any more - they only run shaders. When you ask for FF behavior, the GL runtime is authoring shaders on your behalf..