OpenGL OpenGL Extensions and Modern OpenGL

Question 1

What is the purpose of the OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library (GLEW)?

Accepted Answer

Loads and exposes OpenGL extension function pointers at runtime

Answer

Provides a windowing and context creation API

Answer

Compiles GLSL shaders offline

Answer

Manages GPU memory allocation

Question 2

What OpenGL version introduced Direct State Access (DSA) as a core feature?

Accepted Answer

OpenGL 4.5

Answer

OpenGL 3.3

Answer

OpenGL 4.0

Answer

OpenGL 2.1

Question 3

Which OpenGL feature allows shaders to read and write arbitrary locations in a buffer (like a GPU-side array)?

Accepted Answer

Shader Storage Buffer Objects (SSBO)

Answer

Uniform Buffer Objects

Answer

Transform Feedback Buffers

Answer

Pixel Buffer Objects

Question 4

What does the OpenGL compute shader stage provide that other shader stages do not?

Accepted Answer

General-purpose GPU computation outside the fixed graphics pipeline

Answer

Hardware tessellation of patches

Answer

Multi-sample rasterization

Answer

Instanced rendering

Question 5

How does an application check whether a specific OpenGL extension is supported?

Accepted Answer

Check the string returned by glGetString(GL_EXTENSIONS) or use glGetStringi

Answer

Attempt to call the function and catch the exception

Answer

Read the hardware manual

Answer

Call glIsExtensionEnabled()

Question 6

What is the purpose of bindless textures (ARB_bindless_texture) in OpenGL?

Accepted Answer

Provides texture handles usable in shaders without explicit texture unit binding

Answer

Allows textures to be used without uploading them to the GPU

Answer

Removes the need for texture format conversion

Answer

Enables textures to be shared between processes