There is Microsoft implementation of OpenGL. Its free and can be downloaded from: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFiles/OPENGL95.EXE

It is compatible with Windows 32 bit (NT, and 9x), there is also a Windows 16 bit one at the same URL under folder Softlib/MSLFiles (OPENGL.EXE or OPENGL3.EXE I think).

They both are Software renderers with *OUT* source code. They use GDI to do the rendering. But I am telling you... they are *slow*. TOO slow.

- prauppl

I know Windows have opengl32.dll by default, which, i think, emulates opengl on direct 3d.
Does it make difference with "true" opengl drivers?

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FlyFire/CodeX
http://codexorg.webjump.com

Microsoft's default opengl32.dll does NOT emulate OpenGL through Direct3D. It's a straight software renderer - and it actually predates Direct3D. (OpenGL's been in NT for a long, long time, and the Win95 version is based on it.)

My recommendation - unless you are doing very basic flat-shaded scenes with very few polygons (i.e. ugly), don't use Microsoft's OpenGL software rendering. It's slow. Extra slow.

At one time SGI had their own home-baked Win95 OpenGL library that supposedly outperformed Microsoft's, but I was never able to get it to do so with the stuff I was working on.

If you've really got your heart set on software rendering, you might want to check out Mesa - it's unix-based, but maybe someone was crazy enough to port it to Windoze.

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-vince

I've only fooled around with OpenGL, but I've used both the MS and SGI renderers, and the SGI renderer buries the MS one (for software). But SGI isn't working on it anymore since nobody seems to care about software rendering. For any kind of speed, the MS software renderer is useless though.

I just think its funny how MS originally wrote a crappy renderer, and then tried to con the industry by saying "OpenGL is too slow for games, use Direct3D".

Rock

I am doing some multiplatform 3D RPG and I am planning to run the game also in software emulation of OpenGL. So if someone of you guys have som kind of ready library or source (better) pleasy e-mail me at arendor_power@mailcity.com

As everyone has already pointed out, the MS OpenGL .dll comes with all windows versions but 95 OSR1. It can use the hardware if present (full ICD), or fallback on software for video cards with no H/W support or for functionality that isn't present on the card.

The SGI OpenGL renderer is no longer supported, but is still available on some sites. It is better than the MS one, and will use H/W if present.

The Mesa graphics library (www.mesa3d.org) is a more complete software implementation of OpenGL (thought not licensed). It is the _only_ OpenGL implementation currently available on Linux.

As for wrappers, check out alt.software's (www.altsoftware.com) D3D wrapper. It is a full OpenGL implementation that uses D3D for the actual rendering. It is a bit slower that a true OpenGL driver, but is much better than having no H/W acceleration at all.

Hope this helps.
-Jacob