Starter fails to create gl context.

[VeraShackle]

I'm brand new to G3D but have tried to build the starter app from the
supplies sln using the instructions provided on the site. However
running the resulting exe stoofs immediately in the lib (both release
& debug) with the following log:

**************************
Critical Error - starter.exe
Failed to create OpenGL context.

Expression: m_glContext != NULL

..\GLG3D.lib\source\Win32Window.cpp:523

Last Error (0xC007000D): L
**************************
I'm using:
- VS 2010 Professional SP1
- G3D-9.00-b03-win binary distribution

My dev machine has a GeForce GTX 260M with up-to-date drivers, but I
develop other OpenGL apps on this box with no issues, and I have also
tried to run the starter.exe on 2 other machines in the office with
the same result.

Things fail so early on I'm rather at a loss as to what to try next -
can anyone help?

Many thanks

Edward

[Morgan McGuire]

Can you try running this standalone:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/g3d/files/beta-g3d-cpp/9.00%20beta%203/G3D-viewer-win.zip/download

-m

Prof. Morgan McGuire
Computer Science Department
Williams College
http://cs.williams.edu/~morgan

[EdwardP]

Hi Morgan,

Thanks for your reply, but I can now add quite a bit more info from my
own investigations. Firstly I see exactly the same problem on my Sony
Vaio, which has the older (but just about respectable) GeForce 9300M
GS. Everything runs just fine on our 2 Dell Precisions (NVIDIA Quadro
2000M), however.

FYI, I did actually try the pre-built binary viewer, just to be sure I
wasn't screwing up my build process. I also 'downgraded' to G3D8, but
in both cases I see identical behaviour.

I finally got around to building the G3D8 source directly and
debugging through last week and I the source of the problem *appears*
to be a failure in Win32Window::init when trying to use the
compatibility profile. If I remove the WGL_CONTEXT_PROFILE_MASK_ARB,
WGL_CONTEXT_COMPATIBILITY_PROFILE_BIT_ARB attribute everything seems
to run on the failing machines, unfortunately it now fails on the
Dells!

My solution is now to explicitly test the m_glContext pointer returned
from g3d_wglCreateContextAttribsARB(m_hDC, shareContext, attribList)
and revert to wglCreateContext if this is NULL - regardless. This
version now seems to run in all cases - including my kid's netbooks
that I threw in for good measure! ;)

The troublesome machines all report OpenGL 3.0, the others are later
versions.

I appreciate that you're moving onto G3D 9 now and these legacy cards
will not be supported (not even my Alienware, I am dismayed to
discover!) but I thought this info might still be useful to others who
may experience something similar.

Cheers

E

[Corey Taylor]

OpenGL 3.0 is missing the compatibilty profile.  I believe 3.1 introduced it.  I'm surprised the driver reports 3.0 exactly.

 

I would use this tool to confirm exactly your driver and its capabilities.

 

http://www.realtech-vr.com/glview/

 

 

corey

[EdwardP]

Apologies Corey, I should have put this in my original post.

Sony Vaio details below. This is not the latest NVIDIA driver set for
the 9300M, but the dual graphics modes on the Vaios (for power saving)
mean that this is the latest available driver set that supports Sony's
'extras', so I am stuck with it:

*******************************************************
Renderer: GeForce 9300M GS/PCI/SSE2
Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Memory: 256 MB
Version: 3.0.0
Shading language version: 1.30 NVIDIA via Cg compiler

Max texture size: 8192 x 8192
Max texture coordinates: 8
Max vertex texture image units: 32
Max texture image units: 32
Max geometry texture units: 32
Max anisotropic filtering value: 16
Max viewport size: 8192 x 8192
Max Clip Distances: 6
Max samples: 16

Extensions: 178
GL_ARB_color_buffer_float
GL_ARB_depth_buffer_float
GL_ARB_depth_texture
GL_ARB_draw_buffers
GL_ARB_draw_instanced
GL_ARB_fragment_program
GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow
GL_ARB_fragment_shader
GL_ARB_framebuffer_object
GL_ARB_geometry_shader4
GL_ARB_half_float_pixel
GL_ARB_half_float_vertex
GL_ARB_imaging
GL_ARB_map_buffer_range
GL_ARB_multisample
GL_ARB_multitexture
GL_ARB_occlusion_query
GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object
GL_ARB_point_parameters
GL_ARB_point_sprite
GL_ARB_shader_objects
GL_ARB_shading_language_100
GL_ARB_shadow
GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object
GL_ARB_texture_compression
GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
GL_ARB_texture_env_add
GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
GL_ARB_texture_float
GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat
GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
GL_ARB_texture_rectangle
GL_ARB_texture_rg
GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
GL_ARB_vertex_array_object
GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
GL_ARB_vertex_program
GL_ARB_vertex_shader
GL_ARB_window_pos
GL_ATI_draw_buffers
GL_ATI_texture_float
GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once
GL_EXT_abgr
GL_EXT_bgra
GL_EXT_bindable_uniform
GL_EXT_blend_color
GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate
GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
GL_EXT_blend_minmax
GL_EXT_blend_subtract
GL_EXT_Cg_shader
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test
GL_EXT_direct_state_access
GL_EXT_draw_buffers2
GL_EXT_draw_instanced
GL_EXT_draw_range_elements
GL_EXT_fog_coord
GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit
GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample
GL_EXT_framebuffer_object
GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB
GL_EXT_geometry_shader4
GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters
GL_EXT_gpu_shader4
GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil
GL_EXT_packed_float
GL_EXT_packed_pixels
GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object
GL_EXT_point_parameters
GL_EXT_provoking_vertex
GL_EXT_rescale_normal
GL_EXT_secondary_color
GL_EXT_separate_specular_color
GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
GL_EXT_stencil_two_side
GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
GL_EXT_texture3D
GL_EXT_texture_array
GL_EXT_texture_buffer_object
GL_EXT_texture_compression_latc
GL_EXT_texture_compression_rgtc
GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
GL_EXT_texture_cube_map
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp
GL_EXT_texture_env_add
GL_EXT_texture_env_combine
GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3
GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
GL_EXT_texture_integer
GL_EXT_texture_lod
GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp
GL_EXT_texture_object
GL_EXT_texture_shared_exponent
GL_EXT_texture_sRGB
GL_EXT_texture_swizzle
GL_EXT_timer_query
GL_EXT_vertex_array
GL_EXT_vertex_array_bgra
GL_EXTX_framebuffer_mixed_formats
GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip
GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat
GL_KTX_buffer_region
GL_NV_blend_square
GL_NV_conditional_render
GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color
GL_NV_depth_buffer_float
GL_NV_depth_clamp
GL_NV_explicit_multisample
GL_NV_fence
GL_NV_float_buffer
GL_NV_fog_distance
GL_NV_fragment_program
GL_NV_fragment_program2
GL_NV_fragment_program_option
GL_NV_framebuffer_multisample_coverage
GL_NV_geometry_shader4
GL_NV_gpu_program4
GL_NV_half_float
GL_NV_light_max_exponent
GL_NV_multisample_coverage
GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint
GL_NV_occlusion_query
GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil
GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object
GL_NV_pixel_data_range
GL_NV_point_sprite
GL_NV_primitive_restart
GL_NV_register_combiners
GL_NV_register_combiners2
GL_NV_shader_buffer_load
GL_NV_texgen_reflection
GL_NV_texture_compression_vtc
GL_NV_texture_env_combine4
GL_NV_texture_expand_normal
GL_NV_texture_rectangle
GL_NV_texture_shader
GL_NV_texture_shader2
GL_NV_texture_shader3
GL_NV_transform_feedback
GL_NV_vertex_array_range
GL_NV_vertex_array_range2
GL_NV_vertex_buffer_unified_memory
GL_NV_vertex_program
GL_NV_vertex_program1_1
GL_NV_vertex_program2
GL_NV_vertex_program2_option
GL_NV_vertex_program3
GL_NVX_conditional_render
GL_S3_s3tc
GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
GL_SGIS_texture_lod
GL_SGIX_depth_texture
GL_SGIX_shadow
GL_SUN_slice_accum
GL_WIN_swap_hint
WGL_ARB_buffer_region
WGL_ARB_create_context
WGL_ARB_extensions_string
WGL_ARB_make_current_read
WGL_ARB_multisample
WGL_ARB_pbuffer
WGL_ARB_pixel_format
WGL_ARB_pixel_format_float
WGL_ARB_render_texture
WGL_ATI_pixel_format_float
WGL_EXT_extensions_string
WGL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB
WGL_EXT_pixel_format_packed_float
WGL_EXT_swap_control
WGL_NV_float_buffer
WGL_NV_multisample_coverage
WGL_NV_render_depth_texture
WGL_NV_render_texture_rectangle

Core features
v3.0 (100 % - 23/23)
v3.1 (50 % - 4/8)
v3.2 (30 % - 3/10)
v3.3 (0 % - 0/10)
v4.0 (0 % - 0/14)
v4.1 (0 % - 0/7)
v4.2 (0 % - 0/12)

OpenGL driver version check (Current: 3.0.0, Latest known:
8.16.11.8735):
Outdated version of display drivers detected
According the database, you are might be not using the latest version
of display drivers for your video card.

No ICD registry entry
The current OpenGL driver doesn't expose the SOFTWARE/Microsoft/
Windows (NT)/CurrentVersion/OpenGLDrivers registry entry. Unable to
detect the driver version, driver revision name and filename.

Few texture units found
This may slow down some applications using fragment programs or
extensive texture mapping.

****************************************
I have now updated the drivers on the Dell Alienware M15x to A01
(Dell's versioning system). This has bumped the OpenGL version to 3.3
and all now runs OK. However you (and other readers) might be
interested to know that the original A00 graphics shipped with machine
produce identical behaviour to the VAIO - i.e. they report v3.0 but
trigger G3D to attempt to use compatibility mode and then fail to get
a context.

I am obviously aware that the problem really lies with the driver and
that these older drivers are not a priority for you, but I thought it
was still worth mentioning because G3D8 does run apparently very well
once I had made the alteration described in my earlier post and I
wouldn't want others to miss out unnecessarily.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

E