Every modern operating system offers various levels of support for the OpenGL graphics library. Operating system support for OpenGL is listed below.

Windows

Windows 95 (OSR2), Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows ME users can obtain OpenGL drivers by any of the below methods.

To use hardware-accelerated OpenGL, your GPU must support it. Ensure the video card supports OpenGL before trying to use hardware-accelerated OpenGL on your system.

  • Windows

  • macOS

  • Linux

  • Legacy versions of Microsoft Windows

  • If your video card supports OpenGL, the OpenGL drivers for your video are likely available for download on the website of your video card manufacturer. You can find a list of video card driver pages listed in our index of video card drivers.

macOS

  • OpenGL is included with macOS 9 and newer. The latest updated drivers can be installed by performing a system software update.
  • If a different video card is placed into your PowerMac G4, iMac, iBook, or PowerBook computer, additional drivers and support for OpenGL may be required from the video card manufacturer. Links to many video card drivers are listed in our index of video card drivers.

Linux

  • OpenGL is a Linux system component and should be included with Debian, Red Hat, SuSE, and Caldera.
  • OpenGL hardware support for video cards may need to be obtained from the video card manufacturer’s driver site. Links to video card manufacturers driver site is on our video card drivers page.

Legacy versions of Microsoft Windows

Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 both come bundled with OpenGL v1.1 libraries.

  • How to determine the version of Windows on a computer.
  • See the OpenGL definition for further information and related links.
  • Video card help and support.