Deploying Qt5 on Windows without Hardware Acceleration

Question

Qt5 can use the OpenGL driver or the DirectX Driver by using ANGLE. As we cannot depend on an installed OpenGL driver, we need to use the ANGLE backend. Unfortunately, this does

Answer 1

QT 5 has huge compatibility issue with opengl on some hardware configurations Combination of Intel HD3000 driver and Nvidia/ATI card won't work on Windows 10. https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-42240

Intel drops support for this card but their drivers has bug that leads to crash.

You cannot rely on hardware opengl if you want to support customers with HD3000.

Answer 2

Under Windows, opengl32.dll is the default OpenGL driver. It implements OpenGL 1.1 (really old version). ANGLE has a baseline of OpenGL ES 2.0 and needs DirectX 9/11 installed to map the calls into.

So if you got a video card that doesn't have an OpenGL driver installed, an OpenGL driver less than 2.0, and/or DirectX 9/11 not installed, your app is not going to work.

In regards to virtualization and 3D acceleration, these maybe worth a read:

• Why does Qt Creator 3.0.0 Welcome Mode not work in VM?
• https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-34964

Also, if you run a multi monitor Windows environment under VirtualBox, 3d acceleration will be disabled.

Answer 3

I re-checked this to see if these problems have been fixed by the latest release of QT 5.12.2, but no they have not. The function described in the QT wiki entry OP referenced https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_5_on_Windows_ANGLE_and_OpenGL sounds good but in practice it simply doesn't work.

I conclude avoid OpenGL on QT in any form. It's just too unreliable.