Looking to buy OpenGL 3 laptop

Started by markcwm, April 01, 2020, 10:49:06

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markcwm

Hello guys (and gals),

could you please tell me what your laptop model is if it runs some version of OpenGL 3.x? I find this difficult to find out online, they basically don't tell you. I have an old Dell laptop with GL 2.x and haven't upgraded as every time I try I get confused, so many to look at. I am aiming for an i3 or i5 processor. That's about it.

Thanks if you can help.

Derron

older i3 and i5 - like my HP Elitebook 2760 has - only contain a intel HD 3000 igp - which is OGL2 only  - at least for Windows. Linux and Mac have OGL3 drivers for the hardware :)

So check the i3/i5 gen you would buy - check their IGP and then check the opengl support:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_processing_units

If the laptop is younger than 5 years it most probably supports 3.2 (which is required - 3.0 and 3.1 is only adding not so important stuff used in nowerdays OGL engines)

bye
Ron

Brucey

My ThinkPad has Intel HD 630 (OpenGL 4.4) and Nvidia GeForce 940MX (OpenGL 4.6).

markcwm

#3
Yes, that's why this stuff is confusing, the GL version seems to be theoretical and not actually what you get which depends on drivers. For example, your HP Elitebook 2760 assuming it is the i5-2xxxM you should have GL 3.1 in Windows, but you say you only have GL 2.x.

I'm not really looking for GL 4, ideally I'd like 3.0/1 in Windows and 3.2/3 in Linux.

Anyway, thanks guys. :)

Brucey

I'm pretty sure you don't need to use 4 if you have 4. You can just use 3 if you have 4.

Derron

Even if it supported 3.1 - a user in the Blitzmax-Discord channel teached me that the important stuff was added in 3.2 - so the engines using OGL tend to require 3.2 as minimum.


bye
Ron

markcwm

Hello guys,
I finally got a new laptop LOL! Well it was second-hand on eBay. It's a Lenovo Ideapad with an Intel Core i3 2.27GHz and AMD Radeon HD 5000 which runs OpenGL 4.5 and DirectX 11. It was refurbished and the seller put Windows 10 64-bit on it which seems okay.

I had trouble finding the touchpad driver though, it happens that the model I have (Y460) is not listed on the Lenovo website, but I found an app called Driver Easy which fixed it, it has a scan tool and can find any drivers that need updated, it found a touchpad driver so I downloaded it (which is really slow on Driver Easy Free) then installed it manually in Device Manager, restarted and it works, I can access the touchpad settings at last. I was so impressed that I've just bought the Pro version for £30 for one year. So if you can't find a driver on the manufacturer's website try Driver Easy.

Kryzon

#7
I'm using a Dell Inspiron 15 5566 with these specs: 
GPU: Intel i3-6006U @ 2.00GHz 
CPU: Intel HD Graphics 520 

(The Intel page on the GPU says that it supports GL 4.4, and it does run Blender 2.83 which requires at least GL 4.3+) 

It's the low tier of the Inspiron series, but it does all that I need and the best thing is that the fan almost never runs -- somehow it's cool most of the time that it just stays silent, I love this. 

Edit: I also second Driver Easy, helped me downgrade from win10 to win8.1 despite Dell not having the drivers for it: https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,6448.msg31544.html#msg31544

markcwm

#8
That's a fair bit more powerful than my Lenovo, according to techpowerup your GPU should run OpenGL 4.6 and DirectX 12, but that does depend on what drivers are available. My CPU is a Core i3-350M, comparing them on userbenchmark yours is about 20% faster which is to be expected as it is more recent.

The Lenovo was overheating quite a lot but I found the Battery Saver setting in the taskbar, so I turned it from nearly highest to lowest and it now runs pretty cool.

Yes Driver Easy is a great bit of software, I couldn't find the right touchpad drivers online even when I knew the version so it's very nice to have something like this.

I've also bought a Macbook Pro 8,1 13" Early 2011 which has a Core i5-2415M CPU and an Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU, this runs OpenGL 3.1 and DirectX 11 (but feature level 10) according to techpowerup.