Acceptance of OpenGL 4

Question

Just recently starting to learn the “new” OpenGL (programmable rather than a fixed function, I learned from Nehe Tutorials), I wonder if learning OpenGL 3 has been useful since the release of OpenGL 4.

I ask because I wonder how many machines can use OpenGL 4.

Is it widely accepted at present, does most video cards support it? Is OpenGL 4 even radically different from OpenGL 3?

Answer 1

OpenGL 4 is not much different from OpenGL 3. It supports binary shaders and 64-bit data types and some other things, but none of your OpenGL 3 applications are deprecated.

Answer 2

As above, but if you want to learn the modern way to use OpenGL, I recommend using only the main profile, and not obsolete bits (fixed functions ...). You can disable GL when calling legacy functions or run the application via gDEBugger (for free), which will give you warnings.