I’ve been doing graphic programming using the fixed pipeline of OpenGL after learning in school and I’m thinking of starting to learn GLSL. However I’m using Intel GMA X3100 card on Windows and it seems that GLSL is only supported up to version 1.10. I would like to ask if it is wise for me to start learning GLSL 1.1 first? (I have a book about GLSL 3.3 but I can’t run the tutorials to see the effects, ending up of getting the concept first).
I’ve been doing graphic programming using the fixed pipeline of OpenGL after learning in
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The GMA X3100 should support OpenGL 2.1, which would mean it supports GLSL 1.20. Also, you could check which parts of GLSL 3.30 your book uses. The GLSL specifications are online over at http://www.opengl.org/documentation/specs/ — then you can try to leave out the stuff that are 3.30 specific. The newer versions of GLSL just leave out some stuff (e.g. ftransform in 1.30 and higher) as well as introducing some new extensions (geometry shaders etc). So maybe you can still start with some simple examples.
In the future, one might also use Mesa (http://mesa3d.org) using software emulation, but as their status reports, work on GLSL 1.30 and higher has not been started yet.
Other than that, you need to get a new GPU / laptop. Preferably with an NVIDIA or AMD GPU, supporting OpenGL 3 and 4.