What can do OpenGL extensions that Qt+OpenGL can't?

Question

Since Qt can handle in normal way OpenGL, it is cross-platform, can handle mouse, keyboard, gamepad etc. What are the disadvantages of using Qt with OpenGL instead using OpenGL with extensions?

Answer 1

What are the disadvantages of using Qt with OpenGL instead using OpenGL with extensions?

Your question is malformed. Nothing stops you from using Qt with OpenGL and with OpenGL extensions.

You can use Qt to manage the OpenGL window, while using direct OpenGL commands with extension to render. You are not required to use Qt's OpenGL interface to render in an OpenGL window.

Qt does not provide "additional opengl functionality." It cannot provide "additional opengl functionality." It isn't part of OpenGL, so it can't make OpenGL features magically appear.

There are no OpenGL extensions for mouse, keyboard, gamepad, or any of the other things Qt handles. Qt's windowing functionality and OpenGL extensions are two completely different things. And they are completely orthogonal; nothing stops you from using Qt+OpenGL and OpenGL extensions at the same time.

Well, unless you stop yourself. See, Qt has this OpenGL abstraction layer. This is a set of wrapper classes around OpenGL: QtOpenGLShaderProgram, QtOpenGLVertexArrayObject, and the like. If you use that, you don't directly make OpenGL calls; you make Qt calls that make OpenGL calls for you.

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If your question is whether to use Qt+OpenGL directly vs. using Qt's OpenGL abstraction layer, that's a different matter.

The first problem is that Qt's abstraction layer is bound to OpenGL ES 2.0. While it occasionally offers features that ES 2.0 can't do, it is primarily intended as a class-ified implementation of ES 2.0. So by using ES 2.0, you're effectively giving up using lots of desktop OpenGL features.

Not "extensions"; core features.

For example, you cannot use integers for vertex attributes with Qt's abstraction. The QtOpenGLShaderProgram class doesn't allow it. All of its setAttributeBuffer calls assume that you're calling glVertexAttribPointer. It has no mechanism for calling glVertexAttribIPointer. And that has been core desktop OpenGL for nearly a decade.

Note that this is just one feature. Other things Qt doesn't have wrapper class support that are part of core desktop OpenGL (this is not a comprehensive list):

• Separate programs
• Sampler objects
• Separate attribute formats

These are not bleeding-edge hardware features; most of them have been around for half a decade.

QtOpenGLFunctions is similarly limited to OpenGL ES versions. That leaves plenty of non-extension desktop GL stuff on the table that cannot be used through their abstraction.

Also, because Qt's abstraction is around ES 2.0, it doesn't care about core OpenGL contexts. For example, it still has non-buffered vertex attributes (setAttributeArray). That's not legal in core OpenGL, and again hasn't been legal for nearly a decade.

So if you want to actually use core desktop OpenGL functionality, the Qt abstraction layer is out.

Then, there are places where Qt's abstraction just doesn't match how OpenGL works.

For example (and this is a personal pet-peeve of mine), QtOpenGLBufferObject is typed. That is, the binding type is part of the object. This is not how buffer objects work!

OpenGL buffer objects aren't typed. It is perfectly legal to perform an asynchronous glReadPixels into a buffer, then bind the same buffer for use as vertex data. That's not possible with Qt's class abstraction. And it's not like this is something specific to desktop GL; OpenGL ES works the same way.

Similarly, for reasons best known to themselves, they put the vertex attribute specification functions (the equivalent to glVertexAttribPointer) in QtOpenGLShaderProgram. Why are they there? While vertex attributes do have an indirect connection to a program, they're not a direct part of the conceptual program interface. OpenGL doesn't work like that.

So those are the biggest problems with Qt's abstraction layer. If you can live within those restrictions, feel free to use it. For people making desktop OpenGL applications, they may be too restrictive.

Answer 2

I think you are missing the point. OpenGL (including its extensions that provide some perks that the plain OpenGL does not) is "just" a graphics library intended for rendering 2D and 3D. Qt on the other hand is much more. OpenGL in itself doesn't provide anything but rendering. You can't even create a window (as what you are used to in Windows/Linux) with it. In order to add any sort of handling of the user's input you need an extra layer which Qt (and many other similar frameworks) provides - integration into the window manager of the OS, handling of mouse and keyboard events etc. Qt does also support the OpenGL extensions so you don't have to throw these away if you want to use them.

Whether you need Qt for your OpenGL (with or without the extensions your system supports) tasks or not is something you need to decide for yourself. Qt does offer many nice features that will help you make your OpenGL interaction great however it is a huge overhead and depending on your target system you may have to use a smaller framework with a smaller memory (incl. persistent storage for all the library files) footprint and CPU usage. Other popular choices are GLFW, freeglut and SDL/SDL2 all of which provide at least the basics (window creation and mouse/keyboard handling) to get your application up and running.

Answer 3

You (OP) wrote in a comment to a different answer:

Extensions provide functionality that the core of OpenGL doesn't provide when Qt itself won't be created for providing additional opengl functionality. It was like a addon for users.

I think you completely misunderstood what OpenGL extensions are and how they work. OpenGL extensions allow to add new features to OpenGL (which might actually be included into a later core version) and/or to expose vendor specific functionality like access to special GPU functions present only for a very specific narrow range of GPUs.

Qt on the other hand offers a framework for applications that deals with operating system specifics in a portable way. Qt and OpenGL are completely orthogonal to each other and nothing, that OpenGL extensions do in any way resembles what Qt does. Qt has a OpenGL integration module, that – among other things – will also load OpenGL extensions if you ask it to; but that doesn't make it a "Qt" thing.